7 ms·

My intuition about this as someone who grew up in America and has traveled internationally quite a bit is that nowhere else on earth are the middle classes so c

by ixtli 7y ago

My intuition about this as someone who grew up in America and has traveled internationally quite a bit is that nowhere else on earth are the middle classes so convinced that one day they will be "millionaires" than here. This causes them to act against their own best interests. (This was observed by Engels long ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consciousness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consciousness )

pathseeker 7y ago
>This causes them to act against their own best interests. That doesn't follow. You can act completely selfishly by not voting for unsustainable policies that appear to benefit you in the near term but would harm you in the long term.
marcoperaza 7y ago
Would you rather be richer and have more buying power in absolute terms, or just make sure the fellow next door doesn’t have more than you? This graph is misleading. It talks about middle class as a percent of national median income, which means large numbers of people counted as lower-class in the US would be counted as middle-class if they lived in Europe and made the same income.
- scarmig 7y ago
  I'd most like to have an existence where I don't worry about being bankrupted by a medical emergency or surviving on cat food once I retire[0]. [0] The cheap cat food, I mean, not the $10/meal cat food that rich Americans buy their pets.
  - tristor 7y ago
    Presumably since you're posting on this site you have a marketable skillset in a high demand field, which means you can enjoy a lucrative career and through making good decisions have significant retirement savings so you can afford to eat normally. Maybe you meant that you want that existence for others, in which case, you might have a point, but I think a lot of the people who have your worries in the tech industry only have them because they live in stupidly high cost-of-living areas like SV.
    - scarmig 7y ago
      Maybe not the retirement so much, but a medical issue can easily lead to bankruptcy, even when you have seven figures in assets.
      - marcoperaza 7y ago
        If you have insurance—which someone with “seven figures in assets” should—then that is not a risk. Of course, insurance will only pay for so much. At some point of diminishing returns, they will cut you off. Just like any healthcare system in the world will. You can always spend more money for a tiny chance of living longer.
        scarmig 7y ago
        You have way too optimistic a point of view on insurance. Yes, you can even be bankrupted while being insured and a paper millionaire.
- ixtli 7y ago
  Neither: I care that the fellow next door has access to first world quality food, shelter, education, and medicine without means testing. I also see no evidence that this desire is at odds at all with my lifestyle as a quasi-middle class person living comfortably.
  - marcoperaza 7y ago
    That has nothing at all to do with the information in this chart though.
mbesto 7y ago
Conversely, it's also what has attracted so many immigrants to America and created so much historic social mobility[0]. Note - I believe this has largely been reversed (and thus stagnated) due to a generation of "I got mine" attitudes, aka the Baby Boomers. [0]Example - in the UK there is very much a "these are the cards I've been dealt" attitude towards social mobility.
- ixtli 7y ago
  Well certainly working up from nothing in America is still better than certain places an immigrant can come from but i do increasingly feel bad for people who do this when they're not from a war zone :/
- naravara 7y ago
  >Conversely, it's also what has attracted so many immigrants to America and created so much historic social mobility[0]. Note - I believe this has largely been reversed (and thus stagnated) due to a generation of "I got mine" attitudes, aka the Baby Boomers. It's not "I got mine" attitude nearly as much as it is plain racism. As a block, White Americans preferred to shred social services rather than extending the umbrella to cover minorities. Why else would "hardhats" have voted for Ronald Reagan over their own working class interests?
  - kazen44 7y ago
    how does the quote go again? "every working class person in the US thinks they are a temporary inconvinced millionare?". One of the major differences i have found between people of working class in the US and those of other nations is their relation to their social class. a lot of people in the US seem to be trying to get out of a "working class" strata, instead of getting a bigger piece of the pie for said strata.
  - malvosenior 7y ago
    In the US there's a strong belief in self reliance. Just because something is harder doesn't mean it's worse (so the thinking goes). You can't honestly say everyone that supported Regan is racist. People just don't believe in hand outs, to anyone (I know I don't). There's nothing racist about that. You're also ignoring many other social issues that Republican's have traditionally supported that have nothing to do with race. There are probably very few people taking race into consideration at all when they vote.
the_economist 7y ago
They aren't completely wrong. 76% of Americans spend a year of their life in the top 20%, 56% in the top 10%. https://www.aei.org/publication/evidence-shows-significant-income-mobility-in-the-us-73-of-americans-were-in-the-top-20-for-at-least-a-year/print/ https://www.aei.org/publication/evidence-shows-significant-i...
- RobAtticus 7y ago
  The top 10% for individuals is 114k[0] and for a household is 178k[1]. They may eventually get to millionaire status, but there's still a long way to go. Basically, getting to 100+k at the end of a long career and plenty of saving & investing (which Americans are not great at [2]) may get you there, but I don't think those stats you provided really bear out the case. [0] https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/ https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/ [1] https://dqydj.com/united-states-household-income-brackets-percentiles/ https://dqydj.com/united-states-household-income-brackets-pe... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/14/heres-how-many-americans-are-not-saving-any-money-for-emergencies-or-retirement-at-all.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/14/heres-how-many-americans-are...
  - monocasa 7y ago
    Millionaire status has been retconned to mean $1M/yr in income, to keep it out of the realm of something you can just work for and achieve with a middle class lifetime.
  - castlecrasher2 7y ago
    I find it strange you're pulling out stats to refute the person you're responding to and prove an oddly specific quote that I believe misses the point entirely.
    - RobAtticus 7y ago
      Why? A bit of context to clear up a misconception or a misleading stats isn't a bad thing.
- deleted 7y ago
padobson 7y ago
This causes them to act against their own best interests. This is why enlightenment values have ultimately tilted toward capitalism. No collective can accurately define the best interests of every individual and design a policy to match. Better to let them sort it out themselves.
- ggm 7y ago
  Better on what evidence overall, regarding the entire economy and all classes?
rayiner 7y ago
> This causes them to act against their own best interests. Ah yes--when rich liberals vote against their own interests, it's noble. When lower-income conservatives vote against their interests, it's ignorant.
- cannonedhamster 7y ago
  Well, rich liberals are actually giving something up willingly, poor conservatives often have been shown to not understand what they are voting for. Poor anyone voting, regardless of political class, doesn't tend to understand what they are voting for or against. Mainly they don't have time to be appropriately educated since they are often working multiple jobs and often don't have the same educational pedigree as those in higher financial classes. See the example of people who support the ACA but hate Obamacare, or more recently the convicted felon using firearms to prevent others from either selling lawful asylum or crossing the border illegally depending upon how you view the law. Americans in general aren't a very internally consistent bunch. It's like the President talking down about people who are accused of sexually harassing people when he himself bragged about it. I'm sure there are endless examples but those come to mind from recent news.
- ixtli 7y ago
  I sense an implication that it’s not possible to evaluate the ends either group is voting for in this example. The nobility of the action depends on what you’re trying to achieve. Also, don’t mistake me for someone who’s interested in the desires of rich liberals :)

