Poorer people are happier. Alternatively, even when the aggregate or average level of happiness is not higher, some factors in it are higher, while other hugely negative factors (i.e. actually being poor) reduce the average or aggregate greatly.
The positive factors are strong social bonds. The problem is that middle-class people are trying to form friendships through just hanging out with people or trying to find common, shared interests. This is not strong bonds.
Poor people need to help each other, it is a basic necessity, and they form strong bonds this way. They move to a different village, start to fix up the fence, realize they need some tools, borrow it from the neighbor. Next time the neighbor asks some help etc. they bond this way. If you and your neighbors basically never need a service, a borrowed item etc. from each other you will probably not form strong bonds.
Should we somehow make ourselves poor to achieve it? I mean, it is relative, everybody is poor compared to the mega-rich, so how could you be—at the same level of income and net worth—not middle-class but the poor-of-the-mega-rich ?
Can you imagine examples of how well-to-do people can put themselves into situations where they need to borrow items or services / help from their neighbors?
Should they just aim high? If a poor person has a 60 m2 village house in bad repair, and a middle-class person has a 100 m2 village house in good repair, and a rich person has a 300 m3 village house in good repair, should the middle-class person instead buy a 300 m2 house in bad repair, and if the neighbors are doing something like that they all would help each other, so basically they would be not typical middle-class but the poor-of-the-rich and this way form the same bonds through helping?
Maybe this idea has merit. The essence of poverty is that you cannot just buy all the things you need, you sometimes need to make them yourself or borrow. If middle-class people aimed high and basically buy big mansions in bad repair, buy old yachts and sports cars and restore them, could they simulate that?
Evidence please. Your idea relies heavily on the thesis that poorer people are happier and have better social relations than rich people, do you have anything not anecdotal to support that?
My experience of seeing poverty in the US is that it comes with or from a whole host of other social problems like addiction, untreated physical and mental health issues, abuse, anxiety, overcrowding, fear of violence. These co-morbid problems are not conducive to neither happiness nor strong social ties, except in an unhealthy codependent way. I do know that children who grow up in poverty (without malnutrition) have brain development issues because of all the toxic anxiety and stress they were exposed to as a child, and that these problems persist through adulthood if untreated, even if the poverty conditions are removed. http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/what-poverty-does-to-the-young-brain
In fact, from a precursory google search, every article I see about the neurological effects of poverty is that it increases daily experience of negative emotions, chronic pain, increases the odds of all kinds of unpleasant experiences and mental health issues, and comes with a constant sense of anxiety.
1) I don’t believe in maximizing happiness. That leads to wireheading, and also to the blissful ignorance problem where being falsely convinced of X is considered as good as actually having X.
2) When people who are poor have to make or borrow to get things, making and borrowing has a cost. The fact that richer people won’t pay this cost shows that the cost is larger than the monetary price. If anything, this is an example of a poverty trap, since it means poorer people have to pay higher costs for things than richer people.
Some libertarian guy wrote a book on the mutual aid, charity aspect of it in the early 20th century (his name rhymes with Hansky?, but I can’t dredge it out of my neurons). Maybe someone else will recall.
While I disagree with your description of happy poor people, I admit that the idea of creating stronger social bonds is appealing. Well, of course they would have to be social bonds with people I like, who would not abuse me… but then, doesn’t the mere possibility of choosing people to bond with already reduce the strength of those bonds? Okay, we don’t have to go to the very extreme, and still can try to increase the strength of the bonds, without necessarily maximizing it.
There are things people need help with, even if they are not necessary for survival. If you want to make a big project, you need people to cooperate with. So, have a dream, make it public, find people to cooperate with… and if you all feel strongly about the project, you will have the bonds. Just start an NGO.
If you want to compare with the mega-rich, find a group of people willing to found a cooperative, in a spirit of “together we all get rich; no one gets left behind”. As opposed to usual startups where people try to do things alone or in very small teams; and hire other people as replaceable pawns. (Note: in the cooperative, you can still hire the pawns later; many cooperatives do; you will only have the strong bonds among the local aristocracy, but the aristocracy can have dozens of members.) Now you are competing against the rich companies, and the economical situation of each of you depends on your mutual cooperation.
I haven’t been poor myself, but I’ll offer some weak evidence in favor of a weakened version of your thesis.
I’ve seen a fair number of people say that when they were children, they were poor but didn’t know it, and they were happy. This suggests that (presumably above some level of destitution), low relative status affects people more than absolute wealth. I can’t remember whether being poor but happy as a child is correlated with living in the country, but this wouldn’t surprise me. It may also be true that children are better at being happy than adults, and this could be worth some study.
Poorer people are happier. Alternatively, even when the aggregate or average level of happiness is not higher, some factors in it are higher, while other hugely negative factors (i.e. actually being poor) reduce the average or aggregate greatly.
The positive factors are strong social bonds.
Some people trade off the pursuit of money for living in areas with stronger and more generally dispersed social capital, with cultures of mutual self help, and spend more time on building their own social capital within it.
They’re poorer financially, but wealthier socially.
But some people are poorer financially in areas where the social capital is generally poor as well, and particularly poor for the financially poor.
