This says something useful in among the stock nonsense - which is that wealth is not about what you own or how much you can spend, it's about personal freedom.
The interesting corollary is that in a capitalist economy hardly anyone is free. You "win" freedom by buying it. And that's what wealth is really for.
This is why "We're all rich now compared to people two centuries ago" is nonsense. We're not, because the odds are good that we're more or less similarly unfree, especially if we're at the bottom of the heap and working the proverbial two or three jobs. Owning an iPhone doesn't change the fact that our time is almost wholly owned by others.
It's also why it's impossible for a majority of people to be free. Someone has to do the actual work that keeps the lights on and food in the shops. Most people won't do that work voluntarily, so there has to be social leverage - implemented with loss of freedom - to force them into it.
And it has to happen. Passive investing is worthless when there's nothing concrete to invest in. Corporate entrepreneurship is useless if there is no activity to manage, control, and profit from.
The exceptions to this are genuinely creative activity. Invention, innovation (to a smaller extent), and cultural creativity are all individually powerful and can be disproportionately valuable, socially and economically.
Coincidentally, they also attract more than their fair share of parasitic activity which seeks to capture their value for the benefit of others.
But more - some people need to have these differentials in personal power. They lean towards narcissism, and it's important for them to feel more powerful than others.
They will never, ever allow an economic system which doesn't constrain the freedom of those they consider inferior. It doesn't matter if it's run by machines or AI or any other magic technology. It's fundamental to their psychology to keep others in a one-down position, and they experience any threat to this as an unbearable narcissistic wounding.
Inequality is not primarily an economic problem. It's a psychological issue - a public mental health issue, where the point of inequality is to allow unhappy rather damaged people to feel better about themselves.
This is orthogonal to issues of building, researching, inventing, and generally getting shit done collectively. Without narcissistic friction all of those would proceed more quickly and smoothly, with astoundingly positive consequences.
The interesting corollary is that in a capitalist economy hardly anyone is free. You "win" freedom by buying it. And that's what wealth is really for.
This is why "We're all rich now compared to people two centuries ago" is nonsense. We're not, because the odds are good that we're more or less similarly unfree, especially if we're at the bottom of the heap and working the proverbial two or three jobs. Owning an iPhone doesn't change the fact that our time is almost wholly owned by others.
It's also why it's impossible for a majority of people to be free. Someone has to do the actual work that keeps the lights on and food in the shops. Most people won't do that work voluntarily, so there has to be social leverage - implemented with loss of freedom - to force them into it.
And it has to happen. Passive investing is worthless when there's nothing concrete to invest in. Corporate entrepreneurship is useless if there is no activity to manage, control, and profit from.
The exceptions to this are genuinely creative activity. Invention, innovation (to a smaller extent), and cultural creativity are all individually powerful and can be disproportionately valuable, socially and economically.
Coincidentally, they also attract more than their fair share of parasitic activity which seeks to capture their value for the benefit of others.
But more - some people need to have these differentials in personal power. They lean towards narcissism, and it's important for them to feel more powerful than others.
They will never, ever allow an economic system which doesn't constrain the freedom of those they consider inferior. It doesn't matter if it's run by machines or AI or any other magic technology. It's fundamental to their psychology to keep others in a one-down position, and they experience any threat to this as an unbearable narcissistic wounding.
Inequality is not primarily an economic problem. It's a psychological issue - a public mental health issue, where the point of inequality is to allow unhappy rather damaged people to feel better about themselves.
This is orthogonal to issues of building, researching, inventing, and generally getting shit done collectively. Without narcissistic friction all of those would proceed more quickly and smoothly, with astoundingly positive consequences.