
The new, subtle ways the rich signal their wealth - polansky
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170614-the-new-subtle-ways-the-rich-signal-their-wealth
======
not_kurt_godel
> More profoundly, investment in education, healthcare and retirement has a
> notable impact on consumers’ quality of life, and also on the future life
> chances of the next generation. Today’s inconspicuous consumption is a far
> more pernicious form of status spending than the conspicuous consumption of
> Veblen’s time.

Spending money on education, healthcare, and retirement is pernicious? Self-
perpetuating, perhaps, but pernicious, really?

~~~
reitzensteinm
"having a harmful effect, especially in a gradual or subtle way."

That seems like exactly the word to use for self perpetuating inequality to
me...

~~~
not_kurt_godel
And what's the alternative? Should people make a conscious decision to be less
educated, less healthy, and less prepared for retirement?

~~~
general_so_chkn
There's this very strange and very dangerous notion making the rounds that
because some people don't have the means to access something (i.e. a college
education) then those that do have the means should abstain out of...what,
solidarity? Because it's unfair?

Problems of inequality are complex and have many different factors at play. I
think it's extremely dangerous to discourage the wealthy from using their
wealth in this manner. We need to explore the root causes of problems of
inequality and this type of rhetoric does NOTHING but fester resentment.

~~~
pm90
Notions of solidarity have been around as long as human civilization existed.
Thus you see a lot of cultures where the leaders/elite of their society were
discouraged from ostentatious displays of their wealth. And you can see this
today as well with a lot of very wealthy people choosing to not exercise their
wealth (e.g. Warren Buffett still lives in his old home at Omaha).

------
anguswithgusto
tl;dr: rich people spend more on education and fancy lunches for their kids.
Also, they pay attention to reading the right magazines, like The Economist
and The New Yorker so everyone knows they went to fancy schools.

Choice quotes:

>"Given that everyone can now buy designer handbags and new cars..."

>"Knowing which New Yorker articles to reference or what small talk to engage
in at the local farmers’ market enables and displays the acquisition of
cultural capital, thereby providing entry into social networks that, in turn,
help to pave the way to elite jobs, key social and professional contacts, and
private schools."

This article is really stupid.

~~~
TrickyRick
How is it really stupid? I thought it was an interesting analysis of consumer
behavior

~~~
anguswithgusto
"The new, subtle ways" of signalling wealth in this article are neither new,
subtle, nor interesting. You're telling me:

-Rich people bragging about going to/sending their kids to nice schools

-Eating fancy food

-Ostentatiously namedropping highbrow pop culture

are some sort of recent phenomena? Come on :)

~~~
shalmanese
Traditionally, there was "old money" and "new money" where entry into the old
money class didn't rely solely on wealth but also on subtle social signifiers.
What's new is the emergence of a class of "new old money" that adopts the same
social signalling techniques of old money, even with new wealth.

------
nopinsight
Spending more on health, education, and retirement is thinking long-term. Is
that a cause or an effect of being wealthy?

Perhaps in the old days, when overt classism was still accepted, conspicuous
consumption yielded something for the spender. Now it is often frawned upon in
the West, why bother? So the money saved is invested in
consumption/investments with better returns. That is rational.

~~~
vilmosi
> Spending more on health, education, and retirement is thinking long-term. Is
> that a cause or an effect of being wealthy?

Probably an effect. You can't choose to invest long-term if you can't afford
it.

~~~
nopinsight
There are many poor people in developing countries who sacrifice a lot of
things and save every bit they can to invest in the education of their
children. This phenomenon is very pronounced in China and several countries
with Confucius influence.

Families with this kind of mindset are unlikely to stay poor for more than 1-2
generations. (This is probably one reason why hundreds of millions in China
arose from poverty to middle-class in a single generation, although I do not
see many economists in the West discussing it in the context of China's rise.)

\---

"Zhang Yang, a bright 18-year old from a rural town in Anhui province in China
was accepted to study at a prestigious traditional medicine college in Hefei.
But the news was too much for his father Zhang Jiasheng.

Zhang's father was partly paralysed after he suffered a stroke two years ago
and could no longer work. He feared the family, already in debt to pay for
medicines, would not be able to afford his son's tuition fees.

As his son headed home to celebrate his success, Zhang Jiasheng killed himself
by swallowing pesticide.

Zhang's case is an extreme. But East Asian families are spending more and more
of their money on securing their children the best possible education.

In richer Asian countries such as South Korea and emerging countries like
China, "education fever" is forcing families to make choices, sometimes
dramatic ones, to afford the bills.

There are families selling their apartments to raise the funds to send their
children to study overseas.

\---

Extreme Spending

...

It is not just middle-class families. Workers also want their children to do
better than themselves and see education as the only means of ensuring social
mobility. Some go deep into debt.

"Families are spending less on other things. There are many cases of rural
parents not buying healthcare that their doctors urge on them... Part of the
reason is that they would rather spend the money on their children's
education," said Mr Kipnis.

"

From
[http://www.bbc.com/news/business-24537487](http://www.bbc.com/news/business-24537487)

