Reason Magazine
- reason.com
- reason.tv
- reason.org
- Donate
- Site Search:
Reason on Facebook
Reason on Twitter
Reason on YouTube
Reason RSSGet Reason E-mail Updates!
Manage your Reason e-mail list subscriptionsadvertisements
Every Time You Shop... God Kills a Kitten
Will Wilkinson takes the time to read (pdf) Benjamin Barber's Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole. He doesn't like it.
Barber claims that not only is modern capitalism no longer satisfying
real needs, but is in some sense making us worse off. The modern consumer,
Barber writes, “is less the happy sensualist than the compulsive
masturbator, a reluctant addict working at himself with little pleasure,
encouraged in his labor by an ethic of infantilization that releases him to
an indulgence he cannot altogether welcome” (p. 51). Not a pretty picture.
But, again, Barber is simply making things up...
If capitalism has stopped meeting real needs, we should not see improvement
in almost every indicator of well-being in capitalist nations.
But we do. I have no doubt that many of us consume lots of things that
Barber disapproves of—and having read this book, I have a very good
sense of which things those are—but there is nothing to be said in favor
of the moralized overproduction theory in the absence of a theory of
needs, and evidence that our current patterns of consumption are not
meeting real needs.
Loren Lomasky ventured into the Barberian land of make-believe back in 2000.
|8.21.07 @ 1:52PM|#
I'm not sure I buy Barber's argument, but there seems to be a
gaping hole in Wilkinson's argument, and it goes by the name of
diminishing returns.
Is it not possible that the entirety of the improvements in
well-being in capitalist countries comes from people who grew up
poor being able to afford decent doctors and washing machines (to
pick two examples), and little or none of it comes from people with
four pairs of Chuck Taylors being able to buy four more?
Anonymo the Anonymous|8.21.07 @ 2:09PM|#
Is it not possible that the entirety of the improvements in
well-being in capitalist countries comes from people who grew up
poor being able to afford decent doctors and washing machines (to
pick two examples), and little or none of it comes from people with
four pairs of Chuck Taylors being able to buy four more?
It's possible, but have you some evidence that this is the
case?
|8.21.07 @ 2:14PM|#
If capitalism has stopped meeting real needs, we should not
see improvement
in almost every indicator of well-being in capitalist
nations.
But we do.
It's true that capitalism does a good job in meeting the real needs
of people. It's once those needs are met that the happiness curve
seems to flatten.
Episiarch|8.21.07 @ 2:14PM|#
Is it not possible that the entirety of the improvements in
well-being in capitalist countries comes from people who grew up
poor being able to afford decent doctors and washing machines (to
pick two examples), and little or none of it comes from people with
four pairs of Chuck Taylors being able to buy four more?
Sure, it's possible, especially for physical health. So what you
gonna do, joe; people can now use their money to buy washing
machines but not Chuck Taylors?
Also, some people get a lot of pleasure and happiness from items,
like their iPod or their HDTV. Some don't. Some get pleasure out of
literature, in the form of mass-produced paperbacks. What about
that joe? Somehow I know you would never criticize consumerism in
the form of people buying lots of high-brow literature, yet
consumerism it is all the same.
Marcvs|8.21.07 @ 2:16PM|#
Is it not possible that the entirety of the improvements in
well-being in capitalist countries comes from people who grew up
poor being able to afford decent doctors and washing machines (to
pick two examples)
You are assuming that the entirety of improvements doesn't include
improving healthcare across the board. Considering that there was a
real threat of dying from an ulcer in the 60's and now you take a
pill and go back to work, I think we can say that it isn't just
"the poor."
|8.21.07 @ 2:18PM|#
I'm just talking about his reasoning, not his
evidence.
joe, your argument rests on the same reasoning that has been
applied by, say, the Wobblies since the early 1900s...
"The standard of living was good enough in 1890. We could live at
the standard of living of that time very easily with an
anarcho-syndicalist operation of the industrial base we have now in
1910. We don't need capitalists and profit motives and growth
because we only need the 1890 standard of living."
What is the new 1890? Why might it not still be in the future?
Bee|8.21.07 @ 2:22PM|#
I like shopping. I'm a happy sensualist and a libertarian
libertine. I'm first against the wall if the neoPuritans ever sulk
their way into power.
