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There’s an unquestioned assumption underlying “using our wealth to lift up many,” namely that wealth lifts people up. A great deal of money has long been thrown
by Telemakhos 1mo ago
There’s an unquestioned assumption underlying “using our wealth to lift up many,” namely that wealth lifts people up. A great deal of money has long been thrown at social problems that remain unsolved. Another way to look at it is that self-control lifts people up, and the accumulation or dissipation of wealth is consequent upon self-control. Pro athletes and lottery winners who never learned to manage budgets growing up tend to run through their money quickly and end up poor again because they lack the self-control needed to maintain and accumulate wealth. Having or lacking money is a result, not a cause; changing the consequent without addressing what is antecedent to the consequent will not result in lasting change.
- Avicebron 1mo agoAh yes the old "structural failing is actually a moral failing of the losers". If you care to educate yourself so the rest of us aren't just snickering behind our hands next time you speak. Read Watts, Duncan, and Quan (2018), and Mani, Mullainathan, Shafir, and Zhao about how poverty extracts "self-control". Or even just Webber's theodicy of fortune.
- forestrywat 1mo agoI'm not super interested in debating the specifics because I was trying to point out that people will disagree about what "better" means and prevent progress. Thank you for so succinctly and promptly demonstrating that point, even knowing my post was an obviously simplified example for the purpose of brevity.