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He's omitting the most important bit. Data from the OECD shows highly unequal societies tend to be more status-obsessed, leading to higher spending on "position
by Herring 7mo ago
He's omitting the most important bit. Data from the OECD shows highly unequal societies tend to be more status-obsessed, leading to higher spending on "positional goods" (items bought to signal status). These economies often have higher advertising expenditures (as a percentage of GDP) to fuel that competition. Inequality is quite corrosive in many ways, including leading to fascism.
- pnexk 7mo agotrue. This is a good essay but there’s, as to be expected, not too much of an acknowledgement of the economic and political backdrop of the arena this played out in. A lot of discussions of this essay therefore get diluted into musings about aspects of human nature and its tendency to obsess over status and while missing the broader point about the role these sorts of corpo strategies play in modern societal wellbeing.
- Herring 7mo agoOne of my favorite books about inequality is The Spirit Level (Wilkinson and Pickett). It asks how this country can be so incredibly rich, unprecedented in human history, but still create so much suffering (physical/mental/emotional). https://ibb.co/jZs6NhLt https://ibb.co/jZs6NhLt
- gwern 7mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_Level_(Wilkinson_and_Pickett_book)#Re-analyses_and_alleged_failures_to_replicate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_Level_(Wilkinson_an...