Degrees of Wealth
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Degrees of Wealth
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Re: Degrees of Wealth
#2wow, someone talks sense instead of a binary answer. love it! thumbs up
Re: Degrees of Wealth
#3In Denmark we briadly call this distinction "the good life" (det gode live). Children are usually made to write something (an essay mostly) about it during their last few years in public school.
The concept is exactly the philosophical implications of what a "good" life even is. How you can maintain and sustain a "good" life in a world where everyone else is trying to do the same. How your "good" life will sometimes be in tension with other people's, and how it'll even change for you as you live it.
"Wealth" is a terrible measure of a "good" life, but for some reason it's the dominant one in the modern world.
Re: Degrees of Wealth
#4Can’t view without completing a captcha?
Re: Degrees of Wealth
#5This is an insightful article but it misses the elephant in the room, which is wealth inequality. In Shanghai, there is vastly more wealth inequality than in Netherlands.
The reason why nannies are affordable in China is because those nannies aren't paid very much, and consequently enjoy a much lower standard of living than their employers. In Netherlands, nannies are relatively expensive, but you the employee is much closer to the socioeconomic stratum to that of their employer.
Same goes for the other examples in the article. The author, having a fancy car, modern phone, etc, clearly enjoys a high level of wealth and is able to leverage that wealth to acquire goods and services at a high level. But that only works if there are people willing to provide those goods and services for a price that he can afford. The author didn't mention that the people who provide these goods and services do not enjoy the same benefits of those goods and services: their nanny cannot afford to hire a nanny, nor a Chinese EV, nor a giant smartphone.
The Netherlands has made the intentional decision to reduce wealth inequality and to achieve a fairer society. You can agree or disagree with that decision. But if I had to choose between NL and China, being cast into one country or the other without any choice about where in that society or what level of wealth, NL would be a much better option.
Re: Degrees of Wealth
#6Actually, the standard for wealth tends to be set by the people around you, and by the competitors in your field. If you let go of that and draw your own standards, it's enough. but in the end, money is what defines wealth. I know comparison is the problem, but companies know that without comparison, there's no consumption, so they keep creating it. I want to break free from that
Re: Degrees of Wealth
#7Getting a 408 :/
Re: Degrees of Wealth
#8Sufficiency versus maximization. China maximizes output given the means available (and treats ever-growing means as self-evidently good), the Netherlands treats wellbeing as the fixed end and then economizes on the means needed to reach it: effort, resources, consumption.
In words of E. F. Schumacher: "the maximum of wellbeing with the minimum of consumption"
Re: Degrees of Wealth
#9This is the error I get trying to load the page (Firefox):
Secure Connection Failed
The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because the authenticity of the received data could not be verified. What can you do about it?
The issue is most likely with the website, and there is nothing you can do to resolve it. You can notify the website’s administrator about the problem.
Re: Degrees of Wealth
#10In Denmark we briadly call this distinction "the good life" (det gode live). Children are usually made to write something (an essay mostly) about it during their last few years in public school. The concept is exactly the philosophical implications of what a "good" life even is. How you can maintain and sustain a "good" life in a world where everyone else is trying to do the same. How your "good" life will sometimes…
Wealth is not a terrible measure of good life.
"Money does not bring happiness" is a trope that rich people would like poor people to believe. I don't think poor people fall for it, though.