There is a worrying opposition to self-interest and wealth-building in America

[Avocado]

I think that money can bring happiness but after a point it just brings more money.

Its the law of diminishing returns in economics, JS Mill and a bunch of others wrote about it at one time or another. A lot of those writers are a good read.

True. When you make more than about 50% of the people in your area, the returns start diminishing pretty fast. Once you get to the top 20% of earners, I doubt additional money matters at all.

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Advertising: money buys happiness, here! buy some happiness today with this new product!

reality: happiness comes from within.

so what makes me wonder is if what you are really getting at is purchasing security via money, which is more possible.

but, as everything too, does pass... even that's ephemeral.

You can’t have hapiness without security. Security is a prerequisite to happiness.

 

[Snow as White]

True. When you make more than about 50% of the people in your area, the returns start diminishing pretty fast. Once you get to the top 20% of earners, I doubt additional money matters at all.

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You can’t have hapiness without security. Security is a prerequisite to happiness.

You can and it is not. People are happy all over the world regardless of circumstance. People are unhappy all over the world regardless of circumstance.

 

[Avocado]

You can and it is not. People are happy all over the world regardless of circumstance. People are unhappy all over the world regardless of circumstance.

About half the population in a given area don't even have enough to have the basics in life. In fact, the poorest of the poor don't even have food or shelter. Lower needs must be fulfilled before higher needs, like those which produce happiness, can be fulfilled. Until certain basic needs are met, most people are consigned to endure what the richer, more powerful people force them to endure. You are either a slave or a master in this world, occassionally both.

 

[ducks]

I find the concept of money and wealth to be kind of confusing because there is always the same amount of money in circulation (unless some is printed or destroyed). So when people talk about how something made X amount of monies and is good for the economy that also means money was taken from other parts of the economy. To measure true wealth, it seems you'd have to look at overall production of goods and services over chasing dollar signs. Then looking at how most of the money is in the hands of the few - well things that people need like food, clothing, shelter, are going to be priced not for those few with a lot of money, but for those many with very little. So if we distributed the monies of the rich and made everyone equal, prices would just inflate all around, though it would help the poor person a bit. And I guess that's just supply and demand? I guess wealth redistribution could work in the short term to stimulate an economy before prices inflate to their resting values.

But anyway, I think a fair system would make people pay an equal percentage of their income for necessities like food, clothing, shelter, etc. and anything outside of that would be fair game. So if you want a successful business, you could buy your bigger house and Lamborghini and all that shit, but you wouldn't get lower prices that the "peasants" pay for necessities - you'd pay more. This would be fair and still allow for self-interest and wealth building. I guess housing could get complicated though, since you'd have to determine what is basic and what is extra and how land will be distributed so you don't just have one area that is full of only expensive houses. But it could be done.

 

[Lark]

You can and it is not. People are happy all over the world regardless of circumstance. People are unhappy all over the world regardless of circumstance.

I think that's a point woefully over stated, usually by people who can experience relative safety or security, or have some way of dismissing, even momentarily the real threat from their minds. Its impossible to be constantly aware, sword of Damocles style of a threat without real adverse effects.

Its a big part of why the Cold War gave way to a sort of secret wars or proxy wars between super power rivals, the reality of what a nuclear conflagration would mean just drove people damn near crazy.

 

[Avocado]

I find the concept of money and wealth to be kind of confusing because there is always the same amount of money in circulation (unless some is printed or destroyed). So when people talk about how something made X amount of monies and is good for the economy that also means money was taken from other parts of the economy. To measure true wealth, it seems you'd have to look at overall production of goods and services over chasing dollar signs. Then looking at how most of the money is in the hands of the few - well things that people need like food, clothing, shelter, are going to be priced not for those few with a lot of money, but for those many with very little. So if we distributed the monies of the rich and made everyone equal, prices would just inflate all around, though it would help the poor person a bit. And I guess that's just supply and demand? I guess wealth redistribution could work in the short term to stimulate an economy before prices inflate to their resting values.

