The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. … A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. … But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socio-economic unfairness. (Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms)
This is the single greatest example I have seen highlighting the problem.
The poor cannot afford to have things that last, things that allow them to think of the future, and hence are stuck in a cycle of debt in the present to near future time periods.
However what I don’t understand is how the rich get so short sighted when they have both the motivation and resources to plan for long term outcomes. Doesn’t make sense.
Underpaying workers leads to worse productivity and apathy towards your superiors.
Does the world really have so few resources that the only way to keep number go up is to exploit the less fortunate?
When will feudalism truly end?
This is the single greatest example I have seen highlighting the problem.
The poor cannot afford to have things that last, things that allow them to think of the future, and hence are stuck in a cycle of debt in the present to near future time periods.
However what I don’t understand is how the rich get so short sighted when they have both the motivation and resources to plan for long term outcomes. Doesn’t make sense.
Underpaying workers leads to worse productivity and apathy towards your superiors.
Does the world really have so few resources that the only way to keep number go up is to exploit the less fortunate? When will feudalism truly end?
The rich will throw away their perfectly fine boots after a few years because they aren’t in style anymore.
The rich have that option.