3 ms·
Welcome to the Brazilianization of the world (https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/05/the-brazilianization-of-the-world/ https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2
by greiskul 3y ago
Welcome to the Brazilianization of the world (https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/05/the-brazilianization-of-the-world/ https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/05/the-brazilianizat...).
As social inequality increases, people with more money start being able to afford services much more easily. Do you think British nobility used to vaccuum their own homes? Ask someone with money how the Brazilian upper middle class used to live. Or ask people in India.
Doctors can afford to have people to clean up their houses, to cook their food, everything.
- devilbunny 3y agoI’m a doctor. I’m married to a doctor. We have no children. We have a once a week housekeeper who does some laundry and puts up the dishes and vacuums the place. We do not have a cook, unless you mean ordering takeout. Medicine pays well, but it’s all W2 or 1099, not something like getting stock and long term capital gains.
- greiskul 3y agoSorry, I did not mean doctors in North America. But if you go to rural Brazil, or to India, that's the living style that many doctors can and do afford.
- iamthirsty 3y agoThe interesting thing is, I've seen a pervasive view on HN of high-income people doing this, and being proud of it. Trading their money for time (sounds backwards, I know), but by having the most mundane aspects of life done by others, they get to do more meaningful things with their time. I personally am of the low-income, do-as-much-myself-as-possible and pinch every penny crowd. But HN has always seemed to me to be the opposite, given it's well over average income skew.
- convolvatron 3y agoI question whether the time 'saved' is really put to better use than learning how to interact more deeply with the world around you, and giving yourself more direct agency.
- ambicapter 3y ago> Trading their money for time (sounds backwards, I know) How does this sound backwards for you?
- HappMacDonald 3y agoProbably just that for those of us who are accustomed to working for a living, we see our time as the commodity and money as the compensation for marketing and selling it. Wealthier people can sit on the opposite end of that transaction and purchase our time commodity with their money, freeing up their own time in the process. But walking a mile in those shoes can feel backwards when one is accustomed to it only ever working the other way.
- lannisterstark 3y agoI mean, you obviously do trade money for time just like the wealthy. You have a dishwasher, or a washing machine and a dryer etc. You probably have a car, or some way to go around places that isn't walking etc. The scale is the only thing that is different.
- lordfrito 3y agoPart of this is reprioritization as you get older. The old saying: When I was young I had time but no money. Now that I am old I have money but no time. Like you, I did a lot myself when I was young/poor, pinched pennies etc. It got me to the point where I was successful. Now that I am older I value the things I am running out of time to do. So the money is well spent on maximizing my time left.