But anyway, I think a fair system would make people pay an equal percentage of their income for necessities like food, clothing, shelter, etc. and anything outside of that would be fair game. So if you want a successful business, you could buy your bigger house and Lamborghini and all that shit, but you wouldn't get lower prices that the "peasants" pay for necessities - you'd pay more. This would be fair and still allow for self-interest and wealth building. I guess housing could get complicated though, since you'd have to determine what is basic and what is extra and how land will be distributed so you don't just have one area that is full of only expensive houses. But it could be done.

Its a tenous balance:

The strongest economies are those WITHOUT any redistribution, but to not redistribute means killing innocent people. The trick is redistributing money in the least disruptive and most unbiased way possible. Consolidating our current programs into a UBI could work, but to make it big enough to live on without extreme inflation, we’d need to severely cut military spending.

 

[Lark]

About half the population in a given area don't even have enough to have the basics in life. In fact, the poorest of the poor don't even have food or shelter. Lower needs must be fulfilled before higher needs, like those which produce happiness, can be fulfilled. Until certain basic needs are met, most people are consigned to endure what the richer, more powerful people force them to endure. You are either a slave or a master in this world, occassionally both.

I tend to agree with Maslow and the hierarchy of needs, and hierarchising needs in a universal fashion too, although I've seen it attacked repeatedly and half assed attempts to rubbish the idea as a mistaken generalisation because apparently you cant have universally valid ideas anymore (I'd have thought the way to do it would be keeping it as simple or as vague as possible exactly as Maslow did but there you go).

The usual one I hear is about people with eating disorders not fulfilling the most basic sustenance needs for some other sort of higher ranked need of some kind or another I think is trans sexuals having their gentiles removed or reshaped. I'm not sure either is a good example exactly but I've read them and seen them repeated as though they are self-explanatory and obviously correct.

 

[Lark]

I find the concept of money and wealth to be kind of confusing because there is always the same amount of money in circulation (unless some is printed or destroyed). So when people talk about how something made X amount of monies and is good for the economy that also means money was taken from other parts of the economy. To measure true wealth, it seems you'd have to look at overall production of goods and services over chasing dollar signs. Then looking at how most of the money is in the hands of the few - well things that people need like food, clothing, shelter, are going to be priced not for those few with a lot of money, but for those many with very little. So if we distributed the monies of the rich and made everyone equal, prices would just inflate all around, though it would help the poor person a bit. And I guess that's just supply and demand? I guess wealth redistribution could work in the short term to stimulate an economy before prices inflate to their resting values.

But anyway, I think a fair system would make people pay an equal percentage of their income for necessities like food, clothing, shelter, etc. and anything outside of that would be fair game. So if you want a successful business, you could buy your bigger house and Lamborghini and all that shit, but you wouldn't get lower prices that the "peasants" pay for necessities - you'd pay more. This would be fair and still allow for self-interest and wealth building. I guess housing could get complicated though, since you'd have to determine what is basic and what is extra and how land will be distributed so you don't just have one area that is full of only expensive houses. But it could be done.

That's the same was when libertarians talk about shrinking government or small states they are really talking about taking money out of the economy, out of circulation, so money that was circulating, especially among lower income families or poorer individuals which circulates the most and the fastest, is just removed and put in a savings account or off shored by wealthy people, resulting, on the one hand, in a sort of fatal parsimony in which people literally are going to have to support themselves with whatever they can grow themselves in the garden, and on the other, in a sort of plutocratic fuedalism.

And they are in deep, deep denial about that.

Suggesting that precisely the opposite is true.

I've read lots of Hayek and he was a pretty smart guy, I like a lot of what he writes about business cycles, other aspects of economics, his book on the constitution of liberty was far, far ahead of its time and of his followers today even because he was able to say, look, socialism is done, no one believes in it anymore, its going to be niche causes and cobbled together things in the future now, all of which will press their own separate demands for public revenue. Meanwhile his followers are still ranting about reds under the beds and socialists at every turn and such.

