How much does capital affect relationships?

[Dr Mindbender]

People are inherently not equal (define: be identical or equivalent to or (your definition probably) be equal to in quality or ability). Some people are beautiful; some are not. I could go through a whole list but you get this. But you say: we will make them equal economically (that is, the same resources are given to everyone) and yet there is still inequality. The trashman is less than the doctor, and the plumber is worse than the scientist. If you say "We will abolish the division of labor!" then you wish to abolish society (which formed because humans are more productive when they specialize (divide the labor) then alone) because suddenly you are no more productive with society than without it. You cannot teach everyone how to be a doctor, physicist, journalist, trashman, artist, novelist etc etc... there is not enough time and it would be inefficient and a waste of time.

Its really a philosophical question then. If we have a situation where the vast majority of people are living in misery because of their crap jobs is that sort of society really worth sustaining? Sure its dandy for the minority who are doing what they want, but in short, fuck them.

if we have a society where we regard collective self embetterment as a waste of time, you can keep that society. In my experience the distribution of labour has less to do with genuine ability and more to do with hereditary economics and the nepotistic business practices of contemporary companies. What will be more effective is the dual force of automation and re-appropriation of labour according to individual aspirations. Workers are more productive when they are happy and machines are more efficient at monotonous repetitve tasks than humans.

[Thirsty Crow]

I also see people that are pretty darn happy working for minimum wage.

Yeah, I know a few people who are darn happy working for a minimum wage.
The crisis being severe enough to produce a lack of jobs, their friends being fired...it's these small things in life, like the ability not to starve, that make people happy.
Besides that, personal happiness does not necessarily equate with wealth. However, wealth does necessarily equate with a better living standard so go figure.

[RGacky3]

I really don't think there is a connection.

Well, I guess its possible to be happy in slavery, so damn, lets have slavery.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Also, perhaps having extreme amounts of wealth is unhealthy and leads to problems, and not having enough leads to problems. I'm interested to know what degree wealth affects subjective relationships and health. If you gave everyone everything they needed, would social problems still exist? I think they probably would but its an interesting question i think

The effects of things like recessions can and increases or decreases in poverty can be looked at and have pretty decent generalized conclusions drawn from material data. For example, this last year saw a sharp drop in the brith-rate due to the recession so we know it has a real effect on people - on the other hand, the years after WWII when people had the GI bill and there was a period of "labor peace" and many people could expect to get a cheap home and a steady job with semi-regular wage increases... there was the baby boom in the US.

Second you can be wealthy in capitalism and still be subject to a lot of the pressures of the system: you can still have an unstable life where you are in constant competition with you fellow management-level workers or contractors or whatnot. So, for sure, there are many people with high incomes who still have problems and stress and instability that leads to other problems. But I'm not convinced that there is parody between the problems faced by workers or the poor and the super-rich who could be independently wealthy. There are many things that effect everyone - death, divorce, unavoidable illnesses, etc... they are hard for the rich as well as the poor, but the rich have many more ways to deal with it whereas for workers it is another problem compounding many others. Just think of a funeral and the difference of having a financial burden of burial or having paid people who will take care of all arrangements for you... is the death any less of a horrific thing to deal with, do the rich feel less sad? I doubt it, they just don't have the extra difficulties. Or divorce - isn't a break-up hard no matter what your income... isn't it much much more difficult if a divorce means you have to sell a house, move somewhere else, maybe get a low-wage job if you've been a stay-at home parent, have to now deal with paying babysitters and day-care because you can't work and raise a kid?

So IMO if people had control over their lives and didn't have the stress of poverty and competition and alienation and so on, death, divorce, illness would all still be hard to deal with and cause people distress and misery, but the fact is there is no rational reason for people to have to suffer the added problems connected to poverty in a society that can produce abundance - and if people can produce abundance collectively and cooperatively, then there is no reason for systems of control that class societies have always needed to keep society going.

[Commie77]

I have to analyse English literature and spoke texts for exams and I am interested in the marxist theory as well as others. If you apply it to a spoken text between a father and son arguing over something that the son wants but the father cannot afford you can say that the drama and conflict arises from lack of material necessities. The drama arises from a conflict which is a reflection of their material needs or wants.

This got me thinking that from my observation in general the poor tend to argue amongst each other more, they are more violent and they experience far more social problems than the bourgeoisie. But then there are many rich people who argue all the time with their family, get divorced take drugs etc etc. And i think that having capital and power, or having a healthy bank balance gives you a high, you feel relaxed and secure. Similarly if you are in debt or your bank balance goes up and down rapidly you perhaps feel low. Perhaps one is not conscious that the reason they feel bad is because they just spent a load of money and now have nothing however some people realise that being i debt is making them unhappy.

Also, perhaps having extreme amounts of wealth is unhealthy and leads to problems, and not having enough leads to problems. I'm interested to know what degree wealth affects subjective relationships and health. If you gave everyone everything they needed, would social problems still exist? I think they probably would but its an interesting question i think

well it all depends because i know many poor people usually value everything they have exspecialy there family. I also know that around half of the divorces are due to financial problems but that is probably mainly in the first world.