Well, one could compare the percentage of Cameroonians who would like to move to the United States with the percentage of Americans who would like to move to Cameroon.
Again, this seems irrelevant to the point that was being made. The issue here is not whether Cameroonians are on average or in general more wealthy, or more satisfied with their overall lifestyle and living conditions, than Americans in general. This issue is just whether there are some ways in which a society that is poorer overall nonetheless has more of some of the things that are seen as desirable in a society that is wealthier overall. And if so, of course, this makes simplistic comparisons between the two more complicated.
You seem to be wanting to hear only one side of the debate: the side that agrees that in the modern Western world, people are richer than in pre-modern or non-Western societies. Can’t you accept that even though this is true on the whole, there are also some ways in which modern Western society has been impoverished as well as enriched? I think that would make your debate more interesting than mere unrelieved cheerleading for the boons of modern wealth.
That’s not how I read the post. even sven seemed to be saying that it’s impossible to compare overall.
Of course. Have I stated otherwise?
Maybe Cameroonians have access to tasty bushmeat. 
In my experience, most Cameroonians believe that life in America is like a rap video, and most Americans can’t find Cameroon on a map. But I do know when I tell people we work 40+ hours a week in America, they look at me like I’m nuts.
How do you measure time against money? How do you measure family against things? You can’t. It’s a different set of riches.
You would know better than me, but the sense I get is that there are lots and lots of people in the third world (which includes Cameroon) who are beating down America’s doors to come here for economic opportunities.
You observe peoples’ preferences.
But the thing is, you can’t observe people’s preferences. You can only observe people’s choices. And their choices are based on lots of different factors, not just preferences.
Just because somebody is emigrating to the US from Cameroon doesn’t mean that he necessarily thinks that longer workweeks are better than shorter ones, or that applying for building permits and signing thirty-year mortgages is better than building a house for yourself out in the back forty. And just because somebody in the US doesn’t emigrate to Cameroon doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t enjoy having a lower cost of living and a less time-consuming job. Your choices reflect not just your own preferences and values, but the range of your available options and the pressures on you at a particular time.
Again, you seem to be trying to over-simplify the issue by coming up with black-and-white evaluations of standards of wealth. “Oh well, if more people choose society A than society B, that must mean that society A is richer.” Or if more people in society A have more stuff, or more vaccinations, or more air-conditioning, that must mean that society A is richer.
I think that totally misses the point. The point is that you can’t always tell what people value as “wealth” only by looking at what they choose in a particular set of circumstances. That approach denies the fact that there are different kinds of goods and benefits, many of which are very hard to compare with each other.
When a person chooses one particular good, that doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily rejecting a different good, or that they don’t feel poorer from having to do without it. It just means that they can’t have both, and so have to pick one and do without the other. Does that mean that the one they pick represents more “wealth” to them? Not necessarily; it just means that it’s the one they feel they need more in their given circumstances.
I think that what you mean by “choices” is what I meant by “preferences.” So my point stands.
You never know for sure what is in somebody’s heart. It could be that people are desperate to immigrate to to the U.S. because there are so many Taco Bell restaurants here.
However, “trying to make a buck” seems like a pretty good bet.
Why do you think so many people are eager to move to the U.S. (and to the industrialized world in general)?
I don’t think it does, because after all, a choice is not the same thing as a preference. You can’t deduce what people deeply value just by observing what they choose from a limited set of options under specific restricted circumstances.
Often because they’re afraid of turmoil or oppression in their own country, but most generally because they want to have more money.
But what does that demonstrate? Only that people tend to want money, and that modern Western countries tend to have more money than other societies. Well, duh. That’s so obvious as to be not really worthy of comment, isn’t it?
I thought the point of your debate here was to discuss the variety of ways—not just economic—in which different societies are wealthier or poorer than others, and the ways in which people in those societies appreciate or fail to appreciate those differences.
Instead, all you seem to want to do is repeatedly gloat over the fact that modern Western societies in some ways have more wealth (particularly monetary wealth) than others. Well, knock yourself out, but I think you’re missing opportunities for a more interesting discussion.
I disagree. For example, if a man has a choice between having sexual relations with men and having sexual relations with women; and he chooses men exclusively; one can infer that he is probably a homosexual.
Of course, one can never be totally sure. Heck, you can’t be sure that other people have any values (or thoughts) at all.
Bingo! And also, they usually want the things that you can get with money.
The United States is wealthier than Cameroon. That’s so obvious as to be not really worthy of comment, isn’t it?
Not really. I’m most interested in looking at wealth from an economic perspective.
By chance, I just found a blog post from 2006:
http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2006/01/a_1975_sears_ca.html
The author studied the 1975 Sears Catalog to compare prices of goods in the past to prices of goods today. To adjust for inflation, he divided the prices by the hourly wage of a production worker according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Here are a few snippets: