[ExI] John B. Calhoun’s Mouse Utopia Experiment and Reflections on the Welfare State

[Anton Sherwood]

On 2020-10-13 08:05, Dave Sill quoted:
> I can think of one big difference between Calhoun’s mouse utopia and the 
> human welfare state, and it does not weigh in humanity’s favor. For the 
> mice, everything truly was “free.” No mouse was taxed so another mouse 
> could benefit. In the human welfare state, however, one human’s benefit 
> is a cost to another (or to many)—a fact that rarely acts as an 
> incentive for work, savings, investment, or other positive behaviors. 
> That suggests that a human welfare state with its seductive subsidies 
> for some and punishing taxes for others delivers a double blow not 
> present in mouse welfarism.

Humans dependent on Welfare know that they can do little to prevent its 
being cut off at the whim of some bureaucrat or politician, and nothing 
to increase it.  Hence, learned helplessness, which is a bad thing 
psychology-wise.

In a true post-scarcity world, if such is possible, I think we will find 
plenty of ways to keep ourselves busy with pastimes not available to 
mice, mostly status-seeking and sublimation.

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*\\*  Anton Sherwood  *\\*  www.bendwavy.org