Sunday, May 1, 2011

Do Economic Considerations Influence People?

If economic considerations had any influence on people's actions, the following would be true:

1. The poorest states in the country would vote Democratic and hate the Republicans for championing the interests of the rich at the expense of the poor.

2. People would care about other folks' abortions and homosexuality a lot less than they care about not losing their house, benefits and paycheck.

3. Nobody would use credit cards which make things bought with them cost a lot more than they actually do.

4. There would be no competition for academic positions which pay very little for the kind of work they require.

5. People who are directly responsible for causing the economic collapse of 2008-9 would be in jail instead of in the White House.

6. Whether you have a nice personality would not be a single most important factor in whether you get employed.

7. Companies and universities would not hire people for high-paying positions of great responsibility based on nepotism.

8. Sweden would not have a higher suicide rate than Mexico.

9. Women would not give up their financial independence for the dubious privilege of washing some guy's underwear and hoping not to get dumped by him in later years.

10. Nobody would have children.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think what the major influence has on our behavior are our drive of survival and that of replication. Through history we have also developed others behaviors which I also consider have led us successfully in satisfying our basic drives of survival and replication and therefore have become innate to us. These are: our need for association, need for group membership, and the need to acquire status within a group.
With this drives and basic behaviors I think we can explain most of the human behavior. Obviously our ability to consciously think and reason plays a role, but in my opinion only to the extent to satisfy our drives and as long as it doesn’t enter in contradiction with our basic behaviors.
Regarding the economy, that is to say that the economy is behind human behavior, is an oversimplification or/and an abstraction of the situation. If we had a vision at a macro level of human behavior we could probably conclude that this is the motivation. I don’t think any of your examples qualifies as macro. Of course the 2008 economic collapse does, but the part about getting the responsible people in jail, do not. People here were driven by ‘economic interests’ with the hope to acquire a higher status in society.

Lear

Anonymous said...

I will try to justify my theory, by explaining each of your examples:

Lear

1. The poorest states in the country would vote Democratic and hate the Republicans for championing the interests of the rich at the expense of the poor.

Here are in play our need for membership and association. People are led to believe that they’re in fact member of a group that would care for their interests, while in fact they’re just being utilized by others in order to acquire higher status in society.

2. People would care about other folks' abortions and homosexuality a lot less than they care about not losing their house, benefits and paycheck.

This is group membership in play. Group members usually accept the price of defending the group (that is defend whatever the current speech of the group is) in order to receive the protection of the group or ascertain their membership in order to show status.

3. Nobody would use credit cards which make things bought with them cost a lot more than they actually do.

Here there could be many things at play, but I could argue that people here are buy many things mostly for the bragging rights that come associated with them. That is their purpose is to increase their status in their group, and for that they would be willing to sacrifice anything.

4. There would be no competition for academic positions which pay very little for the kind of work they require.

I think that once you have covered your basic needs (survival) your next interest is to increase your for group membership and status. Depending on the circles one moves, this could have more value than money alone.

5. People who are directly responsible for causing the economic collapse of 2008-9 would be in jail instead of in the White House.

I think bank managers, and politicians are all members of the same group, and protect their interests as every social group does. Politicians are probably not really in, and they would give anything to get in.

6. Whether you have a nice personality would not be a single most important factor in whether you get employed.

Probably because they see this candidate shares, and could defend the interests of the group (to which the institution or company mangers belong) better than anyone else, or at least he gives that impression.

7. Companies and universities would not hire people for high-paying positions of great responsibility based on nepotism.

Same as #6.

8. Sweden would not have a higher suicide rate than Mexico.

Cold weather, dark environments are less favorable for social engagement: people with lack of group of membership of status would probably unconsciously feel, that they’re less likely to survive and replicate.


9. Women would not give up their financial independence for the dubious privilege of washing some guy's underwear and hoping not to get dumped by him in later years.

One possibility could be that the woman sees that the man has higher status than her, and hopes to associate with him, in the hope that he will protect her interests and those of the offspring.

Clarissa said...

How do autistics, who consciously exclude themselves from groups and for whom group membership is a punishment, fit into your theory?

Also, howe do you explain an Aspie, like myself, who couldn't care less about status, competing fiercely for an academic position?

In general, I believe that it is very reductive to look for just one cause for all the phenomena I described.

Rimi said...

I think renouncing group membership in one fell swoop is unwise, Clarissa. We all belong to groups, some of our own choosing, where we enjoy participating to certain degrees, and some not. Your blog is a vibrant group/community, and I assume you enjoy participating in it. Your family, with your dashing husband and your 'baby' and 'grandchild' in Canada, and your parents whom you miss -- that is another community you welcome most of the time. The trick, I think, is not to let your mind and vocabularly be colonised by the screeching, vastly-funded and expertly-shaped mainstream culture.

