100 times happier?! No way! Pie in the sky! - Yes way! Pie on your plate!

100 times happier? No way! Pie in the sky! Yes way! Pie on your plate!



What if we have been getting unhappier for a very long time, so slowly that one lifetime cannot detect the overall fall? Where did I read that if you raise the temperature slowly enough, a live frog or something will cook without noticing?


Global fair pay for the family working at world-average hardness is US$200,000 [two workers, including, if applicable, a houseperson].
There is enough world income to pay every worker, including housewives and tertiary students, US$100,000 a year, US$40 an hour. That is, every worker, including housewives and students, is producing US$100,000 worth of goods or services per year, or $40 worth of goods or services an hour. [The whole of society benefits from study, so students are in justice paid, by society, for studying.] World annual income is US$300 trillion, and there are about 3 billion workers, including housewives and tertiary students. US$100,000 per worker.
The overpaid have been getting more overpaid and the underpaid more underpaid for 1000s of years.
No one has bothered to, or has been able to, determine how much fairpay is, so no one has known how much less than fairpay they are getting. People just go for some more money, when they feel that they are being underpaid, but no one has known how much underpaid they are.
The range of pay for a year's work is from $30 to $30,000,000,000 [billion].
Pay justice is equal pay for equal work, and we have pay from x to 1,000,000,000x for equal work, from 10,000th the fairpay to 100,000 times the fairpay.
Pay justice ['equality'] is one of the most important causes of happiness, pay injustice one of the biggest causes of unhappiness, for both overpaid and underpaid.
Violence [war and crime] is proportional to pay injustice.
Violence gets to everyone, overpaid and underpaid.
Violence is ever-growing, even without growth of pay injustice.
Pay injustice is growing.
The body is limited, finite, and bodily desires are limited, finite. When the tank is full, further petrol is useless, valueless to the vehicle. Drinking water after thirst is satisfied becomes torture.
Money is good, it buys most good things. It buys most necessities and millions of desires, major and minor. Money is the joker good, it is good for most things.
The pool of social wealth is limited, finite, not infinite. Number of workers is finite, number of hours of work is finite, nature's bounty is great but finite, quantity of materials is finite. Individual contribution by work is finite. So unlimitation of fortunes is unjust, is overpay, is theft, creates underpay. No one can take out more than they put in without others having to take out less than they put in. The size of the social pool of wealth can expand, with machines, with IT, with discoveries of more of nature's bounty, for example, but it is always finite. Individual contribution to the pool of wealth is always finite, so pay can always exceed fairpay.
There has never been a rational determination of what exactly constitutes pay justice. Pay justice is equal pay for equal work. But there has never been an exact determination of what constitutes work and what doesn't. People have been paid for many things that are not work, not personal sacrifice of time and energy. Pay for no work for some means work for no pay for others. Greed is wanting or allowing oneself to be paid for no work, wanting or allowing oneself to be paid for no work, for things that are not work, not personal sacrifice, as well as for one's work. Greed is love of overpay.
Attacks on overpay are proportional to the size of the overpay. Bigger banks have stronger vaults because they need them. Being attacked is not happiness.
An overfortune, however great it is, is finite, limited. But the attacks on it are endless. Underpay, theft of money, which is the joker good, is the theft of everything, so it gives endless energy to attack. So every overfortune is necessarily doomed, as history shows. The underpaid can only throw grains of sand, but sand erodes rocks. The underpaid have lost battles, they have never lost a war. Every empire has grown, though small, with pay justice, and every empire, though large, has fallen with pay injustice, overpay and underpay.
Every overfortune is eroded by the ceaseless cost of its defence, and so is driven to get money by more taking, which increases the underpay, which increases the speed of its fall.
Every time a heap of overpay [individual, national or imperial] is brought down, heaps of overpay start growing again, because no one has known where overpay starts, no one has known wherre to draw the line.
Overpay is miserable, because overpay cannot provide more satisfaction, because bodily desires are finite, and because overpay is always under attack [from both underpaid and overpaid]. Even if the overpaid manage to die a natural death, they have been forced to continuously defend the overfortune.
