Definition of an Affluent society: a society in which everyone can understand what they do in their discretionary time as their identity, and is comfortable enough to like this identity.
Social Media inequality might become a bigger problem than wealth inequality. In a liberal society, it is easier to tax people than force them to have a certain taste and redistribute their likes and subscriptions. Yet social media inequality could become a source of immense frustration and a destabilizing factor once the world really moves ...
Why does money corrupt?
So why does it? If you have it in abundance, it fails to give meaning in the obvious ways it does when we need it to meet our basic needs. The thought that the result of our endeavour - the amount on our bank account - is subject to inevitable inflation of meaning, is hard to bear. So we explore other pathways: consumption of expensive goods and services, and comparison to other people's "wealth". This is an impulse that doesn't care about the consequences. Think environmental and social inequality. In other words: it corrupts.
The hallmark of being human is that we can carry a story within us that aspires to more than our own pleasure, to a goal beyond the satisfaction of what we momentarily desire
Wealth redistribution?
During a walk in the forest, I listened to a recent episode of the Oxford-style debate series of Intelligence2. Oxford-style means that the position of the audience is registered before and after the debate, and the side that has gained the most percentage points, wins the debate.) The proposition was simple: Is it time for ...
Wealth
A downtown apartment with security and a water cooler. The furniture landscape emerging from a Persian rug. Slow drip coffee. Long bookshelves with "art". A low noise dehumidifier. A mahogany banister. Gentility. Heirlooms. Silence.