Will Wilkinson - Latest Comments in Equality or Priority, Again

Re: Equality or Priority, Again

a Duoist — Thu, 15 May 2008 22:50:14 -0000

"If you come to feel that involved plans tend to be dashed and that resisting gratification leaves you with less than you could have had, you’ll learn not to form involved plans or defer desire. I think having consistently enough money is a major factor in developing the sense that long-term projects can be successfully carried through. But having enough is itself largely a function of being able to carry through long-term plans. Poverty can be so pernicious precisely because it carries with it the conditions for its own reinforcement."

This describes the play between the two major factors of the many factors that make up human psychology: fallibilism (the Pessimist's world-view) and improvability (the Optimist's world-view). For the fallibilist, pain and suffering place 'helplessness' as the ultimate moral value. To the improvabilist, pain and suffering are to ameliorated as the goal of improving, but not by making the emotional blackmail of 'helplessness.'

Hard work and defering immediate gratification are hallmarks of optimism; cooperation and immediate consumption are hallmarks of pessimism. Poverty is a self-perpetuating anchor to the pessimist's world-view; to the optimist, today's poverty is but a spur to greater sustained effort.

The two world-views are eternally opposed; either poverty crushes, or it emboldens.

Re: Equality or Priority, Again

matt — Thu, 15 May 2008 10:59:01 -0000

My impression was that much of the pain and health difference among income (and education) levels had to do with dangerous and hard work. The poorly educated do jobs where one is much more likely to be injured or just get sore. They also pay less. (Rational) time preference surely comes in to play but it's also hardly the only issue. (Access to health care is of course also a big factor.)

Re: Equality or Priority, Again

Matt McIntosh — Wed, 14 May 2008 23:02:53 -0000

This paper by James Heckman might be of interest:

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/104/33...

Re: Equality or Priority, Again

pushmedia1 — Wed, 14 May 2008 21:14:39 -0000

I think folks believe "stuff" inequality causes those other sorts of inequality, Robert Frank style.

Re: Equality or Priority, Again

Utilitarian — Wed, 14 May 2008 21:12:20 -0000

There are also effects of cognitive ability on health independent of time preference, education, and SES.
www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/2004fund...
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/329...
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.111...