Sunday, September 27, 2009

Poverty is OK

Robin Hanson looks forward to being poor. But I fear the path there won't take us to the anonymous semi-contentment of the Dark Ages, because it passes through population crash first.

6 comments:

AntiCitizenOne said...

Poverty is NOT OK, especially when there's no reason to be poor.

The only reason the U.K. will be poor is if the state punishes (even more) those lifting us out of poverty.

Sackerson said...

The really rich seem to carry on working hard even when most people would think they don't need to. How much does tax affect their behaviour, other than to shop around between regimes?

AntiCitizenOne said...

Exactly. Forcing the more productive to leave isn't a good policy.

Sackerson said...

And with world government, there won't be anywhere to leave to.

AntiCitizenOne said...

Then the productive will work for less of their time.

Paddington said...

AnticitizenOne - I hear this all the time. However, most of the engineers and scientists that I know work far harder than necessary, since they are compulsives. In the business world, one might look at Sweden, where they are just as productive as elsewhere.