Even though we are all better off in all ways than when the first
philosopher berated conspicuous consumption, as long as some people
have more than others, consumption will be tied to morality. You'd
think an educated person like Barber would have noticed the pattern
here.
Worrying about flat happiness curves seems like busywork, somehow.
Stimulating the imagination of those whose happiness has stalled
would be good, but I'd rather focus on microloans if I were a
researcher or writer concerned with consumption patterns. But
that's just me.
|8.21.07 @ 2:24PM|#
dissatisfaction is the natural state of mankind. Is less
consumer choice going to make anyone happier. If Chuck Taylors
aren't doing it for someone, maybe they need to reflect on their
priorities. After all, we are all free to seek happiness in many
ways other than consumption.
Meanwhile, poor people get washing machines and doctors, which I'm
sure we can agree is of more importance than the existential
despair of the wealthy.
Marcvs|8.21.07 @ 2:26PM|#
Nate, you give up your things, and we'll talk. This isn't an either/or situation.
|8.21.07 @ 2:28PM|#
Ummm, what? I like my things. I want more things. I am also
aware that my ultimate happiness depends on more than my things, as
cool as they are.
Either you aren't understanding me or I'm not understanding you.
Probably both.
|8.21.07 @ 2:29PM|#
Episiarch,
I'm not drawing policy conclusions.
I try to make habit of putting that last, after the situation is
well-understood, not looking for an angle for how every bit of data
backs up some pre-existing set of policies or ideology.
Can't we just talk about the world? Does everything have to past
your test of political and ideological convenience?
|8.21.07 @ 2:31PM|#
Also, some people get a lot of pleasure and happiness from
items, like their iPod or their HDTV.
Yes, they do. And yet, reported levels of happiness level off
despite increasing purchases of those things.
BTW, I haven't criticized a single person for buying a single
thing. Why did you bring that up?
Chavez is a thug|8.21.07 @ 2:32PM|#
"It's possible, but have you some evidence that this is the
case"
Of course not. He never has evidence for anything he writes.
|8.21.07 @ 2:34PM|#
It's true that capitalism does a good job in meeting the
real needs of people. It's once those needs are met that the
happiness curve seems to flatten.
So?
|8.21.07 @ 2:35PM|#
joe
you are, I believe, correct, in that getting richer makes people
happy but being rich does not. But, and this is a question not
snarkiness, so what?
|8.21.07 @ 2:37PM|#
Mike P,
I haven't put forward any reasoning. I asked a question. One of my
terrible, naughty questions.
Nate made the same point I did. Why don't you bark at him for a
while?
Marcvs,
Good point. I think there is an issue of increasing societal wealth
vs. increasing individual wealth - in other words, it's still about
people not being poor, not middle class people becoming rich. It's
not as though ulcer treatments were produced as some rarity that
only the few gett to take advantage of.
|8.21.07 @ 2:38PM|#
Not every advance has to be utilitarian. Having more opportunity to acquire things and pursue interests that bring you enjoyment also represents an improvement in well-being.
Sal Paradise|8.21.07 @ 2:39PM|#
The modern consumer, Barber writes, "is less the happy
sensualist than the compulsive masturbator..."
Gosh, he says this like it's a bad thing.
|8.21.07 @ 2:40PM|#
Nate,
I'd say the "so what?" comes into play when the effects of
increasing wealth on happiness are brought forward as a positive
argument for a certain position or policy. If a certain policy is
going to increase wealth, but the benefits are concentrated at the
top, then that policy is going to produce less bang for the buck
than if it was concentrated at the bottom.
|8.21.07 @ 2:45PM|#
Mostly, I'm offended by his gross mischaracterization of chronic
masturbators.
(typed with one hand)
|8.21.07 @ 2:46PM|#
Basically, Barber has expressed doubt that Capitalism is the One True Way. This cannot stand here in the land of Free Minds.
|8.21.07 @ 2:50PM|#
joe
Point taken. But a free market is a great engine of wealth, and
even if the rich get richer faster than the poor (which they do) so
long as the poor are getting richer too then you are getting more
bang for your buck, in terms of overall wellbeing. I sort of
thought that was your point, that the actual payoff in happiness
really goes to those on the lower end of the economic scale.
