"THE Irish singer Bono once described a difference* between America and his native land. “In the United States,” he explained, “you look at the guy that lives in the mansion on the hill, and you think, you know, one day, if I work really hard, I could live in that mansion. In Ireland, people look up at the guy in the mansion on the hill and go, one day, I’m going to get that bastard.”
Alexis de Tocqueville phrased it a little differently, but his classic 19th-century text contains the same observation. Visiting from France, he marveled at Americans’ ability to keep envy at bay, and to see others’ successes as portents of good times for all...
In 2008, Gallup asked a large sample of Americans whether they were “angry that others have more than they deserve.” People who strongly disagreed with that statement — who were not envious, in other words — were almost five times more likely to say they were “very happy” about their lives than people who strongly agreed...
Unfortunately, in the wake of the Great Recession, such a shift may well be underway, given the increasing anxiety about income inequality and rising sympathy for income redistribution. According to data from the General Social Survey, the percentage of Americans who feel strongly that “government ought to reduce the income differences between the rich and the poor” is at its highest since the 1970s. In January, 43 percent of Americans told the Pew Research Center that government should do “a lot” to “reduce the gap between the rich and everyone else.”
Why the shift? The root cause of increasing envy is a belief that opportunity is in decline. Read More
NY Times, Sunday Review (* link)
29 comments:
The essence of community organizing.
I don't see this envy much. I read about it on the web.
Just about everybody I know is succeeding and living a good life.
Half my family is Filipino, most of them first generation immigrants. They still believe in the American dream, and by God it is working for them, too.
Two things have seriously hurt opportunity today 1) government regulators, and 2) lawyers. Both are in the business of fucking your dreams.
It takes a little more balls and luck to get around these today, but in the end opportunity is only in decline for you if you think it is. I never knew anyone who bitched about lack of opportunity that ended up successful.
"The Parable of the Gas" explains that individuals are freest when they can gain or lose wealth freely. An important corollary is that all individuals must be free to do so. A natural distribution of wealth then appears which resembles a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution of relative energies for molecules.
As economies heat up, the range of wealth disparity increases, but the average wealth increases too. Conversely, as an economy cools, individual's wealth more closely align and resemble one another but the average wealth decreases to the point that no one can get over life's hurdles.
It's entropic entrapment
bagoh20 said...
Two things have seriously hurt opportunity today 1) government regulators, and 2) lawyers. Both are in the business of fucking your dreams.
They are both frictional elements which dissipate energy and potential as heat instead of doing useful work.
Shouting Thomas said...
I don't see this envy much. I read about it on the web.
May you dwell in rarified climes.
May you dwell in rarified climes.
Everybody should know a bunch of Filipinos.
Jolly, achieving people.
True believers in the comments,though.
"How did a writer so detached from reality get into the Times!???!!!!11111??!?!!!?!?!!11"
A lot of this comes out of the grievance industry.
Tell people they should be envious and they'll get there.
This is, honestly, why I really don't get the income difference argument. Who cares if someone is a billionaire? Am I and my family eating, clothed, housed, educated, etc.? But in America that's most everyone and most everyone thus needs to be incited to give the government more power to make those rich people pay.
Envy is a deadly sin for a reason. It corrupts the heart and makes living with hope and thanksgiving impossible. The good in life is poisoned because there's perception that someone has more.
Really, it does give even more weight to the idea that progressives are the new Puritans in Mencken's description: Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.'
It just highlights the effectiveness of media bombast. Harp about something long enough and it will create its own reality.
It's a subterfuge to take away attention from what is really happening, as is mentioned above, the growing lack of opportunity for many, as this administration and the unelected bureacracy do their best to destroy the concepts of individual freedom and responsibility for ones own self.
The last time envy raised its ugly head was in the 80s/early 90s when it looked like Japan, INC> was an economic powerhouse and going to take over the US. (Remember their purchase of Rockefeller Center and numerous other architectural landmarks, and the Japanese book "The Japan that Can Say No: Why Japan Will be First Among Equals" that hit the bookshelves in the early 90s?) During this period I recall a survey being taken which asked of which two economic scenarios Americans would prefer: The first was one in which everyone's income in America doubled, but that of the Japanese quintupled; the second gave the choice of a 10% increase in American incomes, with only a 15% corresponding increase in Japanese incomes. Guess which one the majority of the respondents chose?
In January, 43 percent of Americans told the Pew Research Center that government should do “a lot” to “reduce the gap between the rich and everyone else.”
That's most of the 51.1% who cast their votes for Obama in the last presidential election.
