Is there a term for how people tend to view 'acceptable standards of living' as a narrow range around where they're currently at? Too low and it's tragic, too high and it's exorbitant, and both of them spark outrage.
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Also, I think it'd probably be better if we relaxed that narrow view. Lives can still be happy with low standards of living, or kind with high standards of living, and there's been a lot of variance around these acceptable standards throughout history.
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Some examples: Some people are upset by the idea that people might be paid less than minimum wage, *even if that person considers it worth it to work for that amount*, despite that the living standard of today's poor is still better than it was throughout most of history.
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If the people at the top are billionaires, it's because they have exploited all the people who did the work at low wages. There is zero kindness in being a billionaire, even if all the people who made it possible are making the best of a bad situation.
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WRT comparisons, we're always going to compare to our neighbors. Being at the bottom of the economic ladder feels shitty even if by an objective materialist standard you have it far better than any of your ancestors.
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I used to have the opinion you voice but I have been drifting strongly toward one in which upset at severe inequalities and at abuses of naïveté.
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People are concerned by this because it historically leads to that slippery slope of everyone working for a master for the lowest grinding subsistence level doing shit they hate. People happy to work for cheap doing something they love are the baby thrown out with the bath water
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Todays poor work longer hours and have worse health and life expectancy (-infant mortality) than most medieval serfs did. Only by narrow materialistic standards are they better off.
Industrialization caused a drastic reduction in living standards that is only just being overcome
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