Delete comment from: Captain Capitalism
I don't think that this is entirely accurate. True, those princesses don't have friends, but that's not because they have immense wealth, but because nobody else does. Wealth exerts a certain "gravity," just as we all fall toward the distinct center of this ball called Earth, all of those Mercedeses mysteriously "fell" thousands of miles in the direction of the Mayo Clinic when an immense wealth mass showed up there.
We throw away clothes because they have holes in them. We throw away glass jars because they're empty. They're simply beneath our notice. Somebody in a poorer society would sew up the holes, and certainly wouldn't throw out a perfectly good container. Thus, if we were all infinitely, "replicator" wealthy, then having any kind of stuff would be meaningless. Our skills and our relationships would be the only thing that separate us, because wealth wouldn't exert that gravity, and it wouldn't be worth it for laborers and yes-men to stick around and put up with that awful behavior for a chance at something they don't need.
Jul 8, 2013, 9:54:16 PM
Posted to Why Scarcity is a Good Thing