[petemill]

People will lose ability to be happy for other people's "success" when there's no hope they can achieve it. Likely it's not a signal of just being rich but instead a signal of rich vs poor. When there's a disappearing middle and it's just a wide gap between rich and poor then yes I can see why "rich" is a negative signal.

[rsj_hn]

In other words, envy that someone else has something you want. That's all that's going on.

Envy is hardwired into our ape-brains. Tests show chimpazees get resentful and angry when a neighboring chimpanzee is given a better treat than what they were given (say a grape versus a cucumber). They will shriek and throw their treat away and start jumping up and down. This is modern journalism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KSryJXDpZo

But that type of ape-morality can't support civilization, which requires large complex organizations and hirearchies. In those hirearchies, you have enormous inequality. The bigger the hierarchy, the greater the inequality. Moreover the gains in any effort are primarily driven by a small productive core. 80% of gains are provided by 20% of people. 80% of those gains are provided by 20% of those people. etc. Advancement and civilization was only possible when we obtained social technology to short-circuit the ape brain, most often religion. With religion, we are taught that the future (or past) life balances out the present life, so there are no real inequalities. We are taught to respect hierarchy and authority, be thankful for what we have, and to pray for the king. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's. Then civilization can develop.

But there is always that animal-morality lurking in the background, waiting to break out in people getting angry and rioting that someone else has something they want, and these outbreaks of weaponized envy have been plaguing the post-Christian west with increasing severity, always leading to the same thing, namely increasing misery for all. It doesn't matter whether it's California cancelling gifted programs because some are learning more than others, or calls for wealth taxes because some are earning more than others, or the general moaning about how unfair everything is, and why can't we build a utopian civilization without hirearchy.

[pydry]

Or Japan stripping its oligarchs of their wealth (partly at America's insistence) leading to a post-war boom like no other.

Or, if it comes to that, top American tax rates of 98% that ceilinged income, presaging the strongest economic growth the country has ever experienced and the growth of the middle class (a species that has since become endangered).

Alas, as is often the case in nature, the parasite manages to fool the host into believing it is not only benign, but necessary.

[rsj_hn]

> Or Japan stripping its oligarchs of their wealth

I seriously recommend cracking open a history book, because you are confusing political lustration of the old regime with downward redistribution.

But a good hallmark of the envy-based religion is to cheer when someone richer is made poorer, irrespective of whether any downward redistribution occurs. This is because the anger is pointed towards those who have something you don't, and so that anger is appeased when they are hurt. It doesn't matter whether you do not benefit, or even are hurt yourself, in the process.

> top American tax rates of 98% that ceilinged income, presaging the strongest economic growth

Like 10 families paid those rates, they lasted about a decade before JFK repealed them, and the lowering of those rates led to a revenue increase. Top rates had little to do with the economic boom.

> Alas, as is often the case in nature, the parasite manages to convince the host that it is not only benign, but necessary.

Absolutely. And when the politics of envy leads to bad outcomes, that is taken as proof that even more must be done. Among the infected, envy is always the key to better living standards, regardless of your current situation.

[pydry]

>I seriously recommend cracking open a history book

It wouldn't contradict me. From what I can surmise from your illustrious prose you... didnt either?

>But a good hallmark of the envy-based religion

It is odd that you are seemingly assigning an envy based religious motivation to American post war economic policy (e.g. 98% income tax rates).

>Like 10 families paid those rates

Hence my use of the term "ceilinged" - an indulgent metaphor that I would hope an erudite student of history would interpret as "that which one can not go above".

>Absolutely. And when the politics of envy

....post war economic policy?

>leads to bad outcomes

Like... the creation of the middle class? Exceptional growth? What were the Bad Outcomes of the 1950s with its 98% income tax rates you are warning us of? Help me understand.

I guess what you're saying is that this "politics of envy" risks destroying that which is not only benign, but necessary?

[petemill]

Not envy, no. I think you're looking at the problem from a very limited angle. I would classify it as more disillusion at the system that enables there to be billionaire owners of a company with workers on welfare. I have everything I need, so I'm not envious. I want to live in a society where as many others can live in comfort and not just a few at the top.