Interesting Links for 13-01-2015
- Finally, a guide to successfully interrogating terrorists
(tags: terrorism interrogation psychology ) - We have experienced anarchy like this before. We should not over-react to it
(tags: liberal anarchy terrorism violence law politics ) - £300 for a job reference is the latest outrage in the exploitation of interns
(tags: work OhForFucksSake ( Read more... )
They point to a wide spread and, in my view erroneous and dangerous assumption that income and wealth is very strongly correlated to effort and therefore to fairness. I think this is significantly not the case.
Granted mob bosses won't be taking their advice from that site but people looking at modern day crypto-racketeers, seeing they are wealthy, assuming that that wealth corresponds with virtue and virtuous effort and thinking it okay for them to be wealthy and powerful.
For example, that certain newspaper proprietors are wealthy because they provide excellent news services and not because they have systematically corrupted local police, broken the law to obtain information and used that information and their circulation figures to blackmail elected officials in order to protect their money making ventures.
Or, for example, that certain industrial conglomerates are large, wealthy and powerful because they are well run and not because they have been appropriated by friends of leading politicians by force and at times outright murder using the apparatus of the state security services.
Hypothetically speaking.
There is a difference between you and I feeling guilty because we've wisely made good use of our luck and natural endowment to build a useful skillset and a prosperous career and people looking at the capitalist system and thinking it's infallibly able to reward virtuous effort.
Frankly, there are some people who ought to be apologising for how much they earn because they have stolen it from other people, often by subverting the democratic institutions of the country in which they live or work.
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As a percentage of the people who are reading that page, I suspect it's near zero.
Your approach comes across similarly as when people read a site saying "Be more confident in yourself, and stand up for your beliefs!" and say "But what about all the sociopaths who are far too confident in their beleifs? You're sending them a terrible message!"
I know far more people who feel guilty about their income when they earn less than twice the median wage, than I do people who are worth an absolute fortune by subverting democratic institutions.
But possibly we move in different circles :-)
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It’s about the explicit assumption that income, especially significantly higher than average income is a result energy or effort rather than a mixture of factors including inheritance, luck and systematic bias in the system.
It’s also about the implicit assumption that the universe has some providential power and that if you keep apologising for your good fortune the universe will yellow card you for ingratitude and your house will burn down.
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