Categories Society
We want to tell people what they deserve to earn, buy, make, be, say, believe, enjoy. Where they can live. Who they can love.
We even do this to kids through the story of Santa Claus and his naughty or nice list.
And we’re all just trucking along like this is okay.
We do it to ourselves. “I deserve a break”, “I deserve this cookie”, “I deserve a promotion”.
Why are we so afraid of wants and needs? Why do we frame it in terms of this moral currency? It’s weird.
We've traded our freedom to have wants and needs on the basis that we just have them for the ability to police others' wants and needs through whether or not they are deserving of the things they're asking for. But to do that we have to play the same game and be "more deserving."
I never said which society or how long we’ve been doing it. I’m sure you could trace this ideology back to agriculture at the very least.
Neatly phrased, Miss Erynn! But I think if we look back we\u2019d find that it was ever so. The feudal system from the Middle Ages and even unto the 20th century in Czarist Russia saw societies based on your observations.
— Edward M. Cook (@edcook111) November 1, 2018
One thing I've been noticing about responses to today's column is that many people still don't get how strong the forces behind regional divergence are, and how hard to reverse 1/ https://t.co/Ft2aH1NcQt
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) November 20, 2018
See this thing that @lymanstoneky wrote:
And see this thing that I wrote:
And see this book that @JamesFallows wrote:
And see this other thing that I wrote:
No not Piers Morgan, I give no shits about him.
I mean this thing of criticizing women’s sensuality and then saying that they should get by on just their talent. Cause we see it everywhere...
Hi Joan, my mother taught me to speak my mind & never be afraid to express honestly held opinion.
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) November 21, 2018
Ellen's a hypocrite - and as for Little Mix, I'd just prefer they use their talent to sell records rather than their nudity.
As your own daughter does...! https://t.co/nCQAsIgoVG
And it comes up in a lot of different spaces:
And it comes up in a lot of different ways:
It’s interesting because we know that psychologically speaking, conventionally attractive people are better received.
Attraction can shift as you get to know someone on an individual level, but overall our society privileges people who look good.
I don’t understand the question?
This is a survival mechanism. I'm not saying it's not an issue, I'm just asking how do you fix it? Or can you fix it? If not are you just complaining to complain?
— JustUnderReality (@under_just) November 21, 2018
This New York Times feature shows China with a Gini Index of less than 30, which would make it more equal than Canada, France, or the Netherlands. https://t.co/g3Sv6DZTDE
That's weird. Income inequality in China is legendary.
Let's check this number.
2/The New York Times cites the World Bank's recent report, "Fair Progress? Economic Mobility across Generations Around the World".
The report is available here:
3/The World Bank report has a graph in which it appears to show the same value for China's Gini - under 0.3.
The graph cites the World Development Indicators as its source for the income inequality data.

4/The World Development Indicators are available at the World Bank's website.
Here's the Gini index: https://t.co/MvylQzpX6A
It looks as if the latest estimate for China's Gini is 42.2.
That estimate is from 2012.
5/A Gini of 42.2 would put China in the same neighborhood as the U.S., whose Gini was estimated at 41 in 2013.
I can't find the <30 number anywhere. The only other estimate in the tables for China is from 2008, when it was estimated at 42.8.