Note that it is only about the last 12K years that labor has existed. In hunting-gathering groups there is no such distinction among the day's activities. So any 'desire' to work or to play or to loaf has to be a historical creation.
Carrol -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Marv Gandall Sent: Saturday, April 19, 2014 8:09 AM To: Progressive Economics Subject: Re: [Pen-l] Ants at the Piketty Picnic: What's Wrong with "Inequality"? On 2014-04-18, at 6:00 PM, raghu wrote: > On Fri, Apr 18, 2014 at 12:13 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > > But, I do believe, a very large part of the attractiveness of being rich is being > > able to exercise power over others. > > That's mainly a sociopath view. > > > What do you think the Kochs and Waltons of the world are? > > If you are a billionaire, you are, by definition, a sociopath. > > http://www.interfluidity.com/v2/3487.html > ---------------------snip > An important but sad reason why our requirement for wealth-as-insurance is insatiable is because insurance is often a zero-sum game. Consider a libertarian Titanic, whose insufficient number of lifeboat seats will be auctioned to the highest bidder in the event of a catastrophe. On such a boat, a passenger's material needs might easily be satisfied - how many fancy meals and full-body spa massages can one endure in a day? But despite that, one could never be "rich enough". Even if one's wealth is millions of times more than would be required to satisfy every material whim for a lifetime of cruising, when the iceberg cometh, you must either be in a top wealth quantile or die a cold, salty death. The marginal consumption value of passenger wealth declines rapidly, but the marginal insurance value of an extra dollar remains high, because it represents a material advantage in a fierce zero-sum competition. It is not enough to be wealthy, you must be much wealthier than most of your shipmates in order to rest easy. Some individuals may achieve a safe lead, but, in aggregate, demand for wealth will remain high even if every passenger is so rich their consumption desires are fully sated forever. > > Our lives are much more like this cruise ship than most of us care to admit. Actually, the quote from interfludity above doesn't in itself support your view that wealth makes you a sociopath. Wealth satisfies, above all, the need to do personally satisfying work. The need to be productive is fundamental, and typically the higher your income the greater amount of leisure and variety of choices you have. Which is why members of all classes try to augment their earnings, even though, as we know, success mainly depends on your class position. But the point is that wealth can used productively and creatively and in many other ways that fall far short of the brutal acquisition of wealth for status and the power to oppress others. As the blogger, Steve Waldman, notes in another perceptive comment I happened across on his site: "Almost no one prefers a life of pure 'leisure'. Human beings like to regard themselves and to be regarded by others as 'productive'. They like to 'make a contribution' or 'pay their own way' or 'kick ass' or 'dominate others', to do something that they believe confers value and status...The luckiest people, young or old, are those whose work is fulfilling and enjoyable, not those who do not work at all. As people grow wealthy, they become more free to choose the ways by which, and the terms under which, they will do useful or important things. Wealth is better understood as conferring upon individuals a greater freedom of choice over what kinds of work they wish to do than as endowing lives of 'leisure'. A person with wealth can explore roundabout and risky production processes (become an artist, write a novel, start a business), can opt for work with no hope of remuneration (volunteer, help raise a child or grandchild), or can hold out for only the most fulfilling or best-paid market labor. A person without wealth may be forced to accept degrading and poorly paid work, just to pay the bills." _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
