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Why the “Self-Made” Success Story Is a Myth

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Re: Why the “Self-Made” Success Story Is a Myth

#181

Post by AnimalMuppet »

cableshaft wrote: post #111
latencyloser wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of when I was working at Microsoft and a colleague said to me: "I don't know how anyone raises a family off less than $130k/year." I laughed and asked him if he'd ever been anywhere in the US outside of Seattle before. Turns out, he hadn't and assumed the insane cost of living we're subject to in this area also exists in the rest of the country. My point of reference is my family's house in a rural ar…

Between the cost of daycare, health care/insurance, pet care, car payments and maintenance, student loan payments, and then a mortgage (even a cheap mortgage) on top of that, not to mention saving something for retirement, forget the 10x your salary by the time you retire or whatever, and once every 2-3 years go on a vacation at least to the next state over, I do sometimes wonder how households can make ends meet on…

> Not to mention get married (wedding costs are insane, going through that right now)

Then don't do it that way. You can get married in a back yard, or in a park. For a park, the venue might cost you $100; for a backyard, $0. You don't have to have a reception with a meal (schedule the wedding at 2 PM, with reception immediately after, so nobody expects a full meal). You don't need a stunning dress or a tux.

I've been married over 28 years. The building we got married in has been torn down. I lost my original wedding ring. The developer lost the pictures from our honeymoon. The cake is long gone. But we're still here. It's not about the stuff around the day. Choose some balance between your desires and your desired budget, and call it good enough.

Re: Why the “Self-Made” Success Story Is a Myth

#182

Post by foldr »

darawk wrote: post #176
foldr wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Filtering by that criteria substantially increases the probability of someone being 'self-made'. Of course it does, because non-successful people by definition can't be "self-made"! (In order to be a self-made millionaire, you have to at least be a millionaire.) What it doesn't do is tell us anything about how much of any given person's success is down to luck. If you are just going to insist that a majority of succ…

> Of course it does, because non-successful people by definition can't be "self-made"! (In order to be a self-made millionaire, you have to at least be a millionaire.) What it doesn't do is tell us anything about how much of any given person's success is down to luck. Yes it does. There is a certain base rate of people lucking into vast fortunes. There is a certain base rate of people making those vast fortunes under…

>because it gets harder and harder to luck into that kind of money.

But it also gets harder and harder to get that kind of money by skill and hard work. Large amounts of money are more difficult to obtain by any means than small amounts of money. That tells us nothing about the role of luck.

And again, if you are just going to assert that obtaining vast wealth by hard work and skill is more likely than obtaining it by luck, then you are begging the question.

Re: Why the “Self-Made” Success Story Is a Myth

#183

Post by smallgovt »

fzeroracer wrote: post #174
darawk wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but lots of people are born rich and don't go anywhere. Yes, it's helpful to have something to fall back on, and yes, successful people from well off backgrounds should acknowledge that fact. But it doesn't mean that their accomplishments aren't their own.

We have a metric for this. It's called socioeconomic mobility. In general your claim that people are born rich but don't go anywhere is only somewhat true. People that are born rich and wealthy in the US generally do not fall to a lower socioeconomic class, and people in the lower classes tend to not rise. Assuming that skill levels are equal among both groups, can you explain why this is the case? If skill was so im…

> People that are born rich and wealthy in the US generally do not fall to a lower socioeconomic class

This is inaccurate. Only 40% of people in the top quintile of wealth stay there as adults; 60% fall into a lower bracket.

> People in the lower classes tend to not rise

This is also inaccurate. 57% of people born into the bottom quintile escape this quintile as adults.

The reality of the situation in the US is that from an absolute mobility standpoint, it's easier for the poorest quintile of americans to escape their economic class, but the income disparity between classes continues to grow so quickly that relative mobility is severely lower for the poor.

For more info, see: https://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/wwwpe...

