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laythea | 5 years ago

That Keynes bloke didn't figure into his calculations that one of the main reasons we will never achieve a 15 hour working week is because of human greed.

Along with large population of people who do not have enough income to live decently, and are therefore subject to "the grind", there are also many many examples where the person is making/has made lots, but still works for more. This is human greed. I think the average greedy person would rather make 2-3 times as much in a week, rather than buying their time back.

It starts at human need for low income, and then ends up as human greed, as income gets higher.

Although it would be nice, I'm not sure there will ever be a world where we all kick back and relax to enjoy the benefits of past generations. Some would call that forward progress. As you say, it seems the other way around and we are making things worse. Perhaps our individualistic quest for an easy life is contributing to that.

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amurthy1|5 years ago

I mostly agree with you, but I wish we could come up with a better word than "greed" to describe the almost universal and constant desire for humans to improve their own lives, which has a connotation that the only way for me to benefit is by taking from others. I think most in this community would agree life isn't a zero sum game and there are actions I can take that improve my life that are also net neutral-positive to the world around me.

I think we should encourage this type of activity while condemning the negative externalities of people's actions, as opposed to blanket condemning "human greed" as a whole.