by ixtli 7y ago

pathseeker 7y ago

>This causes them to act against their own best interests. That doesn't follow. You can act completely selfishly by not voting for unsustainable policies that appear to benefit you in the near term but would harm you in the long term.

marcoperaza 7y ago

Would you rather be richer and have more buying power in absolute terms, or just make sure the fellow next door doesn’t have more than you? This graph is misleading. It talks about middle class as a percent of national median income, which means large numbers of people counted as lower-class in the US would be counted as middle-class if they lived in Europe and made the same income.

scarmig 7y ago
I'd most like to have an existence where I don't worry about being bankrupted by a medical emergency or surviving on cat food once I retire[0]. [0] The cheap cat food, I mean, not the $10/meal cat food that rich Americans buy their pets.
- tristor 7y ago
  Presumably since you're posting on this site you have a marketable skillset in a high demand field, which means you can enjoy a lucrative career and through making good decisions have significant retirement savings so you can afford to eat normally. Maybe you meant that you want that existence for others, in which case, you might have a point, but I think a lot of the people who have your worries in the tech industry only have them because they live in stupidly high cost-of-living areas like SV.
  - scarmig 7y ago
    Maybe not the retirement so much, but a medical issue can easily lead to bankruptcy, even when you have seven figures in assets.
    - marcoperaza 7y ago
      If you have insurance—which someone with “seven figures in assets” should—then that is not a risk. Of course, insurance will only pay for so much. At some point of diminishing returns, they will cut you off. Just like any healthcare system in the world will. You can always spend more money for a tiny chance of living longer.
      - scarmig 7y ago
        You have way too optimistic a point of view on insurance. Yes, you can even be bankrupted while being insured and a paper millionaire.
ixtli 7y ago
Neither: I care that the fellow next door has access to first world quality food, shelter, education, and medicine without means testing. I also see no evidence that this desire is at odds at all with my lifestyle as a quasi-middle class person living comfortably.
- marcoperaza 7y ago
  That has nothing at all to do with the information in this chart though.

