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Comment by ThunderSizzle | Hacker News Reader

Just because someone has more material items than you doesn't mean your life is worse or that you are poor. Poverty isn't about how little you have to others - its about being able to provide and sustain yourself and your family in society. As far as I understand it, poverty is much less now than 100 years ago.

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Let's see how people would vote/poll on the option of having fewer material items & goods.

Generally I find this rhetoric is popular when people are making decisions for other people rather than those people articulating their desires.

Wrong.

For example, I voted with my feet. I used to live in the US, but I moved (back) to Germany, because despite the fact that I could make tons more in the Bay Area, my standard of living is much higher here.

The thing about votes is that they express the opinion of more than a single person.

Don’t know why this is being downvoted when it’s objectively true. Parent says wealth inequality is less in Europe therefore being “poor” is more desirable which makes no sense. The US could have higher inequality but that could just mean the richest are richer and the poor have the same standard of living. It could mean the poor are poorer in the US and the richest are even. It could mean the poor AND the rich are richer and better off than their EU counterparts. Just looking at inequality numbers doesn’t tell you anything about quality of life between the two continents…

Your analysis is wrong. Wealth inequality by itself is a problem, even if absolute levels are higher. This has been shown in study after study.

This obviously doesn't mean that any wealth inequality dominates any absolute level (quick: everyone gets nothing!), and getting the balance right is tricky.

But looking at the world happiness index, it is obvious that European countries are doing a pretty good job.

https://dmerharyana.org/world-happiness-index/

    1 Finland 7.842 7.809 5,554,960
    2 Denmark 7.62 7.646 5,834,950
    3 Switzerland 7.571 7.56 8,773,637
    4 Iceland 7.554 7.504 345,393
    5 Netherlands 7.464 7.449 17,211,447
    6 Norway 7.392 7.488 5,511,370
    7 Sweden 7.363 7.353 10,218,971
    8 Luxembourg 7.324 7.238 642,371
    9 New Zealand 7.277 7.3 4,898,203
   10 Austria 7.268 7.294 9,066,710
   11 Australia 7.183 7.223 26,068,792
   12 Israel 7.157 7.129 8,922,892
   13 Germany 7.155 7.076 83,883,596
   14 Canada 7.103 7.232 38,388,419
   15 Ireland 7.085 7.129 5,020,199
   16 Costa Rica 7.069 7.121 5,182,354
   17 United Kingdom 7.064 7.165 68,497,907
   18 Czech Republic 6.965 6.911 10,736,784
   19 United States 6.951 6.94 334,805,269
   20 Belgium 6.834 6.864 11,668,278
   21 France 6.69 6.664 65,584,518

That’s lovely. It sounds like the kind of thing that would work well in a fortune cookie.

Meanwhile, in the real world, we find that that’s not how happiness works at all. People want more than they used to have or they want more than the people around them. If they don’t, they aren’t happy.

You can blame capitalism all you like, but this is a fundamental tenet of brain chemistry. No matter how well off we are, our dopamine level adjusts to that.

That's not true though if you look at at global "happiness" studies, it's not the countries with the highest individual material wealth which typically come out on top, but the countries with the least wealth inequality, usually the Scandinavian countries.

That’s pretty much what I said. People are comparing themselves with those around them. If they’re about equal, they’re happy. If the society has high inequality, they’re unhappy. The absolute level of what they have is irrelevant, which is weird. You’d think that a person who doesn’t have to worry about food, clothing, shelter, entertainment and social connections would just be objectively happy. But no, the existence of many rich people makes them feel worse.

This isn’t good or bad. It’s just the way humans are.

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