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Comment by bocajuniors | Hacker News Reader

i think it is quite clear that a purely capitalist society is unjust and oppressive.

There has already been some good conversation in this thread over that, which I think at the least means that it isn't quite clear at all.

i think it's very obvious that a purely capitalistic system produces a lot of very poor people.that is it is a bad system.

You end up with a lot of people who are relatively poor but practically rich, whereas socialism promotes a system in which nobody is richer (or poorer) than his neighbor but with the nasty side effect that everyone is practically poor.

Hence it's a relatively good system :)

... assuming that being "practically rich" causes happiness.

There was some study a while ago that said that most people would rather have 1000$ in a society where others have 10$ than have 1 million in a society where everyone is a billionnaire. (I made up the numbers, I didn't look for the actual thing. I'm not sure how they accounted for the "inflation" that such a mythical society would have)

The thing with the study about having $1,000 but the most and having $1,000,000 but the least is that it doesn't account for what that money can get you. If everyone in the world had a billion dollars then a billion dollars would be relatively worthless.

The study should have been phrased: "If you could have only $1,000 worth of stuff but it was 100 times more stuff than everyone else, or $1,000,000 worth of stuff but it was 1000 times less than everyone else, which would you choose?"

I think the majority of people would choose to have $1,000,000 worth of stuff, even if it's the least, which translates to "I would rather be considered 'poor' in a thriving society than be considered 'rich' in an impoverished society."

That's what I meant when I said "accounted for inflation". I'll hunt up the study some day. I'm not so sure about you conclusion, though, but maybe my experience with people was different. I'm also skeptical that most people would reason that prices would go up in the billion dollar society. I think the biggest fear is: I am at the deep bottom of the social ladder.

i didn't say that a purely socialistic society is any better.and, as long as you make more than 100k/year(which is enough to fullfill your physical needs), it really is your relative income that counts.

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