> Modernity is about not doing what your family says The flip side is that rich and modern people feel lonely and sad that they don't have strong social bonds.
maybe. personally i would definitely not trade places
Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead
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Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead
#82> Modernity is about not doing what your family says The flip side is that rich and modern people feel lonely and sad that they don't have strong social bonds.
> flip side is that rich and modern people feel lonely and sad The happiest countries in the world are also rich [1]. I'm not saying you can't fuck up being rich. But it's a lot harder to be fulfilled if you're poor. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report#2025_re...
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Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead
#83This article seems to establish that kinship leads to the failure of wage growth and ultimately wealth, people will hide their wages because people will ask for money. This seems like the issue rather is is that wealth accumulation in sub-saharan africa is limited to a small subset of population, I don't think this wealth tax by family members exists when you have a larger group of individuals making more money. You…
The difference is that it's pretty acceptable for you to reject family requests for money, it doesn't make you a pariah and being a pariah doesn't carry the same consequences when non-family institutions govern society. The article spends a lot of time belaboring this point: you don't have to do what your family asks you to do in developed countries. On the other hand, becoming outcast from your family in a kinship-d…
The article's description of kinship sounds a bit like family based governance and taxation. Only with say a western government their enforcers will happily imprison anyone not giving what the government ("kin") says is owed, and those who resist being violently dragged jailed typically find a fate even worse.
The western version then of being a pariah for not paying up is violence rather than ostracization and shame. Of course until you get rich enough that you can corrupt the government itself.
Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead
#84This article seems to establish that kinship leads to the failure of wage growth and ultimately wealth, people will hide their wages because people will ask for money. This seems like the issue rather is is that wealth accumulation in sub-saharan africa is limited to a small subset of population, I don't think this wealth tax by family members exists when you have a larger group of individuals making more money. You…
I think author's point is that wealth drives investment which drives economic growth. In the case of lavish funerals - warranted in kinship societies - the wealth is spent on relatively unproductive investments bearing high opportunity cost. The corollary and author's secondary point is the ineffective resource allocation e.g. through nepotism.
My main (oversimplified!) takeaway from the article is that kinship societies prioritize inherently local processes that inhibit global processes. For example, they prefer keeping internal cohesion through ritual celebration rather than maximizing economic upside through education and specialization. This makes sense - the latter requires a higher degree of trust and stability. Increasing the degree of trust and stability seems to be an evolutionary process. I found Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel [1] to give some amazing insights about this.
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1842.Guns_Germs_and_Stee...
Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ghana's GINI index is only a couple points higher than the US (43 vs 41), and the same as Mexico. I don't think wealth inequality explains this at all. But what rigid social institutions of any kind tend do is inhibit mobility. Moreover, kinship groups like this tend to lock-in relative wealth by lineage--the wealthiest family of a kin group from 3 generations ago will be much more likely (relative to other cultures)…
I don't think social factors are not necessarily a nonfactor, more that this article claims that income equality within kinship groups is a forcing function for lack of economic growth. My claim is that the inequality that these countries face not just between each other within the nation but in our globalized economies, access to resources, capital and labor and thus the downstream effects of smaller markets, less n…
> I am not sure if this claim is true as well, wealth generally does stay within family lineages across cultures, generally people losing their wealth or even gaining it is an outlier. See any landed gentry in Europe, Asia
Your examples tend to prove the effect of kinship structures, which were much stronger historically across all cultures, especially outside NW Europe (where nuclear family dynamics go back millennia, which some people argue is not merely coincidental with the emergence of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution).
The relevant question isn't whether wealth stickiness exists, but the magnitude of the effect and how it changes.
Kinship groups can absolutely be useful and beneficial, but as a rigid social institution it can also take on a life of its own, as for any social institution. We can't have meaningful discussions about this stuff without understanding magnitudes and context, otherwise its too easy to cynically equivocate.
Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is more of a self inflicted wound than an intrinsic aspect of modern society.
I wish it was self inflicted. Instead, it seems to be an artifact of modern society. I posted “How to Be Alone?” exploring this issue somewhat: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47296547 690 points, 500+ comments. I’m not trying to get pity, but it would be mistaken to say that I brought it on myself. My wife didn’t bring it on me either. We simply eroded over time. But when marital bonds erode, it turns out they…
There's a happy medium between the "everyone in the family shares absolutely everything" that less individualistic societies have and the "everyone in the family is alone" that more individualistic societies tend to have.
The US, in particular, is on the far end of that spectrum, because of the cultural emphasis on work and self-reliance. The happy medium, in my opinion, is trading off some work for some friends. In many cases within US culture, at least, you might be trading off an amount of time that yields a marginal reward at work but a much larger reward in friendship, simply because that's how diminishing returns tend to work.
Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead
#87Interesting - I knew about the fancy coffins (I'd seen pictures of them years ago) but had no idea about the rest of it.
Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead
#88the western mind cannot comprehend kinship...
Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead
#89The author is trying to generalize this narrative, but it still sounds pretty specific to Ghana and some other African societies. Chechnya and Dagestan are mentioned, but I struggle to remember any demonstrative wealth destruction practices there. Also what about other historic kinship societies (e.g. Scottish, Italian?)
> Also what about other historic kinship societies (e.g. Scottish, Italian?)
Low sample size but I know a few Sicilian families and there was a bit of intergenerational living, paying for family members to emigrate etc but it always seemed very focussed on working hard so that the next generation had it better.
Some were a bit showy with their wealth but most lived modestly - my Dad theorised that in rural Sicily early last century, showing your wealth would probably ear-mark you for a shake-down or some other targeted crime, so people learned to live modestly and keep their wealth quiet.
Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead
#90> Modernity is about not doing what your family says The flip side is that rich and modern people feel lonely and sad that they don't have strong social bonds.
Thats what people on one side of the argument like to think, patting themselves on their back for their own decisions. I am old enough to have seen it many many times.
There is no simple win - each person is different, each family is different, where one thrives the other has absolutely miserable time imprisoned with no way out.
world is not black and white and neither are people, dont dumb it down like that since you miss what reality looks like.