In many parts of Europe nobody has to work 60-hour weeks just to send their kids to a school with low level of violence. A bunch of people don’t work at all and still their kids seem to have all teeth in place and get some schooling. Not sure what we did here that the US is failing to do, but I notice that the described problem of school violence is a cultural problem—it’s related to poverty, but is not directly caused by it.
I agree that there seems to be something uniquely wrong with USA (or maybe it’s just a different trade-off than other countries have—it’s difficult to guess which problems are part of a greater equation, and which ones are accidental), but that doesn’t answer the central question—if, judging by looking at some economical numbers, poverty already doesn’t exist for centuries, why do we feel so poor; or perhaps, why do we act as if we are poor.
it could be that some important numbers are missing from the official set (the oxygen in Anoxia);
it could be that the extractive systems adapt (give UBI → increase rent);
or it could be something else.
The feeling of poverty, either immediate, or breathing down our necks, is definitely in Europe, too. The absence of that feeling would be… something like a form of “early retirement” where people say that they still keep working, but it’s only because they enjoy it or want more money, but if the work became unpleasant or abusive, they could quit it any time they would want to. Most people don’t have this.
Let’s not forget that people who read LW, often highly intelligent and having well-paying jobs such as software development, are not representative of the average population. Frankly, my life is quite easy, but it still has a lot of stress; so I imagine that for most people it is probably much worse. (For example, the entire Covid thing for me mostly meant “cool, now I can work from home”, but other people have lost their jobs.)
if, judging by looking at some economical numbers, poverty already doesn’t exist for centuries, why do we feel so poor
Let’s not forget that people who read LW, often highly intelligent and having well-paying jobs such as software development
This underlines what I find so incongruous about EY’s argument. I think I genuinely felt richer as a child eating free school meals in the UK but going to a nice school and whose parents owned a house than I do as an obscenely-by-my-standards wealthy person in San Francisco. I’m hearing this elaborate theory to explain why social security doesn’t work when I have lived through and seen in others clear evidence that it can and it does. If the question “why hasn’t a factor-100 increase in productivity felt like a factor-100 increase in productivity?” was levied at my childhood specifically, my response is that actually it felt like exactly that.
By the standards of low earning households my childhood was probably pretty atypical and I don’t mean to say there aren’t major systemic issues, especially given the number of people locked into bad employment, people with lives destroyed by addiction, people who struggle to navigate economic systems, people trapped in abusive or ineffectual families, etc. etc. etc. I really don’t want to present a case just based on my lived experience, even including those I know living various lives under government assistance. But equally I think someone’s lived experience of being wealthy in San Francisco and seeing drug addicts on the street is also not seeing an unbiased take of what social security does for poverty.
if, judging by looking at some economical numbers, poverty already doesn’t exist for centuries, why do we feel so poor; or perhaps, why do we act as if we are poor
Some years back (or perhaps a couple/few decades) Verner Smith was running some experimental economics, I believe with econ student, which were producing some odd or difficult to explain results. Durnig the game play it was nearly universal that players would accept an absolutely lower payout than accept the higher payout option when the other play would then get most of the gains. From a rational actor perspective that seemed to be the same as people refusing to pick up the $5 bill on the ground. Even worse perhaps because at least one of the players, if not both, had to be actively throwing it on the ground.
Jame Buchanan sugested that perhaps absoulte resulter were in fact not the key criteria but the relative outcomes. Makes sense in many ways from an econcomic perspective where pretty much everthing, for instance prices, is relative and not based on absolute levels.
I don’t think that would explain poverty, or the sense of povery, entirely but do think it probably has something to do with it. At least in terms of the question posed above.
I think a more central question would be: do a nontrivial number of people in those parts of Europe work at soul-crushing jobs with horrible bosses? If so, what is it that they would otherwise lack that makes them feel obligated to do so?
do a nontrivial number of people in those parts of Europe work at soul-crushing jobs with horrible bosses?
Yes they do, at least when I meet people outside my bubble, such as someone working at Billa.
I think they do it simply because the rent is high (relatively to the income at the place where they live).
But working literally 60-hour weeks would be illegal. There are ways how employers try to push the boundary: They can make you do some overtime (but there is a limit how much total overtime per year is allowed). They can try to convince you that some work you do for them technically does not count as a part of your working time (e.g. your official working time is 8:00-16:30, but you need to arrive at 7:45 to get ready for your work, and at 16:30 the shop is officially closed, but you still need to clean up the place, check everything and lock the door, so you are actually leaving maybe at 17:00); I think they are lying about this, but I am not sure. Anyway, even these tricks do not get you to 60 hours per week.