I think people jump to policy arguments partly out of habit but
partly because this sort of anti-consumerist writing does in fact
have policy implications. But, seeing as you weren't agreeing with
this Barber fellow in the first place (were/are you?), perhaps
jumping into the usual fray was not appropriate.
But joe, don't you come here to fight? Thats, like, your place in
this weird little community and I thought you embraced that.
|8.21.07 @ 2:52PM|#
Nate made the same point I did. Why don't you bark at him
for a while?
Ummm... As I read it, Nate made exactly the opposite point of
yours. His point is, why is it his problem that some people aren't
satisfied by their consumer choices? Why should someone who is
competent at satisfying his or her desires with the economy around
them be restricted because some people aren't?
Ruff.
dhex|8.21.07 @ 2:53PM|#
barber's basic point is that stuff isn't the same as abstract
values.
which i would agree with; i just disagree with his valuation of
abstract values to boot.
Brian|8.21.07 @ 2:56PM|#
We're all going to want better and newer toys no matter how many
we have, and if that doesn't make us happy anymore we'll quit our
jobs and move into a shack in the woods.
The great thing about this is that compulsive masturbating will
always be free.
|8.21.07 @ 2:57PM|#
I think worrying about whether you are happy is a feature, not a
bug of wealth.
Not to go all John Edwards, but my grandfather grew up extremely
poor. He dropped out of the 8th grade so that he could hunt
squirrels full-time to feed his brothers and sisters. Two
generations later, his grandson, solidly in the working middle
class, has a standard of living he could probably could barely
imagined in woods hunting tree rats. If you asked him if he was
happy growing up, he would have said yes. They weren't starving,
after all.
As happiness rises, so does misery. They are never far apart
relativity, but nowhere near each other objectively. Worrying about
your happiness is a luxury.
(None of this is meant to endorse a utilitarian redistribution of
wealth.)
dhex|8.21.07 @ 2:57PM|#
The great thing about this is that compulsive masturbating
will always be free.
you're forgetting externalities, like lotion.
and loneliness.
|8.21.07 @ 3:02PM|#
But a free market is a great engine of wealth, and even if
the rich get richer faster than the poor (which they do) so long as
the poor are getting richer too then you are getting more bang for
your buck, in terms of overall wellbeing.
Are "rich" and "poor" relative terms or absolute ones? If they are
relative, then the rich getting richer at a faster rate means that
in essence, the poor who are getting "less poor" at a slower rate
are in fact getting poorer, no?
I would imagine that if a populace is getting richer as a whole,
the ones on the low end who are getting richer slower than everyone
else will still have less buying power and ability to afford the
things that everyone else can afford. If everyone is getting
richer, than inflation and cost of living is going to go up as
well, no?
|8.21.07 @ 3:06PM|#
Mike P,
You misunderstood my point. Stop that.
I made a point about his reasoning. Everything you read into it
about restricting people's choices came from your on head.
It's getting annoying to have to explain this same point over and
over on every thread.
So just stop it. If you want to respond to what I write, respond to
what I actually write.
dhex|8.21.07 @ 3:08PM|#
Are "rich" and "poor" relative terms or absolute ones? If
they are relative, then the rich getting richer at a faster rate
means that in essence, the poor who are getting "less poor" at a
slower rate are in fact getting poorer, no?
that would be my reading, beyond any issue of real buying power or
quality of life. that's kind of a structural issue (i.e. comparing
oneself to one's neighbors)
|8.21.07 @ 3:09PM|#
Nate,
I don't think the trickling down of wealth, or the rate/efficiency
at which it does so, should be assumed to be a constant.
bill|8.21.07 @ 3:21PM|#
"modern capitalism"
No such thing. Just varying levels of socialism and fascism.
|8.21.07 @ 3:22PM|#
Why define relatively, except out of pure envy?
If everyone is getting richer, than inflation and cost of
living is going to go up as well, no?
If your purchasing power doesn't increase in real terms then by
definition you are not getting wealthier. Its a question of wealth,
not money.
I don't think the trickling down of wealth, or the
rate/efficiency at which it does so, should be assumed to be a
constant.
Sure, the rate isn't constant, but wealth does increase for every
social stratum over time. If it really isn't fast enough to keep
the least rich in an acceptable standard of living, well, that's
why we create safety nets. What form those should take is another
conversation.
|8.21.07 @ 3:23PM|#
Yes, they do. And yet, reported levels of happiness level
off despite increasing purchases of those things.