The progressive blind faithful want to tax rape everyone. So they do. Funny, I don't see the economic equality unfold as promised. Instead, I see the left's wealthy donors and cronies taking it to the bank.
"The Parable of the Gas" explains that individuals are freest when they can gain or lose wealth freely. An important corollary is that all individuals must be free to do so. A natural distribution of wealth then appears which resembles a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution of relative energies for molecules.
So, what you're saying is that government (and government-derived monopolies) are Maxwell's Demon?
Well given the economic policies of the past five years, opportunity is in decline.
Almost everything the modern progressive state does is designed to level incomes, and yet the more it tries the bigger the gap gets.
The thing is that as the rich get richer, so do the poorest. The ones in the middle are the ones who are slowed through the process. There is lots of free stuff for the poor and lazy. There is tons of opportunity to get very rich for the well positioned, but those in the middle get little help, and have an ever growing pile of obstacles put in their way that stop them from moving up. The government and legal system are great if you are on the bottom, and affordable problems for the already rich, but the guys in the middle get no help and can't afford to grease the wheels.
You need to get rich real quick before anybody notices you trying. Then don't tell anybody.
In one of the debates Obama told Romney that his (Obama's) nest egg was not as big as yours - Romney.
I thought that was Obamas character flaw in display, but nothing was made of it.
So, what you're saying is that government (and government-derived monopolies) are Maxwell's Demon?
Yes, but with a caveat of activation barriers and relative population energies:
Conversely, as an economy cools, individual's wealth more closely align and resemble one another but the average wealth decreases to the point that no one can get over life's hurdles.
[Though upon reflection I'd amend "no one" to read "fewer"]
Lem wrote: In one of the debates Obama told Romney that his (Obama's) nest egg was not as big as yours - Romney.
Suppose that Obama was thinking in Spanish - "huevos"?
That Romney has more "huevos" than him?
Ha, I see what you did there... Nest egg.
As for Romney, he didn't go after him, so, Romney lacked the right kind... or the kind that was called for.
Romney was a pussy. He should have went after Obama hard on this as on so many other issues.
The press wasn't gonna hate him any more so he shouldn't worry about them.
I hope the next candidate is not afraid to attack the sacred cows.
Especially if he is running against Hilary. There's a fucking cow if ever there was one.
Obama is in the grievance industry. He wants to make it us against then. That is the whole point of race hustlers. He is just trying to transfer into the body politic at large.
Or and one more thing. The them he is talking about? That's us. You tax paying middle class bitter clingers.
Typical Times rot. The increase in envy has been engineered by satanists. That's correct, you thought I was going to say the Left, but the Left IS the devil's party.
In a perfect world, that is to say a ricpic world, there would be no envy. For why should grain of sand me envy grain of sand you for some slight advantage that has accrued to you based on a talent you have or the industriousness you have or even the luck you have and I don't? Why? Because it's not fair, as the shitstain Left screams? Who's entitled to "fair?" Who are these creatures that DEMAND fairness? Ungrateful wretches!
It's not just envy; it's that people focus so much on negatives, they can't be bothered with happiness. The grievance industry is thriving.
A fb friend just posted a blog post on bullying at Church and all the mother hens came out tut tut tutting about how horrible other children were to their children or how horrible they were to them when they were young. One lady commented that not everyone was going to get along all of the time and it's best to let your children know that their self worth is not tied to how someone else treats them.
You would have thought the poor woman started WWIII. The responses she got were insightful. I began to think the other moms didn't appreciate having their victimhood stripped away.
I am doing fabulously. I just completed a training seminar in Princeton and received a nice "spot bonus".
Quit bitching and do something about it beyotch.
“you look at the guy that lives in the mansion on the hill, and you think, you know, one day, if I work really hard, I could live in that mansion. In Ireland, people look up at the guy in the mansion on the hill and go, one day, I’m going to get that bastard.”
Lol. That's because Americans are actually dumb enough to believe it. Hahaha.
In reality, an American's less likely to increase his earnings over his parents than is a Dane.
But God bless the American! He sure likes to believe things! No one can take away his right to believe nonsense and cant!
Nothing outdoes a conservative's ability to believe things that aren't real.
He should have went after Obama hard on this as on so many other issues.
Why should he have done so? Half of America already knew he was out to get them!
Romney's record on going hard after ordinary Americans was well known. Newt Gingrich at least had the honesty to identify his vocation as "vulture capitalism". A guy who circles around the economically sick and dying so that he can pick at their bones and sell their carcasses to China is not who you want to lead. Enough with right-wing poverty-creation and hatred of the poor. Enough.
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