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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

#121

Post by cortesoft »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #45
cortesoft wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am so glad we had a big wedding. It was so much fun, and all my friends and family had a blast.

It's so funny you say that. Was literally just chatting to my wife the other day about how mediocre weddings are. You spend $20-$50k basically LARPing as landed British gentry, and end up having less fun than the average 21st, Christmas or New Year's. So much more stress in planning too.

My wife and I are not party people. We would never host a part with 100 friends and family for any reason other than our wedding.

It felt really special to see all my friends and family out there in the audience supporting my wife and I sharing our vows to each other. I was grinning like an idiot the whole ceremony because I was just so happy.

I had always loved going to my cousin's weddings. No one in my family is religious anymore (my uncle was a priest but left the priesthood, I was raised atheist), but we all do take marriage pretty seriously. I have 10 cousins and 4 sets of aunts and uncles, and all of them are still married to their first spouse. It felt very special to join that club. I was the second to last cousin to get married (I am also the second to youngest).

All my cousins had amazing weddings, too. They were all big parties that we had a lot of fun at. I felt like it was my turn to host one, and it felt magical. We got married at the downtown library, which is a special place for us. We love taking our kids there and showing them where we were married.

Having spent that money hasn't really changed my life in any significant way. I don't think anything would be different if I had an extra $60k. For the price of a nice car, we got a magical night that we will never forget, wonderful memories, and a fantastic way to celebrate our commitment to each other. It was a once in a lifetime thing. Way more valuable to me than a nice car.

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#122

Post by ozim »

themacguffinman wrote: post #54
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…

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…

in a kinship-dominated society means you have nowhere else to turn to which is enormous pressure.

Also enormous abuse.

Lots of people lament loss of family ties in western society.

But they completely ignore amount of abuse that comes with power of:

„you have no one else to turn to, stay with your family, we will beat you, rob you, but family is important”.

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#123

Post by overfeed »

rayiner wrote: post #104
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…

> There is a plausible argument that it’s causal. Europe had weaker kinship ties—for various reason

Explain China[1] and its steep ascent, blowing past all European countries, and soon - the USA.

1. Or India, to a lesser extent. There's a lot of recency bias when it comes to economic outcomes, as if we're at the end of history. I'm guessing at least one 19th century British industrialist/gentleman probably praised their Anglo-Saxon heritage and the Protestant (Anglican) faith as necessary ingredients to national wealth, as opposed to the fallen Catholic empires of Spain and Portugal, or the heathens in Africa, the Indo-Pacific, the Middle and far East.

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#124

Post by AlotOfReading »

paulmist wrote: post #84
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…

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 socie…

Guns, Germs, and Steel is a famously awful book.

Anyway, another lens to look at kinship relationships through is as a resilience strategy to volatile conditions. Any given stress (drought, job losses, etc) are unlikely to affect everyone equally, so the network functions as a safety net under many conditions.

Venture capital applies a similar strategy in the other direction if you squint a bit. It's impossible to predict who will succeed a priori, so the capital is spread to many different bets simultaneously in the hope that the successes outweigh the failures over time. Many of the "rituals" in the VC ecosystem (ghost hiring, puffery, fad chasing, etc) aren't particularly useful for any individual company's success, but I don't think many people here on HN are going to argue it's not economically effective as a whole.

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#125

Post by renewiltord »

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.

I don’t actually think so. I think if you apply rigor to those results you find that they don’t stand up. The field of sociology applies rigor selectively. Few of its results actually hold up.

I don’t even think the loneliness epidemic is real. The science is really not that strong.

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#126

Post by renewiltord »

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.

Indeed, in fact so many Americans go to Ghana because it’s much nicer to live with the healthcare you get there.

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#128

Post by rayiner »

overfeed wrote: post #123
rayiner wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> There is a plausible argument that it’s causal. Europe had weaker kinship ties—for various reason Explain China[1] and its steep ascent, blowing past all European countries, and soon - the USA. 1. Or India, to a lesser extent. There's a lot of recency bias when it comes to economic outcomes, as if we're at the end of history. I'm guessing at least one 19th century British industrialist/gentleman probably praised th…

> Explain China[1] and its steep ascent, blowing past all European countries, and soon - the USA

The communist party broke down traditional family structures, and replaced kinship ties with the state. To the point of massive intervention in family formation itself, through the one child policy.

It’s not about Anglo-Protestantism per se, but about a general progression towards atomized societies with weak family bonds. Multiple different cultural changes pushed in that same direction. Protestantism was one, but before that so was the Catholic Church: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/11/roman-catholi....

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#129

Post by UltraSane »

themacguffinman wrote: post #54
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…

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…

Corinne Hofmann is a Swiss woman who married a Kenyan Samburu warrior named Lketinga Leparmorijo and had a daughter. She opens a shop but they lose money because Lemalian gives too much credit to friends and neighbors, and because they have to pay bribes to the mini-chief. Lemalian argues that this is no problem because she has more money in Switzerland. The mini-chief demands that Carola hires his teenage nephew as a shop assistant. She has to accept this although she does not need him and he does not work hard. After some time, when he is just drinking beer and not working, she fires him. Later he returns and attacks her. A local judge rules that she has to pay two goats for firing him, but the boy's family has to pay her five goats to compensate for the attack.
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