3 ms·

> Our goal is literally to try, through the expenditure of money, to make sure she gets more success per unit of her own effort and ambition than other children

by Natsu 12y ago

> Our goal is literally to try, through the expenditure of money, to make sure she gets more success per unit of her own effort and ambition than other children do. That depends on precisely how you go about it. By way of example, a farmer teaching their children how crop rotation works will enable their children to get more crops than other farmers who do not use the technique, even though they work the same acreage. This in turn implies more reward for the same effort. Advances like this are how we build a society of abundance where people have the freedom to devote themselves to music, art, or science without worrying about starving. The idea that this family's success somehow diminishes the accomplishments of other farmers does not make much sense to me.

Retric 12y ago
There is a lot of artificial scarcity out there so success is closer to zero sum than we like to think. How many new doctors or freshman seets at harvard are there each year? Such artificial bottlenecks mean people are ranked not on some absolute scale of a specific standard but relative to their peers so pushing someone up means pushing someone else down.
- Natsu 12y ago
  It's true that there's plenty of artificial scarcity out there, but that's a social problem that can be reduced, piece by piece. But we simply wouldn't have what we do now if it wasn't positive sum for the most part.
  - tormeh 12y ago
    No. Success is, by Western definition, relative. In a post-scarcity society like the West it has to be zero sum or it's meaningless. Once you clear the barrier of survival being a measure for success, success is just doing better than the neighbors.
    - im3w1l 12y ago
      Wow. So beyond survival all happiness comes from beating your neighbour, and the sum of happiness is constant? I must say I really disagree with this.
      - tormeh 12y ago
        I'm talking about the "he's a successful guy" kind of success. No, happiness is not zero sum. It's something like logarithmic with absolute wealth, but way more sensitive to relative wealth. Of course there's more to happiness than net worth, but that's outside the scope of this discussion.
        Natsu 12y ago
        Those seem like personal (or perhaps social) problems for those who think that way. Seeing lots of people who are not well off certainly doesn't make me any happier. It depresses me and makes me want to help the local shelters.
    - Natsu 12y ago
      Perhaps others think that way, I do not recognize that as "success" at all. I don't care if my lifestyle is better or worse than those around me, only that I have what I want.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
anigbrowl 12y ago
Your crop rotation example implicitly assumes a group fo farmers with similar starting resources and information, some of whom choose to take the risk to adopt a new technique, and others who don't, just as most economic models examine the variation in one variable ceteris paribus - all other things being equal. Now this is sometimes the case in the real world, for sure. And it's even more often the case that if one farmer starts doing something that works, astute neighboring farmers will observe the improved yields and copy the first one. However what this model overlooks is the situation where one farmer has complex knowledge that is not obvious to others, and parlays that into an economic advantage. If the more informed farmer leverages the advantage long enough, s/he can end up buying the land off the others as they fall farther and farther behind. Economically efficient in the aggregate, but but far from ideal for those farmers who end up as sharecroppers on the land they used to own, or taking up some other line of work in which they have no special skills. Even this outcome is not so bad where the advantage is based on actual innovation, but in many contexts economic advantage is derived through political maneuvering or similar, and increased yields often reflect an extraction of economic rents rather than profitable innovation. If you're economically-minded, being a rentier is a shameful position to be in.

by Natsu 12y ago

Retric 12y ago

There is a lot of artificial scarcity out there so success is closer to zero sum than we like to think. How many new doctors or freshman seets at harvard are there each year? Such artificial bottlenecks mean people are ranked not on some absolute scale of a specific standard but relative to their peers so pushing someone up means pushing someone else down.

Natsu 12y ago
It's true that there's plenty of artificial scarcity out there, but that's a social problem that can be reduced, piece by piece. But we simply wouldn't have what we do now if it wasn't positive sum for the most part.
- tormeh 12y ago
  No. Success is, by Western definition, relative. In a post-scarcity society like the West it has to be zero sum or it's meaningless. Once you clear the barrier of survival being a measure for success, success is just doing better than the neighbors.
  - im3w1l 12y ago
    Wow. So beyond survival all happiness comes from beating your neighbour, and the sum of happiness is constant? I must say I really disagree with this.
    - tormeh 12y ago
      I'm talking about the "he's a successful guy" kind of success. No, happiness is not zero sum. It's something like logarithmic with absolute wealth, but way more sensitive to relative wealth. Of course there's more to happiness than net worth, but that's outside the scope of this discussion.
      - Natsu 12y ago
        Those seem like personal (or perhaps social) problems for those who think that way. Seeing lots of people who are not well off certainly doesn't make me any happier. It depresses me and makes me want to help the local shelters.
  - Natsu 12y ago
    Perhaps others think that way, I do not recognize that as "success" at all. I don't care if my lifestyle is better or worse than those around me, only that I have what I want.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

anigbrowl 12y ago

Your crop rotation example implicitly assumes a group fo farmers with similar starting resources and information, some of whom choose to take the risk to adopt a new technique, and others who don't, just as most economic models examine the variation in one variable ceteris paribus - all other things being equal. Now this is sometimes the case in the real world, for sure. And it's even more often the case that if one farmer starts doing something that works, astute neighboring farmers will observe the improved yields and copy the first one. However what this model overlooks is the situation where one farmer has complex knowledge that is not obvious to others, and parlays that into an economic advantage. If the more informed farmer leverages the advantage long enough, s/he can end up buying the land off the others as they fall farther and farther behind. Economically efficient in the aggregate, but but far from ideal for those farmers who end up as sharecroppers on the land they used to own, or taking up some other line of work in which they have no special skills. Even this outcome is not so bad where the advantage is based on actual innovation, but in many contexts economic advantage is derived through political maneuvering or similar, and increased yields often reflect an extraction of economic rents rather than profitable innovation. If you're economically-minded, being a rentier is a shameful position to be in.