I wonder if it would be interesting to use PPP-adjusted sale price of high-end luxury or Veblen goods as a metric for moral progress of humanity (I suspect on this metric, we’d look like we were getting progressively worse, but I’m unclear if that’s a bug or a feature).
Yeah, it’s a relatively objective expression of the ratio of how much the most successful people in society care about tiny benefits to themselves vs any alternative.
I wonder if it would be interesting to use PPP-adjusted sale price of high-end luxury or Veblen goods as a metric for moral progress of humanity (I suspect on this metric, we’d look like we were getting progressively worse, but I’m unclear if that’s a bug or a feature).
To clarify, do you mean that high consumption of Veblen goods would imply worse morality?
Yeah, it’s a relatively objective expression of the ratio of how much the most successful people in society care about tiny benefits to themselves vs any alternative.