The problem is that middle-class people are trying to form friendships through just hanging out with people or trying to find common, shared interests. This is not strong bonds.
Can you imagine examples of how well-to-do people can put themselves into situations where they need to borrow items or services / help from their neighbors?
I think the problem is that wealthier people can buy the services they need, and so do so. Buying it doesn’t impose a burden on your social equals, and so doesn’t require taking on such burdens in a reciprocal fashion.
As you go up the wealth scale, for more and more things, you’d rather trade off money for time and effort, and you’re able to buy that trade off from people who would rather have your money than their time.
This is apparent to all, people who make less than you, and people who make the same.
The people who make less will likely resent your requests for help, certainly if you haven’t yet banked some help to them first, but even if you have, they’re still likely to resent your trading off their time versus your money, knowing that you don’t see it as worthwhile when it’s your time vs. your money.
The people who make the same as you probably have the same time vs. money preferences as you do, would rather trade off their own money for their own time on their own problem, and so certainly won’t want to be spending their time on your problem, when you obviously should just be spending your own money instead.
I think you’re right that you get social bonding out of relations of reciprocating mutual aid, and also right that this gets harder to accomplish as you become more wealthy.
But I think you’re wrong about the poor being necessarily happier, as you assumed that the reciprocating mutual aid would naturally occur if your’e poor. A lot of social and cultural capital that doesn’t exist everywhere is required to make that happen.
I have seen (not experienced) the rural kind of, my frequent references to village houses allude to that. I don’t know about urban poverty where people don’t even have a vegetable garden.
Well, poverty is not correctly measured by money alone. If the land outside the city is cheaper, and you can grow your own vegetables in the garden, you need less cash to live at the same level of comfort.
You usually have less options outside the city, especially less of those options that you or me would consider important, but many people are okay with such life.
A poor rural person could be one who doesn’t own a house and a garden. Probably not too happy.
I guess your very first sentence is not a good introduction to what you actually mean and it could be insulting to people who are actually poor or who empathize with poor people.
Sure, they could simulate that, but I’m not sure whether simulated neighborhood cooperation sticks out with regards to effectiveness at all compared to things like hanging out, sharing interests, engaging in cooperative sports and games.
I suspect that the main factor that isolates rich people is rather the prevailing inequality which separates them from 95% of the population. The envy they receive and the cognitive dissonance they get from being aware of the inequality but letting the responsibility diffuse, makes them anxious. I guess reducing inequality is a much more effective and sustainable solution to this problem.
Poorer people are happier. Alternatively, even when the aggregate or average level of happiness is not higher, some factors in it are higher, while other hugely negative factors (i.e. actually being poor) reduce the average or aggregate greatly.
The positive factors are strong social bonds. The problem is that middle-class people are trying to form friendships through just hanging out with people or trying to find common, shared interests. This is not strong bonds.
Poor people need to help each other, it is a basic necessity, and they form strong bonds this way. They move to a different village, start to fix up the fence, realize they need some tools, borrow it from the neighbor. Next time the neighbor asks some help etc. they bond this way. If you and your neighbors basically never need a service, a borrowed item etc. from each other you will probably not form strong bonds.
Should we somehow make ourselves poor to achieve it? I mean, it is relative, everybody is poor compared to the mega-rich, so how could you be—at the same level of income and net worth—not middle-class but the poor-of-the-mega-rich ?
Can you imagine examples of how well-to-do people can put themselves into situations where they need to borrow items or services / help from their neighbors?
Should they just aim high? If a poor person has a 60 m2 village house in bad repair, and a middle-class person has a 100 m2 village house in good repair, and a rich person has a 300 m3 village house in good repair, should the middle-class person instead buy a 300 m2 house in bad repair, and if the neighbors are doing something like that they all would help each other, so basically they would be not typical middle-class but the poor-of-the-rich and this way form the same bonds through helping?
Maybe this idea has merit. The essence of poverty is that you cannot just buy all the things you need, you sometimes need to make them yourself or borrow. If middle-class people aimed high and basically buy big mansions in bad repair, buy old yachts and sports cars and restore them, could they simulate that?
Any other idea?
Evidence please. Your idea relies heavily on the thesis that poorer people are happier and have better social relations than rich people, do you have anything not anecdotal to support that?
My experience of seeing poverty in the US is that it comes with or from a whole host of other social problems like addiction, untreated physical and mental health issues, abuse, anxiety, overcrowding, fear of violence. These co-morbid problems are not conducive to neither happiness nor strong social ties, except in an unhealthy codependent way. I do know that children who grow up in poverty (without malnutrition) have brain development issues because of all the toxic anxiety and stress they were exposed to as a child, and that these problems persist through adulthood if untreated, even if the poverty conditions are removed. http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/what-poverty-does-to-the-young-brain
In fact, from a precursory google search, every article I see about the neurological effects of poverty is that it increases daily experience of negative emotions, chronic pain, increases the odds of all kinds of unpleasant experiences and mental health issues, and comes with a constant sense of anxiety.
Nope. The essence of poverty is that the choices available to you are severely limited because of lack of money.