And it is the inability to do so, by and large, that people do most of the things they do. Inclusionary instincts, a misplaced sense of what is 'good' for one, a public education that de-emphasises rational/logical abilities, and a popular culture that pushes the idea that feel-good choices are 'empowering', and information block about what the Republican Party actually does in the government... there is no dearth of interconnected reasons why people vote against their own interests. But a lot of them boil down to a broken education system, and big money making big media push a certain sense of identity, to play exclusionary politics using the co-opted watchers as a tool.

el said...

1 - The important thing is many believe they protect their economic interests from poor, already unemployed, medically uninsured, etc. The link from "penguin's" blog I recently gave (in your post about taking homeless mother to court) shows just that. Of course, much more is in play here, but I refer specifically to economic considerations, like you did.

2- The more stressed people are because of economy, the less tolerant they become and show their suffering by attacking others. Best known example - Germany after First World War.

3- Imo, it's a bad example since desire for more things is economic consideration. It only shows that people aren't ideal and don't always delay gratification and make the best economic choices in the long run. Greed for more things is THE ec. consideration.

4- Depends on how risk loving a person is. Government jobs in USA paid less than private sector, but were supposed to provide more job and pension security. For some people security means a lot and this is neto ec. cons. again.

5- Wasn't it a feature of modern US economy rather than a deed of a few criminals? A feature fixing which would require making basic changes to entire US economy?

6- I don't believe it's the single most important factor in IT f.e. with its' famous geeks. If you're a teacher or work with clients, personality is very important. O.w. clients will leave your firm or, if you're a government worker, complain and create problems (economic too!) to your boss too, not only to you.

7- If it's nepotism, then whoever does it has an economic interest by definition.

8- Would love to read surveys about the supposed causes.

9- With high childcare costs and not high salary, it is sometimes economicly right decision for a family. At least, while the kids are small.

10- One of explanations why number of children went down was economic. In the past and even today in some places children are like a pension for an old age. As raising children started demand more resources and children contribute less economically, people started having less kids and chose higher standard of living instead. Even today in 1st world country, even if one lives in nursing home, visiting relatives do provide some real protection. Haven't you heard the expression "have children to get a glass of water in my old age"? I have always hated it, but it's 100% economic.

I don't mean we're influenced only by economics. I just wanted to say people are more influenced than you said here.

Anonymous said...

You're right, in that I've been oversimplifying human behavior. I just wanted to point out the importance of our genetic drives.

I doubt you're not interested in status. Isn't a tenured professor considered more prestigious than one who isn't? Aren't His/her opinions more likely to be listened (by the deans, by other academicians)?

You said yourself you'd love to see a row of your published books in the library one day.

I'm not an aspie, so I don't really know what it entails. I'm however a person who avoids groups. I've given up career chances for this, I've chosen a sport that can be practiced alone, so I think I share some of the characteristics of autistics.

Despite my groups avoidance, I look forward to compete (locally) on this sport and gain some recognition through this, I also hope among other things to publish my novel one day and be able to tell my friends and family about this.

Lear

Clarissa said...

"With high childcare costs and not high salary, it is sometimes economicly right decision for a family."

-By "family" you, of course mean the guy. Sure, it must be super profitable for him to keep a cheap servant and child-minder around. Why a woman would want to participate in this, though, is a different questions altogether.

Clarissa said...

All attempts to find just one system that will explain everything that happens in the world are doomed. It is part of our postmodern condition to distrust such grand narratives. At least, that's what I thought until I started reading this thread. :-)

el said...

Fun story: I read a forum discussion of Israeli uni students why they want children. They (both women and men) talked about being cared of in old age. And Israel is very social country. The one man, who said he didn't want children, mentioned killing himself in old age! I was very surprised. So, at least from this discussion, we see people thinking about economics (their egoistical interest, and I don't mean in love).

Clarissa said...

These folks don't sound very smart. :-) It would be so much cheaper and a lot more secure just to invest in a retirement account.

el said...

I disagree. Remember horrible inflation in Ukraine? What about the quite high possibility to lose everything in some crisis? As "penguin" said, money is just a paper with pictures of dead people on it.

Also it isn't just a question of money, but having trusted people to look after you, even if you become mentally infirm from old age & its' diseases. As one said, even people in nursing homes benifit from the staff seeing somebody checks on them. I wouldn't trust anybody do it for pay somehow.