Status and human unhappiness

Optimists like to point to certain non-zero-sum aspects of human existence as evidence that things can get better.  They’re entirely wrong:  wealth is not zero sum.  Incremental technological change can make more wealth, and with sound institutions and public policy we can even hope to have that wealth distributed in ways that make it beneficial to lots of people (rather than just a small elite).

Unfortunately, people care an awful lot about status.  And status, pretty much by its very nature is zero-sum.  And not only is it zero-sum, but the fact that people use resources trying to get it means that the scramble for it will burn up a lot of the wealth that our incremental technological change generated for us.