And the question then becomes, is this the fault of living in a
capitalist society or is this an inner yearning for something else
more meaningful to the specific individual than the acquisition of
goods.
I would say in most cases it is usually the latter.
For a lot of folks, it's faith. For others, it's family. And for
others, it is working in a charity or for a cause they deem
important and bigger than themselves.
Which is the other great thing about living in a nominally free
country.
You can enjoy the benefits of a capitalist society, work hard
enough to meet your basic needs and get a few extras, and then
you're still free to go out and pursue happiness in a way that you
see fit.
|8.21.07 @ 3:24PM|#
If you want to respond to what I write, respond to what I
actually write.
Fair enough.
Is it not possible that the entirety of the improvements in
well-being in capitalist countries comes from people who grew up
poor being able to afford decent doctors and washing machines (to
pick two examples), and little or none of it comes from people with
four pairs of Chuck Taylors being able to buy four more?
No.
Because rather than buy four more pairs of Chuck Taylors, that
person is more likely to, say, employ the poor person to help put
up a fence or invest in a factory that employs him (to pick two
examples) in order that he earn more money so he can buy his wife a
better washing machine than that old one that is now starting to
thump and leak.
And please pardon my reaction when suggestions are made that
threaten the market engine that generates so much wealth for so
many people, even obliquely. I'll try to respond more directly to
your points in future.
Then again, I may have failed once more to.
Bee|8.21.07 @ 3:26PM|#
If a certain policy is going to increase wealth, but the
benefits are concentrated at the top, then that policy is going to
produce less bang for the buck than if it was concentrated at the
bottom.
Why do we need a policy? We're suffocating in policies already. We
need to be dismantlin' us some policies, not piling on more.
|8.21.07 @ 3:28PM|#
They "rich are getting richer/the poor are getting poorer" meme is only true if we define wealth relatively.
|8.21.07 @ 3:29PM|#
If your purchasing power doesn't increase in real terms then
by definition you are not getting wealthier. Its a question of
wealth, not money.
Oh-Ok then.
Uhmm, the original quote I responded to started with the words:
"But a free market is a great engine of wealth,....".
|8.21.07 @ 3:31PM|#
They "rich are getting richer/the poor are getting poorer"
meme is only true if we define wealth relatively.
I always believed wealth to be a relative term. I don't see how it
can't be. How would one define wealth in absolute terms?
|8.21.07 @ 3:34PM|#
ChicagoTom,
I would say that "rich" and "poor" are both relative AND absolute
terms, depending on the situation.
Today's "poor" have, on average, a vastly better standard of living
than the "rich" in ancient Greece. In that sense, it is
relative.
The rich in a given society, assuming no sudden populist
redistribution of wealth, will always be better-off than the poor
in that time and place. In that sense, they are absolute.
However, that having been said, in a consumer culture such as ours,
with newer products constantly coming on the market, and older ones
becoming cheaper and more widely available, the standard of living
continues to grow for any given individual, regardless of social
station.
Thus, while the poor may be getting less poor slower than the rich
are getting richer, thus creating a larger gap between groups, that
does not mean the poor are getting poorer relative to ther starting
position. Once basic needs have been met, it's silly to talk about
the "wealth gap" as a humanitarian issue. At that point it serves
more as a socialogical oddity that isn't hurting anyone, it is
simply benefitting some more than others, but not at anyone's
expense.
On the other hand, as standards of living improve, the definition
of "basic needs" has a tendency to creep upward, which is something
we need to guard against. Not to be cruel, but it smiply isn't
right to steal from one person so another person can have the best
health care that doctors can be forced to provide.
Anonymo the Anonymous|8.21.07 @ 3:35PM|#
Of course not. He never has evidence for anything he
writes.
I certainly wouldn't go that far. While I often disagree with him,
joe is a valuable contributor here.
|8.21.07 @ 3:38PM|#
Question which might clarify what I'm saying: Would you rather
be at/near the bottom of our economy now, or in 1930?
Getting objectively wealthier means you get to have more stuff. And
things. We all like stuff and things. Your neighbors stuff and
things are irrelevant.
|8.21.07 @ 3:42PM|#
I suspect there is more reported happiness in less wealthy times
because it is easy to find all the meaning you need when you work
to put food on the table and clothe your children and nothing
else.