The overpaid are always in a hopeless, stressful bind: they are forced to make their subordinates strong to defend them, and weak to not attack them. They must always pay them well to quell the subordinates' inclination to attack them, and always pay them less to keep them too weak to attack them. They must find subordinates aggressive enough to be good defenders for them, and not aggressive enough to want to attack them. Every time they whack the subordinates down increases the 'steam' of the subordinates to attack them. Every time they lift the subordinates up, they increase the power of the subordinates to attack them. There is no balance point between the two. Every strength to defend them is strength to attack them. Every weakness is weakness to defend them. The overpaid person needs maximum strength and maximum weakness in their subordinates.
The overpaid are isolated, even from their subordinates and friends. But belonging to a community in amity and acceptance is one of the major causes of happiness. Loss of the human tribe is one of the greatest disasters, or is the greatest disaster to the human spirit. We are social animals.
It is not love of money that is the root of virtually all evils, but love of overpay that is the root of virtually all evils of humanity. Love of overpay is love of getting pay disproportionate to, in excess of, personal work, sacrifice of time and energy.
Money is power, power to rake money. This aggravates pay injustice, accelerates pay injustice.
Self-earned money is always good. Working 10% harder and getting 10% more is perfectly good, perfectly harmless to oneself. One is putting in more and getting out proportionately more. There is no overpay, no theft. There is no creation of underpay, no injury, no creation of enemies. Other-earned money is always bad, it is theft, it creates enemies.
Injury ricochets as untiringly as atoms. And, unlike atoms, injury increases with every ricochet.
People have thought money is good, and therefore they have thought that more money is always better. Self-earned money is always good, other-earned money is always bad, it always comes with an angry, a righteously angry person attached.
Because people have thought money is good, they have supported and allowed unlimited fortunes.
The more underpaid people are, the more that overfortune is a beacon of hope for them. The more underpaid people are, the more they dote on overpay.
The more that people are underpaid, the more they have gone for just more, and the less they have gone for getting out as much as they have put in. The more they have been underpaid, and the higher overpay has been, the more they have wanted overpay. Arguing from equality, they have argued that if anyone can have a superfortune, they can too. Pay injustice promotes the practice of pay injustice with everyone. Fairpay seems like injustice as long as there is overpay. Meanwhile, the overpaid are driven to seek more money by the endless costs of selfdefence. So no one has been interested in pursuing fairpay.
Everyone has supported all the ways that support and promote pay injustice. The underpaid have supported them because they can repair their underpay. The overpaid have supported them because they, more than anyone, fail to suspect that more money is not proportionately good. The overpaid are often those who least can imagine the effect of injury on others. Hitler thought that stealing Europe was a good idea. His unconsciousness of others was extreme, or total. Most people suspect that trying to steal Europe would not be a good idea.
The consciousness of the danger to themselves of themselves being overpaid has inhibited many people from venturing there, has made people turn away from pursuit of overpay or even of fairpay. Failure to distinguish money and other-earned money has made them think all money is bad. This has aided overpay. They have left the field more open for the overpaid. Similarly, failure to distinguish private property and other-earned private property has led people to abandon private property, or to fail to oppose the taking of private property, which has made it easier for the greedy to amass private property [eg, Communism].
Some people came down on the side of private property good, because they knew there was something good about private property, others came down on the side of private property bad, because they knew there was something bad about private property. And they have fought each other.
Self-earned money is perfectly good, it is taking out as much as you put in. It is as innocent and right, as spiritual, as godly, as good as a bear fishing and a bear eating.
Because of this all-or-nothing mindset about money, people have been put in a fog, in which they have been unable to pursue the identification of pay justice, the line between self-earned and other-earned money. This fog has been so dense that people have been forced to assume that what a person gets is what they have earned, although people get from $30 to $30,000,000,000 a year, from 10,000th to 100,000 times the world-average pay per year. [The figures for inequality, 'wealth disparity', we have heard have greatly muted the reality, because the figures are for groups of people, within which higher and lower pays are mixed.] People have been unable to say that greed is bad [destructive of happiness]. People have been unable to form the ideas of overpay and underpay.
