Bikes and Scarcity

Do you think these Netherlanders are more or less happy because they had no access to cars?




or these Brits:



For much of the 1950s Europe was without cars and, from the looks of things happy enough.  The idea that a muchness of stuff is necessary for happiness.  The recent, and not so recent, carping on about poors with cell phones proving the greatness of America is the kind of brain-dead claptrap Buckley tried to bedazzle the Cambridge debating society to Baldwin's clear disdain.

It's not a question of crap and tat but of civil equality, which is nearly impossible to achieve when plutocrats write legislation.