Re: Why the “Self-Made” Success Story Is a Myth

#184

Post by smallgovt »

honkycat wrote: post #108
darawk wrote: post #26

This is such nonsense. First of all, there are absolutely people who come from dirt poverty and become wildly successful. Second of all, plenty of people receive lots of help from their parents and amount to precisely nothing. IMO it's fair to refer to your success as "self made" if you exceed the median success level of your class peer group by a substantial margin. If you immigrate from Africa with nothing, and you…

> First of all, there are absolutely people who come from dirty poverty and become wildly successful. Second of all, plenty of people receive lots of help from their parents and amount to precisely nothing. There are way more people who are born wealthy and continue being wealthy. There are way more people who go from poor to poor. Social mobility is piss poor right now in the US. If "having a nice family and a wonde…

> There are way more people who are born wealthy and continue being wealthy. There are way more people who go from poor to poor. Social mobility is piss poor right now in the US.

Can someone please point me to a study that supports this claim? Based on the Pew Charitable Trust's latest economic survey, 57% of people born into the lowest quintile rise above it. And, 60% of people born into the highest quintile fall below it.

See Figure 3: https://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/wwwpe...

I just started digging into the research surrounding economic mobility in the US, and it does not seem to substantiate the claim that the poorest class are just absolutely screwed.

Re: Why the “Self-Made” Success Story Is a Myth

#185

Post by danans »

darawk wrote: post #165
danans wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I disagree with is the people that want to dismiss Gates success completely because his family had some money. I don't know who you are talking to, but I've only heard his family's wealth discussed in the context of people discouraging young adults from attending or completing university, on the example of Gates. The point being that his family's wealth gave him exposure to technology and social networks that…

Are you reading the other comments in this thread? I see people making that argument in this very comment's section. I wish that they weren't. Certainly he had advantages that other kids didn't have, and both he and society should acknowledge that. But it doesn't take away a whole lot from what he's accomplished, IMO.

I don't see any comments completely placing the credit for Gates' success in his family's wealth.

Many are just saying it played a factor (as Gates himself readily acknowledges). More importantly, his origins aren't a particularly useful example for a person who doesn't already have similar-enough privileges to what Gates had.

If you are already in a place that Gates was when he started MS (financially secure, young, well-connected), then he is a fantastic of example of someone who seized the opportunities life presented him to great effect.

Re: Why the “Self-Made” Success Story Is a Myth

#186

Post by CodeMage »

darawk wrote: post #162
CodeMage wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel like this trope that self-made success is a myth comes almost entirely from people like the author of this article. People who were born with lots of advantages, who still couldn't hack it. They want to justify their own failure to live up to their family's expectations by tearing other people down. And there we go. That kind of attitude is why this trope was created initially. The problem people have with "…

> The problem people have with "self-made success" trope is that the self-made success story of someone with severe disadvantages is being equated, on an astoundingly regular basis, with the success of people with substantial advantages. That's how Bill Gates and Arnold Schwarzenegger are both dubbed "self-made" successes, despite their rather different histories. They are both self-made success stories. Schwarzenegg…

> They are both self-made success stories. Schwarzenegger even moreso than Gates.

That second part is precisely my point. They're both self-made success stories, but they are in no way equal. They're both self-made success stories in the sense that a dolphin and a cat are both mammals.

> If you come from nothing, i'd say getting into any of those professions more than qualifies for "making it".

I would like you to closely examine what you said and the way you said it. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you just didn't pay a lot of attention to what I wrote, rather than ignoring it and cherry-picking parts to focus on.

The inequality in United States is very, very pronounced and it's getting worse with time. The "self-made success" trope, which involves treating different self-made success stories as equal, is a way of defending and perpetuating that inequality.

People who are getting more and more oppressed by that inequality are rallying against the use of that trope.

Yes, I agree with your definition: an individual that exceeds the median success level of their peer class group can be, under certain circumstances, be defined as a "self-made success".

My point is that it's just a definition. What people are arguing about -- in general, not just this article -- is not really the definition. Rather, they are arguing about the concept in its socioeconomic context.

Which brings me back to what you said about "making it": if you come from nothing, then just having a well-compensated profession is qualifies as "making it". Is that self-made success? Because that's the topic of our discussion here, remember?

Sure, you could just repeat your definition and say that both "well-compensated professional who came from nothing" and "Bill Gates becoming a billionaire" are examples that fit the definition and that you're just stating facts and that there are no value judgments involved. In which case, you're just nit-picking the article and not making a useful point at all.

Or maybe you just took issue with the literal words I used to describe the American Dream and are nit-picking those, outside the context of the rest of the sentence, or indeed the rest of my comment?