The quest for meaning in a wealthier society means you have to
become something of a philosopher. It is so easy after a certain
point to win bread, the big struggle of what really makes you happy
absent a driving need begins in earnest.
It seems wrongheaded in the extreme to blame the engine of wealth
for creating this 'problem'. We need to redefine ourselves and seek
new forms of happiness. More wealth means more choices, and that
should only help us in our search.
|8.21.07 @ 3:43PM|#
Thus, while the poor may be getting less poor slower than
the rich are getting richer, thus creating a larger gap between
groups, that does not mean the poor are getting poorer relative to
ther starting position. Once basic needs have been met, it's silly
to talk about the "wealth gap" as a humanitarian issue. At that
point it serves more as a socialogical oddity that isn't hurting
anyone, it is simply benefitting some more than others, but not at
anyone's expense.
Does this assume that the cost of "basic needs" stays the same as
wealth goes up, relative to starting position, (even at different
rates) across the board? If so, then I think this reasoning is a
bit flawed. This position is true only if you can guarantee that
the rate at which the poor are getting less poor stays ahead of
inflation/cost of living. I don't think that is a fair
assumption.
|8.21.07 @ 3:46PM|#
Question which might clarify what I'm saying: Would you
rather be at/near the bottom of our economy now, or in
1930?
I dunno for a fact how it was in 1930, but I would imagine it
probably wasn't that much worse.
I would guess that being poor in in today is just as bad as being
poor in 1930.
What makes one worse than the other?
|8.21.07 @ 3:47PM|#
Nate,
Sure, the rate isn't constant, but wealth does increase for
every social stratum over time.
Yes, but that's not the same thing. We shouldn't assume that every
policy that increases the wealth of the already-rich is going to
cause that wealth to trickle down. I'm talking about looking at
policies, not the overall tendency of the market to increase
overall wealth.
Mike P,
Because rather than buy four more pairs of Chuck Taylors, that
person is more likely to, say, employ the poor person to help put
up a fence or invest in a factory that employs him (to pick two
examples) in order that he earn more money so he can buy his wife a
better washing machine than that old one that is now starting to
thump and leak.
What does this have to do with the rich person's happiness and the
contribution of the additional wealth to his happiness?
|8.21.07 @ 3:47PM|#
Its not an assumption, its a fact.
What is? It's a fact that inflation growth always lags behind
income growth?
JohnD|8.21.07 @ 3:48PM|#
the relentless quest for more material posessions is an endless loop. At the age of 64 I have come to realize that most of the pleasure in my life comes from my relationships with family and friends, not my posessions
|8.21.07 @ 3:48PM|#
Bee,
We have these things called policies. They have effects. It is
worth thinking about them.
And, btw, dismantling and existing policy is a policy in and of
itself.
It just looks to me like you are trying to think of reasons not to
think about this.
|8.21.07 @ 3:53PM|#
Whether you, personally, think people poorer than you "should"
be less happy based on their relative economic status doesn't
actually make them any happier.
I don't think a rich person "should" be less happy if he's takes
home $1.2 million in a year instead of $1.4 million, and yet the
angst that horrible setback produces spawns roughly the same level
of conern among libertarians as the genocide in Darfur.
dhex|8.21.07 @ 3:57PM|#
Getting objectively wealthier means you get to have more
stuff. And things. We all like stuff and things.
this is true.
Your neighbors stuff and things are irrelevant.
this is not.
your neighbors' stuff matter very deeply to the little chimp
brain.
I don't think a rich person "should" be less happy if he's
takes home $1.2 million in a year instead of $1.4 million, and yet
the angst that horrible setback produces spawns roughly the same
level of conern among libertarians as the genocide in
Darfur.
joe don't lump us all in with the conservatarians all the time.
give us a day off. how about next tuesday? are you busy then? oh,
ok...friday? we can call it "fair shot friday" and do a two-fer
with the democratic libertarians of daily kos...
|8.21.07 @ 3:58PM|#
Well, your odds of starving to death or living on the street are
much lower, and your chances of getting employed are much higher.
And you probably have more stuff.
