Question for libertarians :
1) Libertarian : People who complain about other people earning more than them are stupid - the only thing that matters is whether your absolute wealth goes up. These people are guilty of "zero-sum" thinking!
2) Libertarian : Communism would never work, it's against human nature.
3) Erm ... exhibit 3
2 comments:
I read that last one, and my initial thought was "well, duh, everything's relative." But then I thought - ah, hang on! Is relativeness a relative thing? How is the absolute/relative balance affected by social factors? i.e. if I'm in greater social competition, am I more likely to think of things relative to other people?
Seems like a bit of an obvious link, but then, I think it has some merit. Western economies now seems based on having the same as everyone else - a "relative" state of affairs maybe based on "equality" and "mass production".
But does that mean the relative approach is "stronger" now than it was before? In a less connected society (less communication & media), is there a shift towards more "absolute"* reward structures?
* "Absolute" is a bad word, as even absolutism is subjective. "Individual", rather than group-based, is probably a better way of looking at it.
I think this goes really deep - it means that economy is more or less irrelevant for human happiness.
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