Anyway, he was a smart guy, I think he actually sussed out and knew that the capitalism had this fatal approximation of fuedalism going on and so he deliberately flipped it and misdirected everyone with the phony story that its only government you got to worry about.

 

[Avocado]

That's the same was when libertarians talk about shrinking government or small states they are really talking about taking money out of the economy, out of circulation, so money that was circulating, especially among lower income families or poorer individuals which circulates the most and the fastest, is just removed and put in a savings account or off shored by wealthy people, resulting, on the one hand, in a sort of fatal parsimony in which people literally are going to have to support themselves with whatever they can grow themselves in the garden, and on the other, in a sort of plutocratic fuedalism.

And they are in deep, deep denial about that.

Suggesting that precisely the opposite is true.

I've read lots of Hayek and he was a pretty smart guy, I like a lot of what he writes about business cycles, other aspects of economics, his book on the constitution of liberty was far, far ahead of its time and of his followers today even because he was able to say, look, socialism is done, no one believes in it anymore, its going to be niche causes and cobbled together things in the future now, all of which will press their own separate demands for public revenue. Meanwhile his followers are still ranting about reds under the beds and socialists at every turn and such.

Anyway, he was a smart guy, I think he actually sussed out and knew that the capitalism had this fatal approximation of fuedalism going on and so he deliberately flipped it and misdirected everyone with the phony story that its only government you got to worry about.

My economics professors were pretty staunch libertarians. Even assuming anarchy is the answer, what are the poor to do during the time the market adjusts? starve?

 

[Lark]

My economics professors were pretty staunch libertarians. Even assuming anarchy is the answer, what are the poor to do during the time the market adjusts? starve?

Pretty much. I cant see how anyone holding those views can be that concerned about a sort of rebirth of pre-modern servility.

The maddening thing is that none of that was the goal of the original capitalists, or classical/original liberals, most of those writers were writing at a time when most of their observations and ideas were of an economic system in its infancy, likewise they intended their ideas to a living, evolving, changing system, without dogmas, which is pretty much the prerequisite of a science anyway, and they were partially successful as unlike their rivals or opposition there are no Smithists or Millists or Ricardoists to the Marxists, Trotskyists and Stalinists.

The liberation from servility was the original goal of liberalism and it was supposed to the goal of socialism too, originally socialism was meant to be a movement of the working classes making good on the promises of liberalism, liberalism had made them promises which turned out to be the preserve of a few and not the many. Sadly as it turned out that idea was fast forgotten. There's only a few writers and they are all but forgotten altogether now too, who remembered it like GDH Cole. His economic theories are pretty limited too but his attempts to articulate clearly one of the skeptical causes looking for an alternative good to the original promise or hopes is worthwhile.

The best book I can think of recently has been by Honneth and its called The Idea of Socialism but I think its expensive.

 

[Avocado]

Pretty much. I cant see how anyone holding those views can be that concerned about a sort of rebirth of pre-modern servility.

The maddening thing is that none of that was the goal of the original capitalists, or classical/original liberals, most of those writers were writing at a time when most of their observations and ideas were of an economic system in its infancy, likewise they intended their ideas to a living, evolving, changing system, without dogmas, which is pretty much the prerequisite of a science anyway, and they were partially successful as unlike their rivals or opposition there are no Smithists or Millists or Ricardoists to the Marxists, Trotskyists and Stalinists.

The liberation from servility was the original goal of liberalism and it was supposed to the goal of socialism too, originally socialism was meant to be a movement of the working classes making good on the promises of liberalism, liberalism had made them promises which turned out to be the preserve of a few and not the many. Sadly as it turned out that idea was fast forgotten. There's only a few writers and they are all but forgotten altogether now too, who remembered it like GDH Cole. His economic theories are pretty limited too but his attempts to articulate clearly one of the skeptical causes looking for an alternative good to the original promise or hopes is worthwhile.

The best book I can think of recently has been by Honneth and its called The Idea of Socialism but I think its expensive.

I still worry about a lot of our young ones though. They are too idealistic. The young ones are going to get hurt.

