Wealth is Relative

[Brainwalter]

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The explanation is that as the average income increased, the amount of stuff people need to be average increased as well.

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Thanks, Capt Obvious. Again... what's the point?

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The point is that the distribution of wealth in society matters, and the fact that a janitor today is better off than a king in 1492, does not matter.

A janitor compares his station in life to the lives of people who are alive today, not to people who've been dead 500 years or more.

His sense of satisfaction with his station depends not on whether he has stuff, but on how much stuff he has in relation to others.

Wealth is a relative, not an absolute measure.

Of course, you can argue that it's stupid to base your sense of self-worth or happiness on how much stuff you have... but that's another argument.

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The logical implications of this are abhorrent. They include: We shouldn't work to erradicate diseases like AIDS, cancer, heart disease, because since they affect everyone equally, no one will be better off without these diseases as they won't be getting one-up on their neighbors.

If everyone woke up tomorrow with no left hand, no eyesight, they would not be worse off since everyone else was similarly crippled.

Moorobot made a post on the point you should be making (relative inequality matters) about how if you can't afford a microwave, it sucks when all the store sells are TV dinners, or when most everyone could afford cars, public transportation suffered. But the point you ARE making (ONLY relative inequality matters, absolute wealth does not) is patently absurd, illogical, and ruinous.