{"id":2505803,"date":"2025-11-10T01:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T06:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/?p=2505803"},"modified":"2025-11-10T09:53:27","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T14:53:27","slug":"economics-of-gratitude-what-new-yorkers-forgot-about-prosperity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/2025\/11\/10\/economics-of-gratitude-what-new-yorkers-forgot-about-prosperity\/","title":{"rendered":"Economics of Gratitude: What New Yorkers Forgot About Prosperity"},"content":{"rendered":"

If I were to sum up the mindset of New Yorkers who elected Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City, it would be We want something for nothing, and we want the rich to pay for it.<\/em> Instead, they will get nothing for something, and they will pay for it with a degraded quality of life.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s victory was paved with ingratitude for the blessings New Yorkers receive daily. The mindset demanding \u201csomething for nothing\u201d from society is not just a political phenomenon, but a profound lapse in economic understanding and moral character.<\/p>\n

Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Bastiat, in his Economic Sophisms<\/em><\/a>, brilliantly exposed what many don\u2019t understand. He wrote, \u201cOn entering Paris, which I had come to visit, I said to myself: Here are a million of human beings, who would all die in a short time if provisions of every kind ceased to flow towards this great metropolis.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bastiat explains that our \u201cimagination\u201d can\u2019t even encompass \u201cthe vast multiplicity of commodities\u201d that must enter daily to stop Parisians from starving. \u201cAnd yet,\u201d Bastiat pointed out, \u201call sleep at this moment, and their peaceful slumbers are not disturbed for a single instant by the prospect of such a frightful catastrophe.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was written in 1845; today, the complexity of the economy to keep Parisians (and New Yorkers) alive and well has increased exponentially. Yet, if there were a Gallup survey tracking the gratitude of New Yorkers from 1847 to today, I would bet that gratitude has declined.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Economic Harmonies<\/em><\/a>, Bastiat wrote of a person of modest circumstances, \u201cIt is impossible not to be struck by the disproportion, truly incommensurable, that exists between the satisfactions this man derives from society and the satisfactions that he could provide for himself if he were reduced to his own resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given that fact of life, is ingratitude a sign of an ignorant and arrogant mind? After all, as Bastiat added, \u201cI make bold to say that in one day he consumes more things than he could produce himself in ten centuries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Insightfully, Bastiat added that this gift of riches from others doesn\u2019t come at the expense of anyone else: \u201cWhat makes the phenomenon stranger still is that the same thing holds true for all other men. Every one of the members of society has consumed a million times more than he could have produced; yet no one has robbed anyone else.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In short, the win-lose mindset that some employ to justify their ingratitude is nonsensical. Of course, it is not only New Yorkers who exhibit this illiberal, ungrateful mindset. I call this the win-lose mindset illiberal because it is incompatible with the win-win mindset necessary for a free society to flourish.<\/p>\n

Ingratitude is not a new issue for humanity. In his Letters on Ethics<\/em><\/a> #81, the Stoic philosopher Seneca wrote, \u201cYou complain that you have encountered someone who was ungrateful. If this is the first time, then you yourself should be grateful either to fortune or to your own efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Expressing gratitude is self-rewarding. Seneca taught, \u201cWe should make every effort to show all the gratitude we can.\u201d Not because we will be rewarded in kind, but \u201cevery virtue is its own reward. For one doesn\u2019t practice the virtues in order to receive a prize: the reward for right action is having acted rightly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having cultivated a grateful mindset, Seneca assured, \u201cYou have gained something wonderful\u2026 the best possible state of mind\u2026a thankful heart.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Suppose you are not grateful at this moment. Seneca\u2019s words will pour a bucket of ice water on your ingratitude: \u201cNo one can be in his own good graces if he is not grateful to others. Do you think I am saying that the ingrate will eventually be miserable? I am not granting him any delay: he is miserable right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

If that warning doesn\u2019t sink in, Seneca pointedly instructed, \u201cWe should avoid ingratitude not for the sake of others but for our own sake. Only the smallest and lightest portion of one\u2019s wickedness overflows onto others; the worst of it \u2014 the thickest part, as it were \u2014 remains in the vessel to choke the possessor.\u201d<\/p>\n

If we are being \u201cchoked\u201d by our ingratitude, wouldn\u2019t it be wise to do something about it?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In his book On Benefits<\/em><\/a>, Seneca explained why we are ungrateful: \u201cIt is either an excessive regard for oneself \u2014 the deeply ingrained human failing of being impressed by oneself and one\u2019s accomplishments \u2014 or greed or envy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone is generous when judging himself,\u201d Seneca observed, \u201cwhich is why each person thinks that he has earned all that he has\u2026and that his real value is not appreciated by others.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGreed,\u201d Seneca explains, \u201cwill not allow anyone to be grateful. Nothing that is given is ever enough to satisfy undisciplined hopes; the more that comes to us, the more we want.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Envy, Seneca explains, \u201cis a more violent and relentless\u201d emotion. Envy, \u201cunsettles us by making comparisons\u201d and \u201cnever makes the case for someone else but always puts its own interests ahead of everyone else\u2019s.\u201d We fixate \u201cour attention [on] the good fortune of people who are ahead of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seneca believed, \u201cThere are many kinds of ungrateful people, just as there are many kinds of thieves and murderers.\u201d To be clear, not all New Yorkers are ingrates, and not all ingrates reside in New York. Everywhere, there are people who deny receiving the benefit of those who provide goods and services on their behalf. Seneca taught that the \u201cmost ungrateful of all is the person who forgets that he received it.\u201d<\/p>\n

How could we deny or forget the benefits of modern life?\u00a0Seneca explained, \u201cWe are constantly preoccupied with novel desires; we do not consider what we have but only what we are trying to get.\u201d<\/p>\n

In short, ingratitude stems from a fundamental\u00a0distortion of perception: the ungrateful person either overestimates their own merit, focuses constantly on unfulfilled desires, compares themselves jealously to others who received more, or becomes so absorbed in pursuing new objects of desire that they forget past benefits entirely. Each cognitive cause reflects a failure to perceive and appreciate what one has actually received.<\/p>\n

Because we\u2019re busy keeping score of what we think we are owed, we ignore what is in plain sight. We ignore the win-win ties that bind us all and upon which our survival depends. Mamdani\u2019s world is one where the ungrateful take from others and still complain that they want more. If it sounds like a world governed by \u201cdemocratic socialists\u201d is unsustainable, it is.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

If we choose to be a sulking, mentally small, ungrateful ego, then our capacity to create meaning in our lives will correspondingly diminish.<\/p>\n

Seneca gave us this guideline for living: \u201cIt is impossible for anyone to feel envy and gratitude at the same time; envy is what gloomy complainers feel, but gratitude is accompanied by joy.\u201d Seneca encouraged those who cultivate gratitude to be \u201cstubbornly optimistic\u201d that the ungrateful will have a change of heart. Without that optimism, Seneca warned, \u201chuman endeavor would cease.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post Economics of Gratitude: What New Yorkers Forgot About Prosperity<\/a> was first published by the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER)<\/a>, and is republished here with permission. Please support their efforts.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If I were to sum up the mindset of New Yorkers who elected Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City, it would be We want something for nothing, and we want the rich to pay for it. Instead, they will get nothing for something, and they will pay for it with a degraded quality …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":2324418,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2505803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2505803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2505803"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2505803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2505804,"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2505803\/revisions\/2505804"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2324418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2505803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2505803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2505803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}