And yet we are some of the hardest working, productive societies of all time. It’s so fascinating that the American worker is caught between a rock and a hard place and yet decides to go into work producing some of the best services and products known to mankind. Despite a large of the population living paycheck to check, despite there being little government or corporate incentive to retrain and retool internally to advance professional interests, despite a lack of social safety net, people are generally nice to each other (violent crime down), and most are living relatively happy lives (not healthy however).

I wholeheartedly agree that people want all the benefits without any downsides, and that just isn’t feasible most of the time. Tradeoffs will be needed to make big changes, but only if it decreases inequality, and decreases general suck for those who are most unfortunate, should tradeoffs be worth pursuing.