AFAIK, in the countries where air conditioning is useful people have it. I live in Germany and here we mostly think that it’s not worth the noise pollution and making the facade less pretty. But this too might change now that many people are switching their gas heating to heat pumps (that are basically air conditioners with extra functionality).
In many parts of Europe nobody has to work 60-hour weeks just to send their kids to a school with low level of violence. A bunch of people don’t work at all and still their kids seem to have all teeth in place and get some schooling. Not sure what we did here that the US is failing to do, but I notice that the described problem of school violence is a cultural problem—it’s related to poverty, but is not directly caused by it.
I agree that there seems to be something uniquely wrong with USA (or maybe it’s just a different trade-off than other countries have—it’s difficult to guess which problems are part of a greater equation, and which ones are accidental), but that doesn’t answer the central question—if, judging by looking at some economical numbers, poverty already doesn’t exist for centuries, why do we feel so poor; or perhaps, why do we act as if we are poor.
it could be that some important numbers are missing from the official set (the oxygen in Anoxia);
it could be that the extractive systems adapt (give UBI → increase rent);
or it could be something else.
The feeling of poverty, either immediate, or breathing down our necks, is definitely in Europe, too. The absence of that feeling would be… something like a form of “early retirement” where people say that they still keep working, but it’s only because they enjoy it or want more money, but if the work became unpleasant or abusive, they could quit it any time they would want to. Most people don’t have this.
Let’s not forget that people who read LW, often highly intelligent and having well-paying jobs such as software development, are not representative of the average population. Frankly, my life is quite easy, but it still has a lot of stress; so I imagine that for most people it is probably much worse. (For example, the entire Covid thing for me mostly meant “cool, now I can work from home”, but other people have lost their jobs.)
This underlines what I find so incongruous about EY’s argument. I think I genuinely felt richer as a child eating free school meals in the UK but going to a nice school and whose parents owned a house than I do as an obscenely-by-my-standards wealthy person in San Francisco. I’m hearing this elaborate theory to explain why social security doesn’t work when I have lived through and seen in others clear evidence that it can and it does. If the question “why hasn’t a factor-100 increase in productivity felt like a factor-100 increase in productivity?” was levied at my childhood specifically, my response is that actually it felt like exactly that.
By the standards of low earning households my childhood was probably pretty atypical and I don’t mean to say there aren’t major systemic issues, especially given the number of people locked into bad employment, people with lives destroyed by addiction, people who struggle to navigate economic systems, people trapped in abusive or ineffectual families, etc. etc. etc. I really don’t want to present a case just based on my lived experience, even including those I know living various lives under government assistance. But equally I think someone’s lived experience of being wealthy in San Francisco and seeing drug addicts on the street is also not seeing an unbiased take of what social security does for poverty.
Some years back (or perhaps a couple/few decades) Verner Smith was running some experimental economics, I believe with econ student, which were producing some odd or difficult to explain results. Durnig the game play it was nearly universal that players would accept an absolutely lower payout than accept the higher payout option when the other play would then get most of the gains. From a rational actor perspective that seemed to be the same as people refusing to pick up the $5 bill on the ground. Even worse perhaps because at least one of the players, if not both, had to be actively throwing it on the ground.
Jame Buchanan sugested that perhaps absoulte resulter were in fact not the key criteria but the relative outcomes. Makes sense in many ways from an econcomic perspective where pretty much everthing, for instance prices, is relative and not based on absolute levels.
I don’t think that would explain poverty, or the sense of povery, entirely but do think it probably has something to do with it. At least in terms of the question posed above.
I think a more central question would be: do a nontrivial number of people in those parts of Europe work at soul-crushing jobs with horrible bosses? If so, what is it that they would otherwise lack that makes them feel obligated to do so?
Yes they do, at least when I meet people outside my bubble, such as someone working at Billa.
I think they do it simply because the rent is high (relatively to the income at the place where they live).
But working literally 60-hour weeks would be illegal. There are ways how employers try to push the boundary: They can make you do some overtime (but there is a limit how much total overtime per year is allowed). They can try to convince you that some work you do for them technically does not count as a part of your working time (e.g. your official working time is 8:00-16:30, but you need to arrive at 7:45 to get ready for your work, and at 16:30 the shop is officially closed, but you still need to clean up the place, check everything and lock the door, so you are actually leaving maybe at 17:00); I think they are lying about this, but I am not sure. Anyway, even these tricks do not get you to 60 hours per week.
Yes (though OTOH conversely there are also things that many Europeans struggle to afford but Americans take for granted, e.g. air conditioning)
AFAIK, in the countries where air conditioning is useful people have it. I live in Germany and here we mostly think that it’s not worth the noise pollution and making the facade less pretty. But this too might change now that many people are switching their gas heating to heat pumps (that are basically air conditioners with extra functionality).