~~~
vilmosi
> Families with this kind of mindset are unlikely to stay poor for more than
> 1-2 generations. (This is probably one reason why hundreds of millions in
> China arose from poverty to middle-class in a single generation, although I
> do not see many economists in the West discussing it in the context of
> China's rise.)

What? China's economic boom has little to do with their view on education.
They "simply" moved from farmers in extreme poverty to 6 day/12h shifts
factory workers in poverty. I don't dispute it's relatively better for
everyone, but it's hardly something to aspire to (particularly since other
countries made the transition ages ago, so it's not even replicable unless
we're talking about a really poor country that now has to compete with China
too).

The BBC article has a much more negative spin about this than you portray. It
even suggests it can be detrimental to the country.

The real reason some cultures obsess about education is because there are
severe and very real penalties if you fail some exam in middle school.

Finally, this is direct contradiction with your parent comment. Are poor
people poor because they don't invest in the future or are they more likely
to? Because if all you're saying is that poor people who invest long-term will
not stay poor, that's almost a tautology.

~~~
nopinsight
I said " _one_ reason why...". I am aware that there are other forces at work
for China's rise. However, if you look at many other countries on the verge of
industrialization, for example some in Latin America or Southeast Asia, the
rise has not been nearly as rapid and they tend to get stuck at the middle-
income level (and sometimes worse).

Why has the industrialization of East Asia been so much faster and go further
than in most other regions of the world? Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, ..., and
likely China. Also look at their PISA scores [1] (or other international
exams). I believe that _one_ major factor is the emphasis of education in the
culture.

If you have other explanations, I'd like to hear.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pisa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pisa)

> The real reason some cultures obsess about education is because there are
> severe and very real penalties if you fail some exam in middle school.

The penetration of cultural emphasis on education is much deeper and broader
than that. It starts almost from birth, and often before, and at all levels of
society. Many people there pick partners using strong filters on educational
level and institutions attended. High-achieving students are admired, not
bullied, for example. The real reasons go back thousands of years. Check out
Confucius philosophy and Chinese imperial examinations. [2][3]

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucianism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucianism)
[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination)

> if all you're saying is that poor people who invest long-term will not stay
> poor, that's almost a tautology.

I said that because you claimed that investing long-term is probably the
_effect_ of being well-off.

Note: I agree there are drawbacks to extreme emphasis on education. But it is
a good predictor of long-term material successes of a community and a country.

~~~
vilmosi
> The real reasons go back thousands of years.

The why has China's industrialisation happen so late?

> I said that because you claimed that investing long-term is probably the
> effect of being well-off.

That is the main argument here. I still think it's an effect.

 _Everyone knows saving for a pension is worth it, everyone knows a more
expensive fridge is more economical, everyone knows expensive shoes last
longer, but not everyone can afford these solutions._

> Note: I agree there are drawbacks to extreme emphasis on education. But it
> is a good predictor of long-term material successes of a community and a
> country.

The South Korean government disagrees with you.

FYI I am reading your sources. One important concept in Confucianism is this:

> Social harmony results in part from every individual knowing his or her
> place in the natural order, and playing his or her part well.

It's not a guide that promotes social mobility. It was created for a certain
time and place.

------
atemerev
Reading "The Economist"? Talking to vendors at organic farmer's market?
Breastfeeding? (Not that there's anything wrong with that). All of these
signal middle class more than anything else.

The rich people I know display the following marks of belonging:

1) the ability to make a call and solve any petty problem they have (forgot to
take a prescription to the pharmacy? Make a call, and the medicine will be
released anyway, with compliments).

