HAPPINESS, INCOME, AND TAXES Daniel Kahneman states that above $60k, happiness d

HAPPINESS, INCOME, AND TAXES

Daniel Kahneman states that above $60k, happiness does not increase with wealth. And that pretty much reflects the other observations that almost all spending above about 70K is signaling. That’s it. Bigger more expensive homes, bigger more expensive cars, personal rather than state investments, and access to more cushy work environments.

Now, unlike foolish equalitarians, I understand that signaling is terribly necessary, because without it, we can’t really function. After all, wealth and signals are a test, and it turns out that given how hard they are to obtain, they’re a pretty good test.

Recent analysis says that not 47%, but 70% Pay Zero Net Taxes. Once it s 80%, then the Pareto principle will be again proved as well. The economy will consist almost entirely of abstract property that is held by the 20% who know how to use it, and the 80% will provide little other than consumption, and status to the upper 20%. Who will then use the artifice of state the capture and protect their positions – like always.

I don’t like this kind of world. 🙁 But that’s just how it is. I am not sure I understand a world without families, where the vast majority of the population is manorialized into white collar serf labor managed through laws, credit and taxes at threat of deprivation of consumption. I mean, how is that any better than agrarian serfdom other than we have fuller bellies and lonelier lives? Does that mean that serfdom is our necessary and desired state? What happens when all simple desires are easily sated?

I think that such a society cannot compete with a paternalistic society, and strong families, whether they be absolute nuclear families or traditional. Families create calculability and aggregates destroy it. Just like prices. Without families we cannot calculate anything because no category exists in common other than the individual, and the individual is a meaningless category.