So why aren't people working less if they don't need the money? What's the source of this systematic irrational behaviour? Of course if it's really true that people are earning too much for optimal happiness, perhaps we should do something about it. How about lowering wages?

They are subverted by capitalism which convinces them they need pet rocks and a different mobile phone every six months.

There's a lot of propaganda put out by the 1% that we need to consume, consume, consume, but it's also cultural and it's also human nature.

The point isn't that people are earning "too much to be happy," it's that people get happier as they become able to live at a certain standard. Once you get past a certain point, there is a huge diminishing returns on money you make making you happier.

People need security to be happy. American-style capitalism offers them the opposite so they work their lives away terrified of ending up broke.

Everyone would be happier if we lived in caves and gathered berries and died of gangrene at age 27 (assuming you're one of the lucky ones to make it out of childhood alive).

Is it possible to be a liberal conservative?

Or must everyone fall under either category?

Who are you to tell people what they need or don't need?

I need a cellphone.
I need a car.
I need a TV so I can watch basketball.
I need money to pay my mortgage.
I need money to I can eat at nice restaurants.

You're telling me I don't need these things and capitalism is the reason why I WANT these things? Give me a break.

I lol'd. Then realized some, unknowingly, are actually advocating this.

b

American style capitalism is increasing the feeling of security for people in terms of going broke(among other things)? Really?

b

The reason why this line of thinking is wrong is because you are trying to judge and decide how much is enough for someone to feel secure and free. It isn't up to you to decide what makes someone happy, it's up to them.

I was happy when I was broke. But I am actually lot happier now that I have excess money and blow it constantly on things I don't need.

Ao long as were talking about "good for society" the more man hours of work that get put into creating wealth, the better off "society" is. The more goods there are to distribute, the more total wealth there is. Arguing on one hand that people should cooperate more and then saying that they work for more then they need is contradictory.

The problem with using the prisoners agenda to prove that a managed market is better then everyone for themselves is that it ignores the fact that the manager is in the game as well. There is no such thing as an unbiased decision maker to decide what's best for everyone.

Finally, you argue that looking out for yourself is worse than cooperating...but being trustful and getting screwed is worse then looking out for yourself. If everybody protects their own self interests, nobody gets screwed. Its when one person is trusting and the other stabs them in the back that true injustice occurs.

Being selfish without arbitrary restrictions in the game does result in the best result. Because it's in everyone's self interest to cooperate with people who are cooperating.

Not really, there are costs to enforce cooperation every round. And by doing tit-for-tat, it enforces those costs by taking some hit yourself, then teaching them for not cooperating. If you are playing with someone who will not cooperate no matter what, you are better off defecting.


No, I'm saying that it results in their best interest. Cooperation in this case *is* self-interested. They try to force cooperation precisely because it's good for them in the long run.

But I do agree that what most people considered self-interested isn't what most people are wired to be rewarded for. But that just means that feeling good for cooperating or punishing evil people are just things that need to be accounted for in self-interest.

I am doing nothing of the sort and you are introducing an irrelevancy. I am just saying that the capitalists create "needs" where none exist eg who needed a pet rock in the 1970s ? People worked hard to save up for pet rocks.

Yes, the availability of new products can give rise to preferences for those products that didn't exist when those products didn't exist. Startling!

citation needed?

The fact that many people believe this is true in all cases seems to prove the point you make in the rest of your post.

People believe what they like, then look for evidence to back it up. They don't look at the evidence then form their belief system based upon that. Not that I'm any different. Cognitive bias ftw.

Again, you are defining what people need or don't need.

Do people "need" 400-500$ iPhones? On a survival basis they don't, you can get by easily with a free phone.

But the enjoyment and satisfaction they get from a 400$ iPhone far surpasses the 10-15 hours they had to work to get it.

Do people "need" pet rocks? No they don't. But if the parent is happy working 2 hours out of a day to pay for it so their kid can have a few days fun out of it, who are you to blame capitalism for the parent buying a pet rock?

Screw you. I need my iPhone!

There you are you've done it yourself by your own standard !


Re phones these have become a fashion accessory so they get changed far too often. I blame Steve Jobs for this consumerist cult.