 

[Snow as White]

About half the population in a given area don't even have enough to have the basics in life. In fact, the poorest of the poor don't even have food or shelter. Lower needs must be fulfilled before higher needs, like those which produce happiness, can be fulfilled. Until certain basic needs are met, most people are consigned to endure what the richer, more powerful people force them to endure. You are either a slave or a master in this world, occassionally both.

And yet there is still joy found within these humans.

The nicest. Happiest. Fucking people I ever met were in Bangkok living in huts made of trash along the river. Smiled. Said hello with me. Answered my questions. Asked me questions. Wanted to share what little they had with me. Blew me away and off my high horse pedestal of self absorption and first world angst.


We are all slaves in this world. If you have a lot of wealth you’re a slave to the extrinsic qualities of maintaining that wealth and the allure of “just a little more.” And then we all die. And give up the atoms we borrowed from the earth and stars for just such a small morsel of time it’s laughable to think we owned anything.

 

[Avocado]

And yet there is still joy found within these humans.

The nicest. Happiest. Fucking people I ever met were in Bangkok living in huts made of trash along the river. Smiled. Said hello with me. Answered my questions. Asked me questions. Wanted to share what little they had with me. Blew me away and off my high horse pedestal of self absorption and first world angst.


We are all slaves in this world. If you have a lot of wealth you’re a slave to the extrinsic qualities of maintaining that wealth and the allure of “just a little more.” And then we all die. And give up the atoms we borrowed from the earth and stars for just such a small morsel of time it’s laughable to think we owned anything.

They still had family and weren’t being harassed by law enforcement to keep moving. Assuming you have enough to eat and shelter, a lot of wealth is comparitive to what’s normal for the area.

 

[Lark]

I still worry about a lot of our young ones though. They are too idealistic. The young ones are going to get hurt.

There's all sorts of idealism, I think its a serious, serious error to equate it exclusively with the thinking which is critical of, or even only skeptical, of self-interest and wealth building, especially when you use terms like you did in the OP about greed etc.

If there's a time to be idealistic who's to say its not while you're young anyway? I know plenty of people that it would have helped if they could have kept that quality about themselves, there's nothing necessarily mature about being cynicism, materialism and predation, that is its own sort of naivety.

 

[Lark]

And yet there is still joy found within these humans.

The nicest. Happiest. Fucking people I ever met were in Bangkok living in huts made of trash along the river. Smiled. Said hello with me. Answered my questions. Asked me questions. Wanted to share what little they had with me. Blew me away and off my high horse pedestal of self absorption and first world angst.


We are all slaves in this world. If you have a lot of wealth you’re a slave to the extrinsic qualities of maintaining that wealth and the allure of “just a little more.” And then we all die. And give up the atoms we borrowed from the earth and stars for just such a small morsel of time it’s laughable to think we owned anything.

What do you think about legacies? Do you think this mindset eschews legacies?

Do you think its possible that some nations, communities, faiths or families encourage this mindset in order that they should have no rivals to their own legacy? I think its at least possible.

 

[Snow as White]

They still had family and weren’t being harassed by law enforcement to keep moving. Assuming you have enough to eat and shelter, a lot of wealth is comparitive to what’s normal for the area.

based on the disconnect between what i said and what you are saying here, i think we are referencing and discussing different things.

 

[Snow as White]

What do you think about legacies? Do you think this mindset eschews legacies?

Do you think its possible that some nations, communities, faiths or families encourage this mindset in order that they should have no rivals to their own legacy? I think its at least possible.

I think legacies are fleeting things that a lot of humans set their value and worth upon, regardless of whether we are talking about human organism individual, population or what have you. It's also part of the human expression of natural selection at work. I don't know if these people or organizations think in this manner, or if it's just the result of decisions and mindsets.

 

[Lark]

I think legacies are fleeting things that a lot of humans set their value and worth upon, regardless of whether we are talking about human organism individual, population or what have you. It's also part of the human expression of natural selection at work. I don't know if these people or organizations think in this manner, or if it's just the result of decisions and mindsets.

That's a popular view.

I can see how some people are counting on it.