From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Wed Apr 09 2003 - 20:56:00 MDT
Charles writes
> [Lee wrote]
> > I've never seen a society getting richer that got (internally) worse.
Incidentally, that was a throw-away line. I'm still eager
to hear about counter-examples, but it does indeed seem to
me over humanity's 10,000 year history that increases in
wealth are strongly correlated with increases in humanitarianism.
> > I'd rather a country be run by rich hoodlums that by
> > poor hoodlums (except for the unfortunate out-country effects).
> >
> > In the historical cases I know of, namely the West, the "elite"
> > we are discussing here who makes all the money does so with no
> > more moral laxity than animates the general person in the
> > population. Surely you don't believe that the rich got their
> > money because they're evil.
>
> But the key question here is "What do you mean rich?". You certainly
> aren't talking about the amount of money, or one could accomplish this
> easily with inflation.
No, but there is indeed such a thing as wealth.
> My definition of rich would be "the ability of people to acquire the
> tools to accomplish projects without expending their life in the
> acquisition". That's a bit flakey, and needs much more precision, but
> if people can't do things, then they aren't rich. If only a few can
> choose what to do, then the society isn't rich, though those few people
> may be. etc. Land and other tangible property thus enters into the
> equation as one of the tools that allows one to accomplish the works
> that one intends.
Yes, that's close to what I would say, and what I think economics
texts say to define wealth.
> Considering "money" here is a bit of misdirection.
Well, what was meant is wealth, and the rich within a society
are those who amass the most. For individuals it's usually can
be equated to the amount of gold they could convert their wealth
into, though no strict definition of this kind works. (Which is
the usual case, when anything outside of math or physics is being
discussed.)
Lee
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