1) I don’t believe in maximizing happiness. That leads to wireheading, and also to the blissful ignorance problem where being falsely convinced of X is considered as good as actually having X.
2) When people who are poor have to make or borrow to get things, making and borrowing has a cost. The fact that richer people won’t pay this cost shows that the cost is larger than the monetary price. If anything, this is an example of a poverty trap, since it means poorer people have to pay higher costs for things than richer people.
True for poor people in poor countries, but false for poor people in countries with welfare states.
In the early 20th century the US used to be full of mutual aid societies taking care of insurance for health and unemployment.
Lodges weren’t just about secret handshakes.
How much of a welfare state (in the present-day understanding of the term) was the US back then?
For government, I believe next to nothing at the Federal level, and some in States.
The Social Security Administration has a history: http://www.ssa.gov/history/briefhistory3.html
And a Chronology: http://www.ssa.gov/history/chrono.html
Some libertarian guy wrote a book on the mutual aid, charity aspect of it in the early 20th century (his name rhymes with Hansky?, but I can’t dredge it out of my neurons). Maybe someone else will recall.
While I disagree with your description of happy poor people, I admit that the idea of creating stronger social bonds is appealing. Well, of course they would have to be social bonds with people I like, who would not abuse me… but then, doesn’t the mere possibility of choosing people to bond with already reduce the strength of those bonds? Okay, we don’t have to go to the very extreme, and still can try to increase the strength of the bonds, without necessarily maximizing it.
There are things people need help with, even if they are not necessary for survival. If you want to make a big project, you need people to cooperate with. So, have a dream, make it public, find people to cooperate with… and if you all feel strongly about the project, you will have the bonds. Just start an NGO.
If you want to compare with the mega-rich, find a group of people willing to found a cooperative, in a spirit of “together we all get rich; no one gets left behind”. As opposed to usual startups where people try to do things alone or in very small teams; and hire other people as replaceable pawns. (Note: in the cooperative, you can still hire the pawns later; many cooperatives do; you will only have the strong bonds among the local aristocracy, but the aristocracy can have dozens of members.) Now you are competing against the rich companies, and the economical situation of each of you depends on your mutual cooperation.
I haven’t been poor myself, but I’ll offer some weak evidence in favor of a weakened version of your thesis.
I’ve seen a fair number of people say that when they were children, they were poor but didn’t know it, and they were happy. This suggests that (presumably above some level of destitution), low relative status affects people more than absolute wealth. I can’t remember whether being poor but happy as a child is correlated with living in the country, but this wouldn’t surprise me. It may also be true that children are better at being happy than adults, and this could be worth some study.
Some people trade off the pursuit of money for living in areas with stronger and more generally dispersed social capital, with cultures of mutual self help, and spend more time on building their own social capital within it.
They’re poorer financially, but wealthier socially.
But some people are poorer financially in areas where the social capital is generally poor as well, and particularly poor for the financially poor.
I think the problem is that wealthier people can buy the services they need, and so do so. Buying it doesn’t impose a burden on your social equals, and so doesn’t require taking on such burdens in a reciprocal fashion.
As you go up the wealth scale, for more and more things, you’d rather trade off money for time and effort, and you’re able to buy that trade off from people who would rather have your money than their time.
This is apparent to all, people who make less than you, and people who make the same.
The people who make less will likely resent your requests for help, certainly if you haven’t yet banked some help to them first, but even if you have, they’re still likely to resent your trading off their time versus your money, knowing that you don’t see it as worthwhile when it’s your time vs. your money.
The people who make the same as you probably have the same time vs. money preferences as you do, would rather trade off their own money for their own time on their own problem, and so certainly won’t want to be spending their time on your problem, when you obviously should just be spending your own money instead.
I think you’re right that you get social bonding out of relations of reciprocating mutual aid, and also right that this gets harder to accomplish as you become more wealthy.
But I think you’re wrong about the poor being necessarily happier, as you assumed that the reciprocating mutual aid would naturally occur if your’e poor. A lot of social and cultural capital that doesn’t exist everywhere is required to make that happen.
You have very likely not experienced poverty yourself.
I have seen (not experienced) the rural kind of, my frequent references to village houses allude to that. I don’t know about urban poverty where people don’t even have a vegetable garden.
Well, poverty is not correctly measured by money alone. If the land outside the city is cheaper, and you can grow your own vegetables in the garden, you need less cash to live at the same level of comfort.
You usually have less options outside the city, especially less of those options that you or me would consider important, but many people are okay with such life.
A poor rural person could be one who doesn’t own a house and a garden. Probably not too happy.
I guess your very first sentence is not a good introduction to what you actually mean and it could be insulting to people who are actually poor or who empathize with poor people.
Poor by what measure?
Sure, they could simulate that, but I’m not sure whether simulated neighborhood cooperation sticks out with regards to effectiveness at all compared to things like hanging out, sharing interests, engaging in cooperative sports and games.
I suspect that the main factor that isolates rich people is rather the prevailing inequality which separates them from 95% of the population. The envy they receive and the cognitive dissonance they get from being aware of the inequality but letting the responsibility diffuse, makes them anxious. I guess reducing inequality is a much more effective and sustainable solution to this problem.