Charlie Munger, the business partner of Warren Buffett and Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, is one of the great minds of the 20th century and is famous for his quote, “All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there.”
Not many 7-minutes videos change how you view the world. But this Charlie Munger interview probably will. Munger argues envy drives the world.
It's amazing how achievements there have been in civilization in these last 200 years, and most in the last 100 years. Now the trouble will this is that the basic needs are pretty well filled. (...) With all this enormous increase in living standards, freedom, diminishment of racial inequities, and all the huge progress that has come, people are less happy about the state of affairs than they were when things were way tougher. That has a very simple explanation. The world is not driven by greed; it's driven by envy. The fact that everybody is five times better off than they used to be, they take that for granted. All they think about is somebody else having more now, and it's not fair that he should have it, and they don't. (...)
I can't change the fact that a lot of people are very unhappy and feel very abused after everything improved by about 600% because there's still somebody else who has more. I have conquered envy in my own life. I don't envy anybody. I don't give a damn what somebody else has. But other people are going crazy by it. And other people play envy in order to advance their political careers. We have whole networks now that want to pour gasoline on the flames of envy. (...)
Think of the pretentious expenditures of the rich. Who in the hell needs a Rolex watch so you get mugged for it? Yes, everybody wants to have a pretentious expenditure, and that helps drive demand in our modern capitalist society. My advice to young people is: don't go there. To hell with the pretentious expenditure. I don't think there is much happiness in it. But it does drive the civilization we actually have. And it drives dissatisfaction.
In conclusion, envy can be a powerful driving force in society, leading people to strive for material possessions and success that they don't necessarily need. This can create feelings of dissatisfaction and resentment as people compare themselves to others and may feel that they are falling short.
With the amount of social media and messages we receive on a daily basis, it is easy to fall into the pattern of comparing ourselves to others. We should focus on personal happiness and contentment rather than trying to keep up with the perceived success of others. It can be challenging to resist the societal pressure to value material possessions and status, but it is important to focus on what truly brings happiness and contentment.