2) being relaxed and serene like a Buddhist monk

3) displaying levels of trust impossible to the less rich people. Like "you
know Bitcoin and how it works, right? Could you buy some for me? Here's
$30,000". I barely knew the guy!

~~~
kozak
In your example with a phone call and a pharmacy, how would that work (the
exact mechanism)? I assume that you imply that this is happening in a first-
world country, of course.

~~~
atemerev
Switzerland. I don't know and they don't tell :) But probably he has called
his concierge or family office, who called his family doctor, who told the
pharmacist to release the medicine on his behalf.

------
scandox
As a non-American and occasional visitor the most obvious class distinction is
Teeth. The American middle-class have great looking teeth, bought and paid
for. What's funny is they talk about other countries having bad teeth,
ignoring the fact that all you have to do is walk into some other
neighbourhood and see all the bad teeth you want...

~~~
pm90
Interesting.. but class distinction b/w middle and upper class or middle and
lower class? After you mentioned it though I do agree on this... dental care
is incredibly good in the US and covered by insurance so many middle class
Americans do have incredibly good looking teeth.

------
Raphael_Amiard
There is nothing new or subtle about it. This subject has been thoroughly
explored by the French school of sociology, most notably Pierre Bourdieu, some
60 years ago, with much more detail and academic rigor.

I understand that an article cannot show the same level of detaik as a
sociology book, but framing it as new is either disingenuous or uneducated.

------
vosper
I'm starting to feel sorry for rich people. They're not allowed to buy nice
things because that is just obnoxious showing off, and now they're not allowed
to spend their money on education, retirement, and healthy food? Maybe the
author should stop bearing around the bush and just tell the rich off for
being rich!

------
Banthum
It's interesting reading a pseudo-critique of the "new cultural elite" coming
from an author who lives in that elite and an institution that represents that
elite globally.

It's like a weird ritualistic self-criticism exercise, to demonstrate goodness
and status. Like watching a beauty pageant contestant answer a question about
her flaws. Which is part of the virtue signaling that article is about! It's
so _meta_.

And it's nothing like what an outsider to that subculture would write.

\---

I'd actually say that getting a useless degree in an intensively political
field is one of the more interesting 'new' forms of conspicuous consumption.

Back in the day, people used to get tutored in Latin or Christian theology to
have upper-class cred. Now they get gender studies or "whiteness studies"
degrees.

In each case the message is the same: _I am so wealthy that I can spend all my
time doing things that don 't economically benefit me at all and are entirely
focused on elevating my morality in the dominant activism of our age._ It's a
sort of ritualistic destruction of your own ability to earn a living, to
demonstrate you don't have to earn a living. Like Chinese foot binding.

~~~
greglindahl
College is not necessarily a vocational school -- many people with "useless"
degrees go on to become knowledge workers... using the skills that they
learned and applied in their "useless" degree. That's an economic benefit from
the "useless" degree.

One example of this is all the physicists working as programmers. There are
also a ton of examples of humanities students becoming lawyers, or product
managers, or school teachers, or ...

~~~
Banthum
Of course, some degrees are direct training, and some are more generally
useful. But there's a spectrum.

E.g. philosophy and "gender studies" are both considered generally useless.
But I'd say that philosophy at least can be applied to various types of work,
and the course doesn't make a student _less useful_ as a productive human.

With "gender studies" the student is actually becoming _more useless_ by
having his head filled with a bunch of moralisms, victimhood ideologies, and
objectively false lies about the world. A naive highschooler is more useful in
any workplace than a "gender studies" graduate.

It's more useful to know nothing than to know things that aren't true, or be
full of propagandized anger at various identity groups.

~~~
greglindahl
Wow, you're really doubling down on making stuff up and then being critical of
it.

My sister is an example of someone who studied gender studies as an
undergraduate, and she's currently a quite successful high school English
teacher.

------
tushar-r
Posted for the 7th time in 7 days (different posters), this article has
touched a nerve :-)

------
pravinva
So, people are status conscious.go over to overcoming bias.com and read it
from the master Robin Hanson. Every thing we do is based on stay.including
pretending to care about inequality

------
ajhurliman
So by admission of the article, they're not really signaling their wealth,
they're being more inconspicuous. I'm not even sure what the claim is
anymore...

------
wyager
This article is an archetypal example of raw, unpasteurized Crab Mentality.
More focus on healthy behaviors and education? God forbid!

~~~
pm90
Nowhere did the article say it is a bad thing. Only that the rich have changed
their behavior.

