The Woke Salaryman did a comic strip to explain why some rich people will never be happy. I can identify with this article because they frame nicely a “disturbance in the force” that I cannot explain very well. The Woke Salaryman feels that wealthier people can never be happy because there is always some higher attainment that their peers have reached. They fear they may never get there, affecting their overall outlook. The question is: Where is this ‘there’? How do we define there? The Woke Salaryman identifies two kinds of deprivation: Absolute and Relative Deprivation.

The Difference Between Absolute and Relative Deprivation.

In the grand scheme of things, absolute deprivation has universally approved markers if we take a step back. We need the base layer of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. This means we are not deprived of the following: Breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis, excretion Security…