mbesto 7y ago

Conversely, it's also what has attracted so many immigrants to America and created so much historic social mobility[0]. Note - I believe this has largely been reversed (and thus stagnated) due to a generation of "I got mine" attitudes, aka the Baby Boomers. [0]Example - in the UK there is very much a "these are the cards I've been dealt" attitude towards social mobility.

ixtli 7y ago
Well certainly working up from nothing in America is still better than certain places an immigrant can come from but i do increasingly feel bad for people who do this when they're not from a war zone :/
naravara 7y ago
>Conversely, it's also what has attracted so many immigrants to America and created so much historic social mobility[0]. Note - I believe this has largely been reversed (and thus stagnated) due to a generation of "I got mine" attitudes, aka the Baby Boomers. It's not "I got mine" attitude nearly as much as it is plain racism. As a block, White Americans preferred to shred social services rather than extending the umbrella to cover minorities. Why else would "hardhats" have voted for Ronald Reagan over their own working class interests?
- kazen44 7y ago
  how does the quote go again? "every working class person in the US thinks they are a temporary inconvinced millionare?". One of the major differences i have found between people of working class in the US and those of other nations is their relation to their social class. a lot of people in the US seem to be trying to get out of a "working class" strata, instead of getting a bigger piece of the pie for said strata.
- malvosenior 7y ago
  In the US there's a strong belief in self reliance. Just because something is harder doesn't mean it's worse (so the thinking goes). You can't honestly say everyone that supported Regan is racist. People just don't believe in hand outs, to anyone (I know I don't). There's nothing racist about that. You're also ignoring many other social issues that Republican's have traditionally supported that have nothing to do with race. There are probably very few people taking race into consideration at all when they vote.

the_economist 7y ago

They aren't completely wrong. 76% of Americans spend a year of their life in the top 20%, 56% in the top 10%. https://www.aei.org/publication/evidence-shows-significant-income-mobility-in-the-us-73-of-americans-were-in-the-top-20-for-at-least-a-year/print/ https://www.aei.org/publication/evidence-shows-significant-i...

RobAtticus 7y ago
The top 10% for individuals is 114k[0] and for a household is 178k[1]. They may eventually get to millionaire status, but there's still a long way to go. Basically, getting to 100+k at the end of a long career and plenty of saving & investing (which Americans are not great at [2]) may get you there, but I don't think those stats you provided really bear out the case. [0] https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/ https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/ [1] https://dqydj.com/united-states-household-income-brackets-percentiles/ https://dqydj.com/united-states-household-income-brackets-pe... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/14/heres-how-many-americans-are-not-saving-any-money-for-emergencies-or-retirement-at-all.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/14/heres-how-many-americans-are...
- monocasa 7y ago
  Millionaire status has been retconned to mean $1M/yr in income, to keep it out of the realm of something you can just work for and achieve with a middle class lifetime.
- castlecrasher2 7y ago
  I find it strange you're pulling out stats to refute the person you're responding to and prove an oddly specific quote that I believe misses the point entirely.
  - RobAtticus 7y ago
    Why? A bit of context to clear up a misconception or a misleading stats isn't a bad thing.
deleted 7y ago

padobson 7y ago

This causes them to act against their own best interests. This is why enlightenment values have ultimately tilted toward capitalism. No collective can accurately define the best interests of every individual and design a policy to match. Better to let them sort it out themselves.

ggm 7y ago
Better on what evidence overall, regarding the entire economy and all classes?

rayiner 7y ago

> This causes them to act against their own best interests. Ah yes--when rich liberals vote against their own interests, it's noble. When lower-income conservatives vote against their interests, it's ignorant.

cannonedhamster 7y ago
Well, rich liberals are actually giving something up willingly, poor conservatives often have been shown to not understand what they are voting for. Poor anyone voting, regardless of political class, doesn't tend to understand what they are voting for or against. Mainly they don't have time to be appropriately educated since they are often working multiple jobs and often don't have the same educational pedigree as those in higher financial classes. See the example of people who support the ACA but hate Obamacare, or more recently the convicted felon using firearms to prevent others from either selling lawful asylum or crossing the border illegally depending upon how you view the law. Americans in general aren't a very internally consistent bunch. It's like the President talking down about people who are accused of sexually harassing people when he himself bragged about it. I'm sure there are endless examples but those come to mind from recent news.
ixtli 7y ago
I sense an implication that it’s not possible to evaluate the ends either group is voting for in this example. The nobility of the action depends on what you’re trying to achieve. Also, don’t mistake me for someone who’s interested in the desires of rich liberals :)