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Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

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Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#101

Post by komali2 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #66
klooney wrote: post #2

> 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...

Lots of valid criticisms of the oft touted "happiness index."

Off the top of my head from something I read a while back: Finland is listed as one of the happiest countries, but also has a higher rate than normal of prescribed anti psychotics and anti depressants, and also has high rates of alcoholism and suicide. Something isn't lining up there.

My own anecdotal experience as well conflicts. When I travel through Scandinavia, people seem... Fine. Friends I have there say you're basically not allowed to talk to strangers, at all, everyone is meant to just quietly ignore each other. Meanwhile the deeper I go into Vietnam, even deep into where people still live on stilt houses made by hand tools, the happier and more sociable people are. My friends say the same of various countries in Africa.

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#102

Post by decimalenough »

levocardia wrote: post #60

>Kinship societies are actively hostile to economic growth, because economic growth undermines the basis of kinship: that is why kinship societies demand constant, visible sacrifices of wealth—funerals being the most spectacular—that make it extraordinarily difficult for any individual to accumulate capital, reinvest their assets, and pull ahead. The funeral is a window into a system of wealth destruction that serves…

Ghana's GDP per capita is around $2000. It's only a success story because the baseline is so low, and because most of its neighbors are doing even worse.

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#103

Post by decimalenough »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #67
bobanrocky wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha, have you been to an indian wedding in India? Now that’s big big money. And the societal pressures to make it so are huge .. American weddings are so tame and sensible by comparison. Far better to spend those $$ on weddings rather than funerals though !

> have you been to an indian wedding in India? Now that’s big big money Are Indian families spending multiples of annual incomes on weddings? They're lavishly done. But the cost of labour, land and e.g. fresh flowers is also ridiculously cheaper in India than in the West.

Per Wikipedia, the average cost of an Indian wedding is six times annual income.

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#104

Post by rayiner »

forthwall wrote: post #31

This 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…

Strong extended kinship ties are associated with less economic prosperity all over the world, it just in Africa but Pakistan, the Middle East, etc.

There is a plausible argument that it’s causal. Europe had weaker kinship ties—for various reasons, including the Catholic church’s ban on cousin marriage—back in the middle ages, before Europe began pulling away from the rest of the world in terms of GDP per capita. Even within the U.S., communities with weak kinship ties (e.g. Northeastern Anglo-Protestants) are more economically successful than communities with stronger kinship ties and clan structures (e.g. Appalachians).

Arguably, more atomized societies with weak kinship ties foster the development of civil institutions and governments to compensate for the social structural functions that would otherwise be performed by kinship networks.

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#105

Post by komali2 »

thelock85 wrote: post #15

It’s interesting how this is framed as a “bad deal” (being apart of a kinship society) without taking time to breakdown the cost of being on your own in Ghanaian society, especially when healthcare, credit harm and other emergencies are broadly unaffordable in individualist, capitalist American society.

There's also this strange suggestion that it's somehow wrong of family to ask a wealthy family member for money - your parents especially sacrificed their bodies and some aspect of their lives to birth and raise you, and your entire family supports each other. To hoard wealth in light of that seems not only abhorrent, it also seems diseased, like a disorder of selfishness.

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#107

Post by squigz »

bobanrocky wrote: post #39
mlsu wrote: post #18

In America we spend that money on weddings. Lots of young people wipe their savings on getting married, at one of the most critical times in life (just before starting a family). It often prevents them having kids or buying a home for years.

Ha, have you been to an indian wedding in India? Now that’s big big money. And the societal pressures to make it so are huge .. American weddings are so tame and sensible by comparison. Far better to spend those $$ on weddings rather than funerals though !

> Far better to spend those $$ on weddings rather than funerals though !

Is it though? Can you elaborate why you think that?

To me, they seem to serve basically the same purpose. They are both, at the end of the day, a way for family & friends to get together and bond over a person/people.

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#108

Post by Glyptodon »

mlsu wrote: post #18

In America we spend that money on weddings. Lots of young people wipe their savings on getting married, at one of the most critical times in life (just before starting a family). It often prevents them having kids or buying a home for years.

I think people often spend too much on weddings, but even expensive weddings (IMO) are still in the same cost bracket as a relatively boring and reliable car. If buying a reliable car sets you back years... I view it more so as a sign that income levels are too low and people are trying to counter signal "poor stigma." (That said, weddings are also the kind of thing where extracting time from your kinship group can drastically lower costs. Rent a pavilion in a camp ground, have a bunch of people bring grills and some speakers and you can basically keep things pretty cost contained.) And of course upper class weddings are a whole different thing.

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#109

Post by komali2 »

stavros wrote: post #96
komali2 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems this only matters in economic systems with compound interest, like capitalism. In gift economies, all these distinctions are meaningless. The bounty of a funeral would be a direct representation of the deceased's popularity (likely established through their generosity) as well as their family's ability to convice people to e.g. spend time making s beautiful coffin, bring food, play music.

The economies mentioned in the article are capitalist economies.

Yes, the State economy is capitalist, but the family groups are clearly operating under some kind of Communism. The article itself mentions it - "nothing you own is actually yours, everything is owned by the family." Thus wealth accumulation not really being possible, a hallmark of a communistic economy.

This is my experience with extremely rural areas or tightly knit / kinship / indigenous cultures as well. They happen to live on territory within a given State that's inevitably capitalist because the entire world is, but take a closer look and you'll realize it's almost an entirely different country within the village. A local example to me: everyone assumes the tribal leaders of Taiwanese indigenous towns are super wealthy landowners because their name is on every lot and house in the village. The reality: the villages own everything in common, and when government officials show up asking who owns what, the villages don't really know how to answer, so the government official then asks "ok well who's the leader?" And then getting that answer, just puts that name down for everything.

Edit: oh I see what you mean, right now, people are using cash to pay for e.g. the DJ. Yes, probably true because it's literally costing them money. My point there was that it's possible that an older tradition from a pre capitalist system that worked fine then is not compatible with how capitalism works. Many things aren't.

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#110

Post by muzani »

asadm wrote: post #51

People should look again at how we Muslims bury. Not only is it much "green" but also cheap and doesn't waste land forever. There is wisdom in simplicity.

It's the opposite of the article. Wrap the body in a cloth. Bury as fast as possible. Bury as cheap as possible. One headstone and one footstone. No buildings on it though the headstones recently have names.

Recently there's been more intricate graves and sometimes tombs, but time by time, people fall back to the original traditions. After all, the big caliphs who ruled empires were buried under two stones.

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