Quote Originally Posted by kowalskil View Post
Occupy Wall Street?
Yes, rich people always want to be richer and richer. This is unfortunate; no one knows how to stop this, without taking away constructive motivation.
Actually, economists, psychologists and a handful of good politicians know. The general population is largely clueless about it, of course.

Motivation is a tricky thing and the ridiculously dumbed-down, politicised concept of motivation that drives slogans and talking points is just that - ridiculous.


Here's an excerpt:

a) Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is difficult to exploit for leaders, but powerful and long-lasting. Extrinsic motivation (such as cash) is easily exploited by leaders, but its effect wears off over time. Ever greater extrinsic motivation inputs are required for the same motivation.

b) People don't care much about absolute wealth, but a lot about relative wealth. People don't want to be at the social pyramid bottom. The life of a rich trader in the middle age was more rewarding than the life of an unemployed person of today who has iPod, TV, warm water and climate control indoors.

c) There's furthermore a huge psychological difference between having some wealth taken away and having some wealth increase taken away. German post-WW2 economic policy acknowledged this and strived for 'wealth for everyone' by (allowing) redistribution of wealth growth rather than aiming at redistributing of what little survived the war. (This wisdom was lost to us during the weak growth of the 80's, though.)

d) Having 1-5% of the population earn less (net) may damage their motivation (doubtful, see later) but 80-95% earn more certainly does boost theirs, right? The focus on the feelings of the top 1% is a typical U.S. perspective, fostered by the media.



Finally, would the rich push less for national economic success if they earned less millions for the same effort?
Their absolute wealth is quasi-irrelevant, their relative wealth ain't. In fact, most of them might be MORE motivated to push for more personal income (and thus, supposedly, for more national income) if you take more away from them because that means they would lose relative social status and that's something they'll fight against.