The truth is that the discussions about the "self-made success as a trope" are not really about the clear cut definitions. It's turtles all the way down, in the sense that almost everyone relies on other people in some ways, so arguing about the precise definition of "self-made success" is a bit pointless. The discourse is really about the role of the trope in the growing inequality in this society and, to that purpose, arguing about some of the most common abuses of the trope -- like this article does -- is much more useful.

Re: Why the “Self-Made” Success Story Is a Myth

#187

Post by simonsarris »

refurb wrote: post #175
cableshaft wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Between the cost of daycare, health care/insurance, pet care, car payments and maintenance, student loan payments, and then a mortgage (even a cheap mortgage) on top of that, not to mention saving something for retirement, forget the 10x your salary by the time you retire or whatever, and once every 2-3 years go on a vacation at least to the next state over, I do sometimes wonder how households can make ends meet on…

Wedding costs are optional, you know that right? My wife and I spent under $1,000 for a nice, family focused wedding. Spending more than that if you don’t have the funds is nuts.

Agree this is totally the way to go. We spent $15 and got married in town hall two months ago. Then made breakfast with family at home. The rings cost a little more though.

If you count the gifts, which were not particularly numerous or substantial, we kind of made money on our wedding...

Re: Why the “Self-Made” Success Story Is a Myth

#188

Post by danans »

darawk wrote: post #26

This is such nonsense. First of all, there are absolutely people who come from dirt poverty and become wildly successful. Second of all, plenty of people receive lots of help from their parents and amount to precisely nothing. IMO it's fair to refer to your success as "self made" if you exceed the median success level of your class peer group by a substantial margin. If you immigrate from Africa with nothing, and you…

> IMO it's fair to refer to your success as "self made" if you exceed the median success level of your class peer group by a substantial margin.

"self made" isn't a statistical or legal term. It's a term of culture and art, and it is always employed by people through a subjective lens, whether to themselves or others.

Trying to impose a statistical definition on it ignores the history of its use up to the present, whether that use was justified or not.

> i'd say the author of this article more than qualifies for it

The fact that you are willing to apply a statistical measure for "self-made success", yet despite how little you know about the article's author, you are willing to apply a term like "self-made-failure" to them based on your personal feelings of antipathy toward a particular class of people, indicates that you might not be arguing in good faith.

Re: Why the “Self-Made” Success Story Is a Myth

#189

Post by donaldknuth123 »

jstarfish wrote: post #132
AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the average cost of wedding in the US being above $35k ( https://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-the-average-american-... ), $45k of downpayment seems to be well within the means of an average family.

Marriage-related crap is charged to credit cards and/or is subsidized through financial gifts by friends and family after the wedding. Down payments are neither, unless your parents/inlaws are feeling generous. The average savings account balance in this country is far less than 45k. You are completely out of touch if you think the average family can simply pull that out of their asses.

>The average savings account balance in this country is far less than 45k.

I've seen stats that say 60% of US households can't even afford a sudden expense of $1000 so it's even worse than that.

Re: Why the “Self-Made” Success Story Is a Myth

#190

Post by Consultant32452 »

ijpoijpoihpiuoh wrote: post #160
ForHackernews wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in the midwest. Most of the people I know are in Iowa, some in Illinois and Missouri. Saving up a down-payment is a significant obstacle, I think. I know that in some areas, you can get a rural development loan that requires a much smaller downpayment, but my friends don't want to live in the boonies and it would lead to a pretty miserable commute for them.

A hearty mmmeeehhhh to the idea that the median household cannot save 10%. Proof by existence: 50% of families live on less than the median. Probably at least 35% live on 10% or more less than the median. At that point it's a matter of priorities. Not saying life is cushy in this situation by any means. And of course there will be many families that cannot save enough. But it is doable if someone wants to make it a p…

I agree with you, additionally it's important to understand the concept of a "starter home." These homes may be much older, in less than ideal neighborhoods, and need you to put some sweat equity in them. The mistake I see some young people making is being unwilling to accept a home of lower quality than the ones their parents currently live in. They often don't see that this is their parents' second or third home that they've upgraded to. I don't blame the young people, I think this is a failure of the parents to set reasonable expectations of how to build a life.
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