Humans, being humans, tend to judge things by comparison with recent experience, not by absolute standards.

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If you preach absolute moral values, you will be held to absolute moral standards.

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Sen Welfare is the combination of absolute livings standards and inequality, rising Sen Welfare means that inequality is falling as incomes rise.

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Since conservatives constantly shout themselves hoarse about the dangers posed by moral relativism, and constantly re-iterate that they are in favor of absolute moral standards, this would seem to be a bit odd, even contradictory.

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People are less concerned about absolute levels of wages or standards of living, compared with how they are doing relative to others.

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In this type of economy, the majority of workers would have to take an absolute reduction in their living standards in order to work less.

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For de Waal, these experiments complement research showing that people are less concerned about absolute levels of wages or standards of living, compared with how they are doing relative to others.

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On the other hand, the compound annual growth rates for patents granted, though minuscule in absolute terms by U.S. standards, from India and China stand at 25 and 22 percent respectively for the same period (Figure 2).

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The bad news: Workplace safety experts say the decline in fatalities was due in part to lower employment nationwide, particularly in the construction and manufacturing industries. (Construction-related deaths, still the highest among any profession on an absolute basis, dropped to 1, 178 from 1, 239.) Improved safety standards have helped stanch the bleeding, too, they say.

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