Are you really saying now is no different then the Great
Depression?
joe, you are now the one making assumptions. I was not advocating
tax cuts for the wealthy or any other policy typically associated
with the phrase "trickle down", which I did not use. I was talking
about the tendency towards greater wealth, which you apparently
agree esists.
What is? It's a fact that inflation growth always lags behind
income growth?
Not in a given year, but that is the persistent trend, yes.
|8.21.07 @ 4:01PM|#
What does this have to do with the rich person's happiness
and the contribution of the additional wealth to his
happiness?
The rich person realizes that he would be happier spending his
money on a fence -- which directly provides wealth to the poor
person -- or that he would can't think of anything to spend the
money on today and would be happier having more money in five years
-- which indirectly provides wealth to the poor person by providing
the capital to make the poor person more employable and
productive.
The question is not, "What does the rich person buy at the store
and does it make him as happy as what the poor person buys at the
store?" -- i.e., your "diminishing returns". The question is, how
do we provide both the rich person and the poor person the
most choice possible to satisfy their own senses of happiness? And
it turns out that you do that by not restricting the rich person's
choice regardless of how limited an imagination Benjamin Barber has
over what happiness the rich person can derive from his place on
the consumption curve.
I suppose where I keep going is that I can see no alternative
mechanism whereby the rich person's foregone happiness from being
on the flat part of the happiness curve can better increase the
happiness of the poor person. If we assume that happiness increases
monotonically with wealth, then we want to increase wealth. Since
free markets appear to raise the wealth of the poor as well as any
alternative, why discuss any alternative? They won't do any better
in raising the wealth and concomitant happiness of the poor.
Then again, if envy is the key issue here, then perhaps not having
rich people around makes poor people happier. That would be
sad.
|8.21.07 @ 4:02PM|#
Easy, dhex. Just a little hyperbole.
Nate,
I was talking about the tendency towards greater wealth, which
you apparently agree esists.
Yes, but you did so in response to a point about wealth trickling
down, or not.
|8.21.07 @ 4:02PM|#
your neighbors' stuff matter very deeply to the little chimp
brain.
Hey, lay off the chimps :-)
|8.21.07 @ 4:08PM|#
joe
I thought we were still talking about the same thing, you were just
using the phrase "trickle down" to be snarky because, you know, ha
ha, its something that douchebag Reagan said. You need to give me
better warning if we are going off on a tangent.
But I am all for mocking Reagan.
|8.21.07 @ 4:09PM|#
Mike P,
The rich person realizes that he would be happier spending his
money on a fence
No, not "realizes." "Thinks." The objective evidence is that the
additional economic activity rich people engage in with their
additional wealth does not actually make them happier.
The question is not, "What does the rich person buy at the
store and does it make him as happy as what the poor person buys at
the store?" -- i.e., your "diminishing returns".
Why is that not the question? Why can we not talk about the world
as it is? Why does every conversation have to be about your
preferences for mechanisms?
If a certain topic produces conclusions that you find ideologically
inconvenient, would it not be better to conform your ideology to
the facts, rather than avoid ideologically uncomfortable areas of
knowledge?
If we assume that happiness increases monotonically with
wealth, then we are ignoring all of the evidence of
diminishing returns.
|8.21.07 @ 4:10PM|#
Until I have my own estate on Mars, we have not reached the point of diminishing returns.
|8.21.07 @ 4:12PM|#
Well, your odds of starving to death or living on the street
are much lower, and your chances of getting employed are much
higher. And you probably have more stuff.
You are conflating the odds of being poor vs. the effects of being
poor.
I will grant that I prefer being of working age in this era rather
than being in the depression, but that wasn't what you asked.
You asked which time period I would rather be poor in. For that
matter, I don't think it would matter too much. Being poor in today
would suck just as much as being poor in 1930.
That's not true. I would rather be poor now rather than 1930.
Because now, if I was poor, I would have New Deal safety nets to
help me get by.
|8.21.07 @ 4:16PM|#
joe
So, are we talking about mechanisms or aren't we?
I think what you are saying about diminishing returns is valid up
to a point, as in "whats another 100k when I'm a
billionaire".
But human desire is infinite. There will always be more stuff and
things, and we will want them.
|8.21.07 @ 4:18PM|#
If we assume that happiness increases monotonically with
wealth, then we are ignoring all of the evidence of diminishing
returns.
