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Moreover, it's an undervalued question as to whether or not people want more pie, or a greater percentage of the pie. Utilitarianism is tricky at best, and money does not map onto utility; people who feel they're being screwed are not comforted by the promise that if things were more fair, they'd have less cheap stuff. Power over your own destiny is more important to people than consumer goods, and it looks like globalism might concentrate real power in the hands of the few, even if it makes us all able to buy more toys. (There's a reason the only people you see proposing universal basic income are those who wouldn't need it.)


> whether or not people want more pie, or a greater percentage of the pie

The former gets us medicine and computers and the internet and airplanes and expeditions to mars. The latter gets you warlords with local fiefdoms.


This is also true, and does not contradict what I said. If people made all their choices about ensuring peace and prosperity, the world would be a heck of a lot more prosperous and peaceful. We do not.




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