[extropy-chat] Re: riots in France

[Brett Paatsch]

Jack Parkinson wrote:
 
>>Quite untrue. If everyone you knew was making zero
>> cents an hour and was 24 hours away from starvation
>> and you were making 7 cents an hour and was a
>>full 48 hours away from starvation you would feel like 
>> Rockefeller.
> 
> This is not 'quite untrue.' So far as I know there is no country
> on earth where 7 cents an hour is sufficient to meet a person's
> basic needs. Yes, a desperate person will accept your 7 cents
> (in much the same way that drowning men are supposed to
> clutch at straws). However, you can be assured 
> that they will not be delighted with you.

There would be relevant social psych, organisational behaviour 
(remuneration) data on this point.  Even studies with great
apes like chimps and gorillas suggest that it is not just the
size of the reward (food/money) but the relativity that
influences how the recipient feels about getting it. 

I'd give extremely long odds (and be confident I could source
the research to bear that contention out and win the bet for
so doing) that no one normal would be happy receiving 7 cents
an hour IF they knew that others were getting substantially 
better paid for exactly the same job. 

It must be something to do with how social creatures have 
evolved to expect some sort of proximity to equitable 
treatment and to resent the hell out of its absence.

What does matter however is that the inequitable treatment
be seen in comparative terms order for it to be perceived as
inequitable. Chimps may be happy with small rewards so 
long as they don't realise they are being comparatively short
changed.  On that point one of the first things that goes into
developing countries are broadcasts from Western media
showing the locals how others elsewhere are doing.  

Brett Paatsch