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Comment by bombolo | Hacker News Reader

So you are saying there is nothing wrong with a country where a few own everything and everyone else doesn't even have access to healthcare?

> In fact, people try to flee countries who implement that sort of resource allocation.

Yes, rich people, lol. People who GET access to things like housing and healthcare remain.

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I feel like you are mischarecterizing OPs argument. His argument is that rather than focus on inequality we should focus on increasing everyone's standard of living overall.

> > we should focus on increasing everyone's standard of living overall

The most important quality of life metric is mental health.

There is no way around the fact that mental health is heavily impacted by the fact that citizens feel worthless when they assess their social status vis-a-vis the top 1%

And no amount of stuff will solve this problem because social status is a zero-sum game.

It's one of those problems that simply cannot be solved.

i dont think people revolt because they feel bad when they compare themselves to the 1%. People revolt because they have nothing to lose. Their material conditions are the most important thing in this equation. I'm sure that a populace can tolerate inequality to a point (look at the inequality in the US and Europe, for example) but once a large enough slice of the population has nothing to lose then it's choppy boy time.

You are right, but it’s desirable to prevent suicides and mass depression just as much as it’s desirable to prevent revolts.

Revolts spark because people have nothing to lose

Mass depression, bad mental health on a country level and suicides happen when people feel worthless

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