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I recently read the book "Bourgeois Dignity" by Dierdre McCloskey, and it makes a somewhat similar argument backed up by serious historical research. The thesis

I recently read the book "Bourgeois Dignity" by Dierdre McCloskey, and it makes a somewhat similar argument backed up by serious historical research. The thesis of the book is that the respectability of inventing, doing business, "getting rich" etc is what has enabled standards of living to greatly exceed the historical (Malthusian) norm. McCloskey talks about hope and courage (and not just "mere prudence") making a big difference, enabled by an encouraging culture rather than an elitist or fatalistic one. I think that it rhymes with your idea that "the brain should not do any triage" (if at a different scale -- social, rather than personal.) Your idea that the freedom to innovate throws off positive externalities is a core part of the argument. I enjoyed the book a lot, and recommend it. It's a knife-fight from start to finish, but fun and funny and wide-ranging, worth reading just for the tour of its bibliography even if you don't like the thesis.

cameldrv 5y ago
This strikes me as a very likely theory. Once people have their basic needs met, a huge part of what they end up spending their money on is essentially social status. This societal strategy cuts out the middleman and just awards social status directly. It's also often been remarked that, for example, Silicon Valley is very lenient in terms of social status on people with failed startups. Conversely, in Germany, for example, a failed business is often considered a black mark socially, and you correspondingly see far lower start rates for high risk businesses.