3 ms·
Re. your second bullet, these analyses tend to compare wealth at the same age. So that one variable should be eliminated. Then it all comes down to your first
by FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
Re. your second bullet, these analyses tend to compare wealth at the same age. So that one variable should be eliminated.
Then it all comes down to your first bullet, about GDP.
There are two frames I can adopt.
One is to take GDP for granted as a proxy for quality of life and focus on technology and social organization. Maybe we're too focused on computation and not enough on energy production or something else. Maybe there are inefficiencies in social organization -- e.g., monopolies that kill off alternatives, or rent-seekers whose demands distract people from more productive or creative pursuits, or laws that paralyze activity in a sector (e.g. building codes' role in the housing crisis).
Another is to take a step back and question GDP -- which I mean not in some hippy "we need to measure happiness" sense (though maybe that's what it does come down to), but rather in true confusion about how it could measure real wealth. What it seems to measure is roughly aggregate price (which is some kind of monetary artifact), multiplied by the number of transactions that a person engaged in, in a year. How does that measure the value of what they've been able to accumulate?
I get your real point though, which is not really to insist on GDP per-se, but to say that somehow society needs to produce more real wealth, however that would be appropriately measured.
- ethbr1 3y agoTo me, it's two components: (1) amount of real wealth produced (in your encompassing sense, whether that's GDP-proportional or not) & (2) allocation across ages. No amount of real wealth growth can solve the "better off future generations" problem if allocation is too badly broken. And no amount of allocation changes can solve it absent sufficient real wealth growth. To use a current example: We decide that large-scale firms compete better globally (real wealth growth), and therefore support their existence. However, we recognize their scale distorts internal competitive markets (allocation), and so put in place a system that prevents them from acquiring SMBs and instead encourages a healthy, vigorously competitive, and profitable marketplace of independent SMB suppliers underneath them, that provides younger entrants with opportunity. PS: In the US, if younger people were as organized as AARP and participated in elections at similar rates, allocation would be more favorable to them... https://www.statista.com/statistics/1096299/voter-turnout-presidential-elections-by-age-historical/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1096299/voter-turnout-pr...
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago> PS: In the US, if younger people were as organized as AARP and participated in elections at similar rates, things would be better for them... Why limit that just to the US? Voter participation, unless mandatory like in Australia, is always skewed to the old.
- ethbr1 3y agoI wasn't familiar with trends in other countries, so didn't want to speak to them. (Also, made some small edits to clarify)
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoYou'll find pretty much the same things going on everywhere, so I wouldn't bother calling out the US, although I get why you did that; see: https://www.ageing.ox.ac.uk/blog/European-elections https://www.ageing.ox.ac.uk/blog/European-elections I guess it might be more interesting to consider places where no one votes meaningfully (e.g. China), and if that somehow works to the advantage of youth (it probably doesn't).