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People's value functions are based on envy/their relative position. A lot of people would be objectively happier being upper middle class in 1925 than lower middle class in 2025 despite the latter being materially a lot better off, happier living poor in a poor neighbourhood over living average in a rich neighbourhood, and happier earning $50k under a CEO earning $60k than earning $60k under a CEO earning $80m.
Well maybe, I won't deny envy as a factor, but the ability to buy property is another huge factor. People who can afford property tend to be a lot more content than those who can't. Regardless of wealth disparity or relative social class.
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And therein lies the tragedy of humanity. As La Rochefoucald said: The truest mark of being born with great qualities is to be born without envy. I was not so fortunate but have over the years tried to kill the envy in me because in the end it's just destructive. Perhaps we should have compulsory lessons on this in school for everyone to make the average man content with his average life instead of trying to pull down his betters.
I suspect that there would be less envy in the world if people got the impression that those above them were trying to pull everyone else up to their level rather than trying to keep them down.
Would it? Or would they just blame them even more?
In any case, I don’t understand why they should help. Help me or I’ll envy you and make things difficult sounds like extortion.
Because the obscene concentration of wealth that allows those elites to exist requires the existence of a coherent and functioning society. You can't have millionaire layabouts and the idle rich without somebody to actually do the work, and if those people believe that current social arrangements have lost their legitimacy then things can change very, very fast. The French aristocracy didn't give a shit about the concerns of smelly peasants and didn't want to help them out at all, but that famously did not end particularly well for the aristocracy.
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