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Instead of "house", you could also imagine a similar analogy around "amount of apples one person needs to eat to live". The sociopathic villager who went to th

by neilv 2y ago

Instead of "house", you could also imagine a similar analogy around "amount of apples one person needs to eat to live". The sociopathic villager who went to the village's communal trees, and took way more apples than they can ever eat, while others don't have enough apples to eat, should be tossed into the lake. But the sociopathic villager tells stories in the village square, of how those villagers who are starving are lazy, and trying to eat apples without working to gather them. A village elder starts to say they saw the sociopath going and taking the apples under the cover of darkness, and that's why some people are starving. But the sociopath quietly welcomes the elder into the fold of those who have cellars full of more apples than they can eat. Then apple hoarding is suddenly the noble way of the ancestors, according to the elder. And, hey, look over there, at those lazy people over there trying to eat apples while working only a half day! Hate those greedy freeloaders, over there! The housing crisis is one example, but I'm not talking about which parties have literally 100 houses in real society (nor want to get diverted with "just let developers make more money, by building more, and stop looking at any other factors of the problem"). I'm talking about essentials, greed, and corruption more generally.

philwelch 2y ago
I have a better analogy. It’s the analogy of a guy who got up every morning to plant apple trees in his orchard. When the time came for harvest, he picked all of the apples and sold them to market. With his proceeds, he bought some more land from his neighbor and planted even more apple trees. The next year there were too many apples for him to pick by himself so he hired a few people to help out, and used the proceeds to expand his orchard. There was another man in the village who never planted a tree or picked an apple. Instead he sat in his house filled with envy and resentment at the apple farmer, and made up a bunch of ridiculous stories about how the apple farmer was stealing from everyone else. And so he found all of the other villagers he could sway, and inspired envy in their hearts. And the envy and resentment and hatred grew and grew until one night, they went to the orchard and burned down all the apple trees and the man’s house while he and his family slept inside. And then they all celebrated their crime. Of course, when no one else in the village ever planted an apple orchard ever again, there were murmurs of complaint. The town baker couldn’t bake his famous apple pies the next fall, but he knew better to complain because he didn’t want the envious mob showing up at his bakery in the middle of the night. So he kept quiet. The housing crisis is one example, but I’m not talking about which parties have obstructed the creation of wealth in real society. I’m talking about essentials, envy and corruption more generally.
- neilv 2y ago
  As you adapt my quote, for contrast, you substitute "envy" for "greed", which seems meaningful. So is the gist of your analogy that, in reality, the problem of what might appear to be greed, is actually strictly envy, by the people who don't merit the wealth? And when you made the envious people outright psychotically homicidal, was that for a bit of levity? Or do you feel that strongly that irrational envy underlies real world complaints that people might have about inequity?
  - philwelch 2y ago
    > And when you made the envious people outright psychotically homicidal, was that for a bit of levity? More like realism. Read a history book sometime. The main difference between your parable and mine is that yours assumes a zero-sum world in which there is a fixed number of apples that are grown and the only question is how to divide them. In reality, that’s not how it works. In reality, wealth can be created. A greedy person is a problem if he takes things away from other people, but if he does productive work that creates more wealth for the world, even we allow him to keep much of that wealth for himself, the rest of us are still better off with him around than without. Conversely, if we destroy him or his ability to create wealth out of a shortsighted envy because we falsely believe in a zero-sum world, we also ultimately impoverish ourselves out of spite. Even your own parable ends up proving my point. Your parable is essentially the “tragedy of the commons”, and the point of the tragedy of the commons is that when productive assets (like apple trees) are commonly owned, the individual incentives go against the common good and also the stewardship of the asset. Conversely, if the orchard is private property, the owner’s incentives instead favor both of these things. This is why virtually all productive agricultural land is privately owned and worked for profit, and if you look back at those same history books I mentioned earlier, most attempts to abolish private ownership of farmlands—most of which were ideologically motivated by various rationalizations for envy—have resulted in lower food production and often outright famine.

by neilv 2y ago

philwelch 2y ago

I have a better analogy. It’s the analogy of a guy who got up every morning to plant apple trees in his orchard. When the time came for harvest, he picked all of the apples and sold them to market. With his proceeds, he bought some more land from his neighbor and planted even more apple trees. The next year there were too many apples for him to pick by himself so he hired a few people to help out, and used the proceeds to expand his orchard. There was another man in the village who never planted a tree or picked an apple. Instead he sat in his house filled with envy and resentment at the apple farmer, and made up a bunch of ridiculous stories about how the apple farmer was stealing from everyone else. And so he found all of the other villagers he could sway, and inspired envy in their hearts. And the envy and resentment and hatred grew and grew until one night, they went to the orchard and burned down all the apple trees and the man’s house while he and his family slept inside. And then they all celebrated their crime. Of course, when no one else in the village ever planted an apple orchard ever again, there were murmurs of complaint. The town baker couldn’t bake his famous apple pies the next fall, but he knew better to complain because he didn’t want the envious mob showing up at his bakery in the middle of the night. So he kept quiet. The housing crisis is one example, but I’m not talking about which parties have obstructed the creation of wealth in real society. I’m talking about essentials, envy and corruption more generally.

neilv 2y ago
As you adapt my quote, for contrast, you substitute "envy" for "greed", which seems meaningful. So is the gist of your analogy that, in reality, the problem of what might appear to be greed, is actually strictly envy, by the people who don't merit the wealth? And when you made the envious people outright psychotically homicidal, was that for a bit of levity? Or do you feel that strongly that irrational envy underlies real world complaints that people might have about inequity?
- philwelch 2y ago
  > And when you made the envious people outright psychotically homicidal, was that for a bit of levity? More like realism. Read a history book sometime. The main difference between your parable and mine is that yours assumes a zero-sum world in which there is a fixed number of apples that are grown and the only question is how to divide them. In reality, that’s not how it works. In reality, wealth can be created. A greedy person is a problem if he takes things away from other people, but if he does productive work that creates more wealth for the world, even we allow him to keep much of that wealth for himself, the rest of us are still better off with him around than without. Conversely, if we destroy him or his ability to create wealth out of a shortsighted envy because we falsely believe in a zero-sum world, we also ultimately impoverish ourselves out of spite. Even your own parable ends up proving my point. Your parable is essentially the “tragedy of the commons”, and the point of the tragedy of the commons is that when productive assets (like apple trees) are commonly owned, the individual incentives go against the common good and also the stewardship of the asset. Conversely, if the orchard is private property, the owner’s incentives instead favor both of these things. This is why virtually all productive agricultural land is privately owned and worked for profit, and if you look back at those same history books I mentioned earlier, most attempts to abolish private ownership of farmlands—most of which were ideologically motivated by various rationalizations for envy—have resulted in lower food production and often outright famine.