Relatedly, I've argued that the extensive body of research on the economics of happiness is misguided. As Tolstoy said in relation to familes, it's unhappiness we should be looking at
This is a really fascinating, thought provoking post. I think the broad notion of thinking about the economy in this way helps explain a lot, and it got me thinking about FDR’s four freedoms speech (which to this day I think is the best distillation of liberalism and what it should be that I’ve ever heard). Two are positive goods—freedom of speech and freedom of worship are about choice of what is meaningful—but the other two, freedom from want and freedom from fear, are about avoiding suffering. Essentially the promise FDR was making to the US was not that we would have to pay nothing in suffering to maintain a decent standard of living—such a post scarcity world was unimaginable then on technical grounds, and is pretty damn hard to imagine today—but that the suffering price would be bounded to a level where one still had the ability to be happy, have a meaningful life and pursue the things that would secure that meaning. Honestly I think that’s the social contract we should still aspire to today, and framing it in terms of discomfort instead of money helps make that discussion much more meaningful.
Thank you for writing this post! I feel like I am going to be linking people to it over the next few months. BOTH the list of kinds of first world poverty AND the concept of suffering flow economics are things I have thought about and talked about but never quite been able to put down on paper.
"Reimagining economics as flows of suffering" does a bit to account for the presupposition of rationality, which has always been one of my personal gripes with the dismal science as a layperson. I imagine that if it were taught this way it could also alleviate some of the greed maximizing behavior and diminished altruism that have been found in studies of practitioners and students of the discipline, if the relationship turned out to be causal that is. It's definitely an interesting way to conceptualize it. Thank you!
there is a misconception; and you come to close in some ways to showing this--but anyone can make the labor=value theory; or even the importance of some labor over other labor (boss/owner v. worker).
The problem is the values being placed. It's not just that those who earn less become valued less; it's that those who earn more place more value on themselves and then the lesser earner wants to increase his personal value. Measurements of a human's worth become measured on degrees of status. This transfers across the board,,, more education, more value; the elected representative more valuable than the constituent,
The debate needs to be shifted to decoupling individual roles with status or evaluations of human and recognize that everyone involved has the same value and nothing becomes accomplished without the sum.
This is a highly interesting take, but overly utilitarian. That is, trying to calculate something, which means lots of assumptions of human behaviour being a rational response to circumstances.
I have recently inherited a house that worths 7 years of my income. I am still in the 40 hours shitty job, and still living the same way. Why? Who knows. This is what I am used to. This is the habit that was formed. This is kind of a social norm. Some part of me just does not really believe the luck that there is some dream job out there somewhere and I could use this money for retraining. It is... culture.
Relatedly, I've argued that the extensive body of research on the economics of happiness is misguided. As Tolstoy said in relation to familes, it's unhappiness we should be looking at
https://crookedtimber.org/2011/04/12/towards-an-economics-of-unhappiness/
Always liked that line from Tolstoy
This is a really fascinating, thought provoking post. I think the broad notion of thinking about the economy in this way helps explain a lot, and it got me thinking about FDR’s four freedoms speech (which to this day I think is the best distillation of liberalism and what it should be that I’ve ever heard). Two are positive goods—freedom of speech and freedom of worship are about choice of what is meaningful—but the other two, freedom from want and freedom from fear, are about avoiding suffering. Essentially the promise FDR was making to the US was not that we would have to pay nothing in suffering to maintain a decent standard of living—such a post scarcity world was unimaginable then on technical grounds, and is pretty damn hard to imagine today—but that the suffering price would be bounded to a level where one still had the ability to be happy, have a meaningful life and pursue the things that would secure that meaning. Honestly I think that’s the social contract we should still aspire to today, and framing it in terms of discomfort instead of money helps make that discussion much more meaningful.
Thank you for writing this post! I feel like I am going to be linking people to it over the next few months. BOTH the list of kinds of first world poverty AND the concept of suffering flow economics are things I have thought about and talked about but never quite been able to put down on paper.
"Reimagining economics as flows of suffering" does a bit to account for the presupposition of rationality, which has always been one of my personal gripes with the dismal science as a layperson. I imagine that if it were taught this way it could also alleviate some of the greed maximizing behavior and diminished altruism that have been found in studies of practitioners and students of the discipline, if the relationship turned out to be causal that is. It's definitely an interesting way to conceptualize it. Thank you!
there is a misconception; and you come to close in some ways to showing this--but anyone can make the labor=value theory; or even the importance of some labor over other labor (boss/owner v. worker).
The problem is the values being placed. It's not just that those who earn less become valued less; it's that those who earn more place more value on themselves and then the lesser earner wants to increase his personal value. Measurements of a human's worth become measured on degrees of status. This transfers across the board,,, more education, more value; the elected representative more valuable than the constituent,
The debate needs to be shifted to decoupling individual roles with status or evaluations of human and recognize that everyone involved has the same value and nothing becomes accomplished without the sum.
This is a highly interesting take, but overly utilitarian. That is, trying to calculate something, which means lots of assumptions of human behaviour being a rational response to circumstances.
I have recently inherited a house that worths 7 years of my income. I am still in the 40 hours shitty job, and still living the same way. Why? Who knows. This is what I am used to. This is the habit that was formed. This is kind of a social norm. Some part of me just does not really believe the luck that there is some dream job out there somewhere and I could use this money for retraining. It is... culture.
> Having older children in a neighborhood mind younger children
I think there's a typo here but I'm not sure what it is
Where “mind” ~means “provide caregiving and supervision for”
Oh, yeah ok.