There are so many rationalisations for higher-than-average pay per hour that people have been unable to decide that there has to be something wrong with extremely high incomes. When these rationalisations are sifted for rationality, it turns out that there are no reasons for higher-than-average pay per hour. Tertiary students should be paid for studying, because it is work, sacrifice of time and energy. [Society has the right to decide how much studying it wants to buy.] Both the overpaid and the underpaid have supported these rationalisations for higher-than-average pay per hour, the overpaid have supported them because they just want more, and whatever argument, true or false, helps them get it, is good to them, the underpaid have supported them because they hope to reduce their underpay by them.
The rationalisations for overpay make the underpaid more underpaid, because the overpaid profit from the rationalisations far more. Every opening for pay for no work is an opening for work for no pay for others. While the underpaid may gain something from them, they lose more. Their net financial gain is negative. Every unjust little straw the underpaid get, in order to suck on the milkshake of wealth, the overpaid get an unjust big straw. Only work adds to the pool of wealth, only work entitles to take out.
It may seem better if one is free to take out as much as one can, than to be limited to taking out only as much as you put in, but being limited to taking out only as much as you put in also limits everyone else to the same.
Before job specialisation, division of labour, everyone did their own work and consumed their own production. Pay injustice was impossible, except by obvious theft. Job specialisation required a pooling of products of work, so that everyone could get a mix of goods. This made it possible to get out more than you put in, making theft, making violence, ever-increasing, as both sides tried to prevail, with ever bigger weapons.
With job specialisation, trade was necessary. With trade came money, a convenient artificial barter item with the advantages of nonperishability, portability and divisibility. If you grew lettuces, and needed a wheelbarrow, it was hard to find someone who made wheelbarrows and wanted 100 lettuces, and your lettuces perished on the way. It was much easier to find people who wanted lettuces, and to exchange them for money, and then find someone making wheelbarrows, and give money for one.
But it was here that the transaction imp stepped in. It is impossible to determine the exact value of anything [the exact amount of work, of sacrifice of time and energy, that has gone into the product]. So the workvalues of any two things exchanged have to be x and x+y. So every transaction has to be a fair-exchange-no-robbery [the x's] plus a robbery [the y]. So theft is built in to every transaction, even if the parties intend no theft. And the theft is invisible, unobvious. Over trillions of transactions over time, very few will break even, most will net gain or lose, a few will net gain or lose a lot. Inequality will grow with every transaction. And become obvious. The underpaid will blame the overpaid, but the overpaid will know that they have done nothing intentionally wrong, and so will be reluctant to say they have more than they should have. [Are you calling me a thief?!] So the two sides will fight, the underpaid certain they have been injured, the overpaid confident they have not injured. All this without greed. The overpaid begin to seek rationalisations for their overpay, and the underpaid begin to use the rationalisations to try to repair their underpay.
Add in the greedy [shortsighted, selfdestructive] desire to make the y as big as possible, by stealing wages and puffing product, add in the power that money gives to make money, to plunder and coerce, and you speed up the evergrowing inequality.