Of course, you are also assuming that we all have equal threshholds
of happiness.
Persons may meet their threshold of happiness at different points
on the economic scale. A middle-class family man making 75,000 a
year might have reached his economic happiness threshold and might
deem the cost of further increases in his wealth (more time at the
office, more stress, less time with the family) less than the
benefits that come with the extra money.
That is to say, he reaches a level of contentment with his economic
status and re-focuses his remaining energies on other pursuits that
have more importance to him. Does he have a worse life because he
can never take that first class vacation to Europe?
His neighbor who puts in 80+ hours a week to move up and make a lot
more money every year might think so. But just as conversely, Bob
might look at his neighbor and think he has the worse life: he's
never home, his relationship with his family isn't as deep,
etc.
|8.21.07 @ 4:20PM|#
That's not true. I would rather be poor now rather than
1930. Because now, if I was poor, I would have New Deal safety nets
to help me get by.
Well, at least until the government goes bankrupt or spurs on
massive inflation.
|8.21.07 @ 4:22PM|#
ChicagoTom
I think you are defining poverty as "what would be considered
poverty in 1930", in which case you are by definition right.
Also, I don't feel like arguing about the New Deal today.
Sorry.
|8.21.07 @ 4:24PM|#
Are "rich" and "poor" relative terms or absolute
ones?
Yes.
That is, both. If you're a starving peasant, and a policy change
toward a more free market results in you having two bushels of
grain to eat rather than one, you are absolutely wealthier. But, if
as a side effect of this increased freedom a grain merchant gets
twice the income because they're selling twice as much grain, you
could become relatively poorer compared to her, and if you're like
certain liberals who shall not be named, you could complain about
the social inequity and feel poorer.
If everyone is getting richer, than inflation and cost of
living is going to go up as well, no?
Not necessarily. Inflation is driven primarily by how fast the
central government is creating money relative to the goods and
services that can be bought. You can have massive inflation and a
stagnant economy, you can have virtually no inflation and a vibrant
economy. There is some effect on prices from increasing wealth,
since part of what you can buy with wealth is the luxury of not
having to shop as hard for bargains. On a recent trip to Tijuana,
my wife paid the asking price for the stuff she bought because it
wasn't worth her time to bargain to save a buck or two. I, on the
other hand, did some hard bargaining for the sake of letting my
kids learn a few things about negotiating. But if we were poorer,
we would have had to spend a lot more time negotiating to get a
price we could afford.
Wealth buys more things than just stuff. It can buy other things
that make you happy, such as more leisure time, more money with
which to do charitable things to make you feel better about
yourself, more time studing philosophy that makes you more content
with what you have, or just not having the anxiety of making ends
meet. The usual economic measuring sticks of material goods and
services is a really mediocre way of measuring wealth once you get
past satisfying the most basic needs, and the happiness that can be
derived from increased prosperity.
|8.21.07 @ 4:29PM|#
But joe, don't you come here to fight? Thats, like, your
place in this weird little community and I thought you embraced
that.
One of the goods that capitalism has bought is the leisure for joe
to increase his happiness by squabbling online and arguing for a
social system that would make it less affordable for him to do this
pleasurable activity. Thus, his statism has made him measurably
poorer by depriving him of the pleasure of perceiving the irony of
what he advocates.
|8.21.07 @ 4:30PM|#
Also, I don't feel like arguing about the New Deal today.
Sorry.
I don't want to either, but you brought it up.
It isn't free market capitalism that makes you less likely to die
in the street if you are dirt poor. Capitalism gives you better
odds of not being poor.
|8.21.07 @ 4:32PM|#
ChicagoTom
Just so we are clear, your definition of poverty is dying in the
street?
|8.21.07 @ 4:34PM|#
Because you are right, if you are dying in the street then who gives a fuck what year it is.
|8.21.07 @ 4:36PM|#
Just so we are clear, your definition of poverty is dying in
the street?
No it isn't. I was merely using your words from your earlier post
about 1930s.
