**Positional goods are goods valued off their relation to other goods in that same category.** For example, education is valued based off the education of others as this is what will be compared by prospective employers in the job market. This is why as more people have gotten a college degree, the value of college degrees has gone down. This is also why positional arms races happen between countries. The amount of armaments a society has is valuable compared to the armaments of other societies. When other societies build more armaments, it forces you to do the same save you stagnate and lose your power. But it leaves everyone worse off as money is spent building armaments that could go to public goods and no one is left relatively better. This is why positional goods are so apt to creating [[Tragedy of the Commons|tragedy of the commons]] and [[Hedonic treadmill|hedonic treadmilling]]. **Non-positional goods are goods which are valued little based off their relativity to goods in the same category.** Safety is a non-positional good. Here's a thought experiment to understand why: WHICH WORLD WOULD YOU CHOOSE? - World A: You have a 2 in 100,000 chance of dying on the job this year, and others have a 1 in 100,000 - World B: You have a 4 in 100,000 chance of dying, and others have a 6 in 100,000 chance. Obviously, you would choose world A even though relatively you are worse off than others in the same place. It doesn't matter your relative standing. You want to be safe! And you're safer in World A than in World B. I learned this from [[Under the Influence]].