One thing I learned from reading The WEIRDest People in the World by Joseph Heinrich is that saving (delayed gratification) can be detrimental to a lot of peopl

One thing I learned from reading The WEIRDest People in the World by Joseph Heinrich is that saving (delayed gratification) can be detrimental to a lot of people in various societies around the world. Part of it is that if you have money, then it will make you a target for thieves or corruption. But also, family members will ask you to borrow money if they know you have some. And if no one has any saved money, whenever they have an emergency, they’ll go beg the lone person who might have some. So, you’re better off just spending any money you get right away so that you don’t have to give it over to a family member. Clearly, that equilibrium is hard to break out of, and pretty much requires kin based institutions to be broken down first (which is the thesis of the book for how the rich world got rich).