Poverty, to me, is struggling to cover the costs of essentials
(Rent food clothing etc) and having to do without at times.
|8.21.07 @ 4:37PM|#
The argument that getting richer doesn't increase happiness is based on the skewed measures of wealth I noted above. A person who earns $100K by working 80 hours a week might not be any happier than a person earning $50K by working 40 hours a week, because they are missing out on time spent with family, etc. But, if someone earns $50K by working 20 hours a week, they're likely to be happier than the person earning $50K by working 40 hours a week, but statistically they would be lumped in together and called "equally wealthy", which is dead wrong. If there was a way of measuring the subjective measure of wealth, you might find that increasing wealth by that broader measure might bring greater happiness, undercutting the statist redistributive argument.
|8.21.07 @ 4:44PM|#
Poverty, to me, is struggling to cover the costs of
essentials (Rent food clothing etc) and having to do without at
times.
So, if someone insists on living in a nice apartment, buying nice
clothes, eating tasty food, and is struggling to pay for all that
and sometimes has to do without new clothes, they are poor? And if
someone leads a more modest lifestyle and isn't struggling to make
ends meet and never has to do without these cheaper goods, they're
wealthier?
What you consider essentials others would consider luxuries.
People are considered below the poverty level in America who have
cars, color TVs, and who are obese -- people who would be
considered wealthy in a Third World country. Virtually no one in
America is poor by Third World standards.
|8.21.07 @ 4:50PM|#
Some say that the poor are happier than the rich because the rich can not take comfort in the delusion that all their problems would go away if only they had money.
|8.21.07 @ 4:50PM|#
Ok, my earlier post wasn't clear. What I originally asked was "Would you rather be at/near the bottom of our economy now, or in 1930?" As in, take the poorest 10% (or 5% or 1%) and compare the 30's with now. Assuming your definition of "essentials" doesn't change depending on what era we are in then I agree it makes no difference by your definition.
Johnny Dangerously|8.21.07 @ 4:52PM|#
"so if money can't buy happiness/ I guess I have to rent it..."
|8.21.07 @ 4:56PM|#
So, if someone insists on living in a nice apartment, buying
nice clothes, eating tasty food, and is struggling to pay for all
that and sometimes has to do without new clothes, they are
poor
yes jh, that's exactly right.
Poverty means not having the ability to have all the luxuries one
wants or to own the name brands. That is exactly what is meant when
talking about food shelter and clothing in the context of
poverty.
No one is really poor, they just haven't figured out the
appropriate amount of sacrifice.
You really added quite a bit of substance to the conversation.
|8.21.07 @ 5:10PM|#
Chicago Tom, not sure if your 4:56 pm post is sarcastic or
not.
If you can't buy any kind of food, even rice, and go without food
for days at a time -- if you have to go barefoot and shirtless --
if you're sleeping outdoors in the rain -- then yeah, you're
definitely poor. Yeah, you could benefit from some privately
supplied charity.
But hardly anyone in America is that poor, but liberals would argue
that people much, much better off -- people who could be happy if
they so chose -- are poor and thus it's OK to rob others and give
that money to the "poverty-stricken."
Bee|8.21.07 @ 6:47PM|#
We have these things called policies. They have effects. It
is worth thinking about them.
Rolls eyes.
We're suffocating in (a morass of beaurocracy spawned by people
pushing) policies already. We need to be dismantlin' us some
(conflicting, misguided, corrupt, bewildering, stifling beaurocracy
spawned from someone's need to be doing something about) policies,
not piling on more.
Joy-meters might experience a pop if people could grow pot in their
back yards, or build treehouses without petitioning city hall, or
pay less for corn subsidies, or advertise for gay roommates.
Especially useless are policies (and their effects) whose aim is to
curtail me in some fashion because someone else is experiencing
spiritual malaise.
|8.22.07 @ 12:20AM|#
joe sez The objective evidence is that the additional
economic activity rich people engage in with their additional
wealth does not actually make them happier.
And we know this objective evidence exists because Dan T. sez
Some say that the poor are happier than the rich because the
rich can not take comfort in the delusion that all their problems
would go away if only they had money.
Which leads us all to three conclusions:
1) joe should be picking up his Nobel Prize in Economics the day
after he publishes his objective evidence,
2) We should all be very afraid that Dan T. has said something that
makes more sense then what joe said, and
3) DEMAND KURV (and why didn't someone else say it sooner?)
Site comments/questions:
Media Inquiries and Reprint Permissions:
(310) 367-6109
Editorial & Production Offices:
3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd.
Suite 400
Los Angeles, CA 90034
(310) 391-2245