HN

Comments (121)

• Menu

  kenferry
  The factual material about funeral spending costs is very interesting, but when it gets into "Kinship societies are wealth-destroying societies" it seems rather… unsupported? That's a sweeping statement that actually requires understanding the whole picture, and the whole picture is not being presented. Is there reason to think the author truly has all the context to make these claims?
• Menu

  levocardia
  >Kinship societies are actively hostile to economic growth, because economic growth undermines the basis of kinship: that is why kinship societies demand constant, visible sacrifices of wealth—funerals being the most spectacular—that make it extraordinarily difficult for any individual to accumulate capital, reinvest their assets, and pull ahead. The funeral is a window into a system of wealth destruction that serves, above all else, to keep people poorThis reasoning is flawed. Consumer spending is not "wealth destruction" -- who makes the fantasy coffins? Who prints the banners? Local businesses!Ghana is sitting at a 5.6% GDP growth rate; for reference developmental success India is at 6.5%. Ghana's GDP in 2000 was $5B, today it's $82.B. Its per-capita GDP has more than doubled in the same time period.
• Menu

  klooney
  > Modernity is about not doing what your family saysThe flip side is that rich and modern people feel lonely and sad that they don't have strong social bonds.
• Menu

  forthwall
  This article seems to establish that kinship leads to the failure of wage growth and ultimately wealth, people will hide their wages because people will ask for money. This seems like the issue rather is is that wealth accumulation in sub-saharan africa is limited to a small subset of population, I don't think this wealth tax by family members exists when you have a larger group of individuals making more money.You can observe this in the US, and presumably in the rest of the world, when wealth is concentrated to individuals, your family will probably ask you for money. The difference is here, there is less income inequality and more people have the ability to make more money.I do like the look into funeral culture, but I don't think this assumption that kinship and family-peity is the cause of the lack of economic mobilty.
• Menu

  Bombthecat
  Wife is from Africa, buried her dad and mom.If she wouldn't have put down her foot, they would have sucked her dry ( our money) we set a budget and they got what they got... But I can easily see other people/ wifes not setting boundaries and spending a ton of money..
• TheGRS
  That was a very interesting read. I appreciate when anyone tries to dig into the actual why of culture instead of just leaving it at face value. I get the impression this is more of a working theory than factual on the sociological side, because I do think there's a lot of counter-arguments to be made about strong kinship networks that are otherwise wealthy and prosperous.And there's a pretty obvious parallel in wealthy nations: the lavish wedding. There are many examples of otherwise modest to low income couples, even with support of their families, putting on weddings they can't really afford but they do it anyway because of social mores. Maybe there's a clear connection between those examples and strong kinship networks. Or maybe its back to peer pressure and keeping up with the joneses.
• Menu

  technothrasher
  Basically my whole family have signed our bodies over to the local medical school. They make all the arrangements and pay for everything as soon as they're notified upon death. They'll normally give you the ashes upon cremation after a year or so, but personally I've given them permission to completely skeletonize me and keep the skeleton indefinitely.This helps society by helping student doctors learn, and it removes all funeral hassles and expenses. We can still do more low-key memorial ceremonies without needing a body. I realize this path doesn't work for everybody, especially those with certain religious beliefs, but we all just love the idea.
• Menu

  Tade0
  There's an interesting film focused on this topic:https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1499420/The author traveled through Cameroon and documented, among other things, the realities of having a backlog of dead one must properly bury.Turns out not everyone can afford putting their deceased relatives in a freezer - especially for extended periods of time, so sometimes the dead are stored in a separate storage area next to the home until the living gather the necessary funds.
• Menu

  mlsu
  In America we spend that money on weddings. Lots of young people wipe their savings on getting married, at one of the most critical times in life (just before starting a family). It often prevents them having kids or buying a home for years.
• wewtyflakes
  I found a lot of the points being made against kinship networks are also easily made against traditional wealth-oriented cultures."The kinship network has a strong interest in preventing any of its members from becoming prosperous enough to no longer need it"Seems like the exact monetary pressures someone from the west would feel, except it comes from bosses rather than family. Minimum wage needing to exist as a thing is a clear example of that.
• Menu

  orbital-decay
  The author is trying to generalize this narrative, but it still sounds pretty specific to Ghana and some other African societies. Chechnya and Dagestan are mentioned, but I struggle to remember any demonstrative wealth destruction practices there. Also what about other historic kinship societies (e.g. Scottish, Italian?)
• Menu

  AussieWog93
  The article talks about the failure mode of kinship groups, but doesn't go into the fact that new migrants often enter into kinship networks that help them succeed. You see the same in religious communities as well - people pitching in not to leech off one another but to help everyone move ahead.Maybe the problem is with Ghanaian values and not kinship itself.
• sho_hn
  Very loosely related novel recommendation: "Ways of Dying" by South African author Zakes Mda was a revelation. I've since read a few other books by him and he's become one of my favorite novelists.I'm your usual HN-brained copious scifi novel/science non-fic reader, typically.
• Wolfenstein98k
  I always wonder how much of the West's wealth(- holding capabilities) come from centralising and rationalising our superstitions through central authorities like the church.
• binsquare
  My mom's funeral was ~23k in Chicago, US.As a reference to how much that is - she made minimum wage her whole life (<44k).It's obscene how much money there is in death.
• olalonde
  Reminds me of that article from a few days ago about Chinese people buying apartments to store cremated ashes due to high cemetery costs: https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/arti...
• jamesfinlayson
  Interesting - I knew about the fancy coffins (I'd seen pictures of them years ago) but had no idea about the rest of it.
• Menu

  asadm
  People should look again at how we Muslims bury. Not only is it much "green" but also cheap and doesn't waste land forever. There is wisdom in simplicity.
• t1234s
  As westerners we must look at this as a weapon that's being imported into our countries.
• voganmother42
  when I'm dead just throw me in the trash
• basyt
  the western mind cannot comprehend kinship...
• whalesalad
  Meanwhile I want to be tossed into a hole bare naked with a tree planted on top of me.
• Menu

  thelock85
  It’s interesting how this is framed as a “bad deal” (being apart of a kinship society) without taking time to breakdown the cost of being on your own in Ghanaian society, especially when healthcare, credit harm and other emergencies are broadly unaffordable in individualist, capitalist American society.
• mystraline
  Sounds like failed priorities, spending that much on dead people, rather than the living.
• chistev
  [dead]
• nmbrskeptix
  [dead]
• truth777
  [dead]
• onlyjanand
  [dead]
• anon
  undefined
• Menu

  jrm4
  [flagged]
• mohamedkoubaa
  Call it a membership fee to an institution that actually cares about you and everyone you care about for life.Over here we have extractive taxation