11 points by 082349872349872 4 days ago | 1 comment
psd1 3 days ago
Economics doesn't understand Maslow's pyramid.
I don't give a snotty fuck if stonk go up or we have more iphones than our parents. They're cherry-picking data. Maslow's pyramid is a useful model; GDP is meretricious puffery.
Pyramid delta is a bigger factor in a generation's zeitgeist than position.
Self-actualisation was, generally, off the table for the greatest generation. For most people, their lives were mapped out at birth. OTOH, hunger was a recent memory, so they made progress up the pyramid.
Boomers were the first generation for whom self-actualisation was within reach. You didn't have to give up housing to be a beat poet.
We were brought up to believe that self-actualisation was available to us, too. But in practice, you risk housing. I have personally been through a full cycle of this. I'm infinitely richer than when I was 20, but I'm back where I was on the pyramid. I still have a long runway to chase self-actualisation, but I'll ultimately go back to being a wage slave for a company I don't give a shit about.
So, when economists compile charts of numbers going up, and politicians crow that the economy is growing, you'll excuse me for dithering between prozac and axe murder.