What happens when a culture is driven by the need for money to make more money

Re:What happens when a culture is driven by the need for mon... by TheOtherHobbes on Wednesday November 11, 2015 @01:30PM (#10548267)

Doubling income is not the same as improving quality of life.

Capitalism suffers from a plague number of social ailments, including epidemic levels of stress and mental illness, that aren't present in "poor" cultures.

Besides, terraforming our planet to make it less, not more, inhabitable, hardly counts as a big win.

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Re:What happens when a culture is driven by the need for mon... by harryh on Wednesday November 11, 2015 @01:38PM (#10548324)

> Doubling income is not the same as improving quality of life.

LOL. Easy for you to say rich man. Go tell that to someone in Mozambique or Haiti or Nepal who is using their newfound wealth to finally be able to feed their kids a healthy diet.

Stress and mental illness.

Please.

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Re:What happens when a culture is driven by the need for mon... by kamaal on Wednesday November 11, 2015 @04:38PM (#10549493)

>>Stress and mental illness.

Even if that is true. I'd rather be stressed and be wealthy than be poor and forced to make a million sacrifices a day to just merely survive.

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Re:What happens when a culture is driven by the need for mon... by alextgordon on Wednesday November 11, 2015 @02:12PM (#10548546)

And many subsistence fishermen were able to feed their kids a healthy diet, until commercial fishing came along.

Capitalism is pulling people out of poverty, but it is also destroying natural ecosystems. Is the reduction in poverty sustainable, or will it come back when the resources are gone?

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Re:What happens when a culture is driven by the need for mon... by kamaal on Wednesday November 11, 2015 @04:39PM (#10549515)

Just wondering how to communist and socialist get food?

They pull metrics tons of food out of thin air?

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Re:What happens when a culture is driven by the need for mon... by TheOtherHobbes on Friday November 13, 2015 @07:51AM (#10559519)

Have you actually been to any of these "poor" countries and spent any time with the "poor" people who live in them?

Maybe you should try exploring some of the rest of the world before assuming you know what's best for it.

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Re:What happens when a culture is driven by the need for mon... by lifeformed on Wednesday November 11, 2015 @02:08PM (#10548523)

Overall, things are getting better for sure, but it's going in a trajectory that will settle into a shitty local minimum where poor people survive but are stuck with low quality of life. Getting people out of extreme poverty in the world is high priority, and we've been doing a pretty good job at that, as your graph shows. But there's a big rut after that that we need to work on removing too.

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Re:What happens when a culture is driven by the need for mon... by harryh on Wednesday November 11, 2015 @02:29PM (#10548655)

> it's going in a trajectory that will settle into a shitty local minimum

It's very hard to find evidence to support this point of view. You might hypothesize some future change in trajectory sure. But looking at the current trajectory? Pretty hard.

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Re:What happens when a culture is driven by the need for mon... by lifeformed on Wednesday November 11, 2015 @02:35PM (#10548695)

Based on the rut that most poor people in developed countries are stuck in.

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Re:What happens when a culture is driven by the need for mon... by iamsohungry on Thursday November 12, 2015 @05:28AM (#10552300)

You're correct that doubling income is not the same as improving quality of life, but I don't think stress and mental illness are particularly good examples of this.

A better example might be African countries where increased income has not led to better access to healthcare, but has instead fed a growing market for fake HIV/AIDS medications.

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