
Envy’s hidden hand - JoachimOfFiore
https://aeon.co/essays/why-inequality-bothers-people-more-than-poverty
======
TheMagicHorsey
A beautiful society. But one that I fear is inevitably outcompeted by other
societies.

Let me explain. The article says that this society frowns upon the
accumulation of wealth or excellence in individuals because those things
damage the egalitarianism.

This is great for social stability, but it's not so good for the accumulation
of capital, division of labor, and specialization. If one wishes to build a
mill on a river to grind grain, then one MUST accumulate food first so one can
spend time building the mill. This is the accumulation of capital that
precedes investment.

If one wishes to be a miller, one must, almost by definition, stop hunting and
stand out among one's peers by doing something different.

A society like this can exist on a planet that is devoid of other societies
... but once your neighbors start accumulating capital and climbing the
technological ladder, you continue to exist only on their goodwill and
charity.

The egalitarian hunter-gatherer with wooden spears is, after all, no match for
the iron spear wielding Zulu who is organized into professional warbands and
has absolutely no pity for other civilizations.

~~~
strogonoff
I understood it that their society does not simply frown at one member
standing out, but rather its framework is such that, if one becomes better
than others in some regard, one has to overall “level it out” as it were by
suffering ridicule and/or making some nuanced changes to one’s behavior.

My primary objection is to the first paragraph of your comment, though.
Becoming out-competed by other societies is only an issue as long as this
framework is not adopted on higher scales. I know this is out of this world,
but it’s interesting to consider.

The true “global village”, possible thanks to modern connectivity, might be
the great enabler; although the same technology also facilitates community
fragmentation and bubbles, which are obstacles in context of establishing
global egalitarianism JuǀʼHoansi-style.

------
sergefaguet
and look at how much their egalitarian society achieved over the hundred
thousand years that it has existed.

inequality is how evolution works. something becomes better and dominates.
then the next iteration comes, and the next.

having a society that cares more about the distribution of wealth and power
rather than its total sum is a dead end. as someone who likes achieving things
i also find such a society just morally abhorrent.

~~~
CodeMage
_" For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more
intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York,
wars and so on -- whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the
water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed
that they were far more intelligent than man -- for precisely the same
reasons."_

What I find much more morally abhorrent than Ju/'hoansi's extreme
egalitarianism is our society's inequality, greed, corruption, sociopathic
derision of the concept of greater good and short-sighted disregard for our
future.

If I were forced to choose between the extremes of living in an uninspired and
underdeveloped society as described by Douglas Adams in my quote, or accepting
this pathological glorification of rampant capitalism as the pinnacle of
social evolution, I would rather choose to be a dolphin than human.