We pay for natural gifts. But natural gifts are work that nature has done, not the person. The person should be paid for every bit of work they do developing their gift [if the product is something people want], but not for the gift. [Which is as big a nonsense as paying people for receiving birthday gifts. 'Ah, I see Uncle Jack has given you a guitar. How much do I owe you?'] 99% are underpaid, 99% are net funding this pay for no work [overpay] by work for no pay [underpay]. But the underpaid see it as a way they can repair their underpay, and support it. So no one can see the nonsense. We pay people for having studied, although having studied is not work. 99% are funding this pay for no work. But the underpaid support it, hoping to get on the paying end of it. We pay for experience, although experience is gained in paid work at no effort by the person. People think: Ah, I will one day be paid for my experience, that will be good. And then when someone is super-overpaid, we are forced to think: He must have tremendous experience. Or any of the other rationalisations for higher-than-average pay per hour of work. We pay for skill, but that is either gift or experience. We allow pay for 'responsibility', although that is gift, not work. Or it may not exist. No one can measure it, quantify it, and no one can set a correct payment per unit of it if we could quantify it. Yet we still allow 'responsibility' as a reason to justify higher-than-average pay per hour. And then we set ourselves to climb the ladder of success, getting a 'more responsible' job with 'more pay'. And the people in 'less responsible' jobs are left feeling inferior, are not looked up to as much, although they are doing their jobs as responsibly, or perhaps more responsibly. And, since the 'responsible' person has not added anything to the pool of wealth by his 'responsibility', the 99% underpaid have to work without pay to make the goods the 'responsible' person takes out [buys with the money he is paid for 'responsibility'] without having put anything in. [The 'responsibility' may add to the pool of wealth, but nature has done the work in giving the person the responsible character. The person doesn't work harder being responsible. It flows effortlessly from character. If it exists. If someone says: I am paid this grand salary because of my onerous responsibilities, ask them: Who measured your responsibility?] We pay for business risk, although the person is risking for themselves! [I'm going fishing for myself, I'm going to be risking my bait. Pay me now, will you, I might not see you later.] And we don't pay a limited sum, we pay unlimitedly. However much he gets, risk justifies it, or helps to justify it.
Once all these rationalisations for higher-than-average pay are seen for what they are, we can determine the maximum self-earned fortune. It is 100 hours x 50 weeks x 50 years x $40 - US$10 million. [We should subtract the minimum lifetime spending, but we are only need a ballpark figure that is definitely above the maximum self-earnable fortune, and near it.] Then we can limit fortunes with a clear conscience. This will stop underpay going so terribly, brutally low. The injury will be greatly reduced. The violence, which gets to everyone, will be greatly reduced. Happiness for all will soar.
I like the idea of limiting pay to 50 hours a week, to discourage overwork. Overwork steals from the self, the family and the community. Balance of work and leisure is vital for quality work. Leisure gives perspective to see when you need a change of direction. Leisure is thought. Thought is good. Ad this allows us to lower the maximum to $5 million, which will raise the underpay more, and reduce the violence more, and increase happiness more.
If pay justice was a swimming pool one metre deep, our pool is 98% up in a thin, thin needle going up 100,000 metres, 100 kilometres. A simple way of bringing this down gently, without making economic waves, is to make everyone in the world equal heirs of large deceased fortunes. The overpay will rain down on everyone over two generations. The deceased could not have made the overfortune. The private heir did nothing to make the fortune. Everyone in the world did everything to make the goods that the money represents and buys. So such a law is just. Justice is good for everyone, because injustice makes violence, and violence gets to everyone. We pay everyone, the overpaid and the underpaid, only because it saves the enormous bureaucratic cost and labour of distinguishing the two. The overpaid are being trimmed by the law anyway. Underpay will come up close to fairpay. Governments to be responsible for making sure everyone has access to a bank. [Governments profit from the reduced social costs of war and crime.] The equal shares to be transferred immediately, directly, electronically. The overpower and misery of the overpaid will be being whittled steadily, effectively, and the money going to the underpaid will immediately start to pour waters on the fires of terrorism, uneducation, anger, disease, starvation, slavery, etc.
Another possible way is to run a 1% per month increase of the money supply by putting equal shares of the 1% into all bank accounts [one per person, of course]. The inflation effect will bring overfortunes down more than the equal share will raise them, the inflation effect will bring underfortunes down less than the equal share will raise them. Fortunes will approach fairfortune from both sides. This method is even less interfering than the first idea. And it is even easier to administer. Set everyone up with accounts, work out what 1% of the money supply is, work out the number of people there are, and electronically write equal shares into the accounts. Inflation is only bad if people have to earn at the old rate and buy at the new rate. But the underpaid will be getting more money than the inflation will trim from their fortune, and the overpaid are not short of money.
So how much happier can we be? We have a pay injustice factor of one billion. We have a violence factor of one billion. We have a potential for increase of happiness factor of one billion.
Imagine if a government committed the super-extreme injustice of taking 90% of aftertax income off 90% of workers and giving it all to 1%.