This one keeps coming back to me, from Jacob Mikanowski on Tyler Cowen's podcast about Eastern Europe:
> It was a really different political economy in the ’70s and ’80s. You were not waiting to save up for an apartment; you were usually on a list that your parents put you on, and you were waiting to be granted the right to an apartment. You didn’t have a hope of a car. And jobs were — not exactly a crapshoot, but you were going to be assigned something.
You could actually start — if you went through college (even if you didn’t), you might be in a position to have a place to live and an income to support a family at 21, 22, and nothing much to save up for. No real way to save up, no real goal to save towards.
I like it because it makes me think about what people want from life, and how people may behave differently (and the same) when their opportunities were so different.
Clearly in most ways things were worse, but I can't help feeling there would be something liberating about not being on the hedonistic treadmill your whole life
> It was a really different political economy in the ’70s and ’80s. You were not waiting to save up for an apartment; you were usually on a list that your parents put you on, and you were waiting to be granted the right to an apartment. You didn’t have a hope of a car. And jobs were — not exactly a crapshoot, but you were going to be assigned something.
You could actually start — if you went through college (even if you didn’t), you might be in a position to have a place to live and an income to support a family at 21, 22, and nothing much to save up for. No real way to save up, no real goal to save towards.
https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/jacob-mikanowski...
I like it because it makes me think about what people want from life, and how people may behave differently (and the same) when their opportunities were so different.
Clearly in most ways things were worse, but I can't help feeling there would be something liberating about not being on the hedonistic treadmill your whole life