All this talk of the Laffer Curve seems to have skirted around one fundamental issue which I think economics has still failed to address to this very day. Namely, that time and time again, studies have shown that once you reach a certain standard of living, "happiness" depends not so much on absolute wealth as relative wealth. Furthermore, it seems that we value wealth on a relative scale while we value leisure on an absolute scale so a more competitive society can become less happy since we all do more work for no relative increase in wages and receive less leisure in return.
I'm not arguing for a return to communism but I would like to see at least some economic modeling that reflects these findings.
Xianhang Zhang
