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>Won't a society that encourages getting ahead at all costs First of all, this is a anticapitalist meme that has no basis in reality. In American Factory, you
by Aunche 4y ago
>Won't a society that encourages getting ahead at all costs
First of all, this is a anticapitalist meme that has no basis in reality. In American Factory, you can argue that the Chinese workers are encouraged to "get ahead at all costs". They likely share the same work ethic as Americans 100 years ago when they were similarly blase about safety, but this certainly isn't the case today. Today, we use marathon as a verb describing passively consuming media, and we glorify inactivity (FIRE, rest and vest, Office Space, etc) and these attitudes are unique to recent decades. We still celebrate hard work to a certain extent, but that's nothing new.
As far as cultural impact goes, your best case scenario is that people are more altruistic towards their in-group. Norway is renowned for it's redistribution of wealth, yet they're only .07% of the world's population and their sovereign wealth fund alone holds 1.4% of the the world's stocks. This is great for their citizens, but they aren't so keen on redistributing that wealth with Muslim immigrants and their children.
When you look at countries that are actively hostile to private wealth creation, you'll notice that they're all incredibly corrupt. This tells me that at least amongst the elite, they're just as greedy their counterparts in capitalist nations. The difference is that their economic model incentivizes them to chase zero-sum political power, rather than produce something of value.
- anemoiac 4y agoI wasn't implying that more redistribution would create more altruistic citizens, but that a more redistributive society (or any departure from the status quo, really) might alter the behavioral incentives that exist today. The desire to "get ahead at all costs" doesn't exist because Americans simply love hard work and competition - it's a result of social + economic incentives. If you reduce the "cost" of not constantly striving (for example: improve the social safety net, the average American's work-life balance, etc.), those incentives shift. We seem fairly well-insulated against the reality of the "Average American's" life here on HN, but it's not as comfortable as US GDP-per-capita might suggest. The way out of stressful financial insecurity, at least for most Americans, is the (necessarily) selfish pursuit of individual advancement. Likely no one will fault a low-level employee competing for a promotion that would enable them to afford a more reliable car, however Machiavellian their approach, but those same tendencies will look very different when exhibited by someone with a 9-figure net worth. I don't think today's "greedy assholes" are anything more than people responding to existing incentives. You want fewer greedy assholes? De-incentivize being a greedy asshole.