Why Are Rich Stingy?
A month ago I suggested that left vs. right political attitudes roughly correspond to forager vs. farmer attitudes:
We acted like farmers when farming required that, but when richer we feel we can afford to revert to more natural-feeling forager ways. The main exceptions, like school and workplace domination and ranking, are required to generate industry-level wealth.
Today I should acknowledge some apparently conflicting data:
Data are from 31 nations and 66,777 individual respondents … In poor countries, but not in rich, most believe that family needs legitimate higher pay. Within countries—particularly English-speaking ones—low SES groups endorse family needs, but high SES groups reject them. (more)
Across 4 studies, lower class individuals proved to be more generous (Study 1), charitable (Study 2), trusting (Study 3), and helpful (Study 4) compared with their upper class counterparts. Mediator and moderator data showed that lower class individuals acted in a more prosocial fashion because of a greater commitment to egalitarian values and feelings of compassion. (more)
Two kinds of processes should interact here, and may work at cross-purposes. While on the one hand humans may be programmed to develop different attitudes when rich, on the other hand some attitudes may be more effective than others at creating wealth. While my forager-farmer hypothesis suggests that humans naturally return to more-forager-like egalitarian attitudes when rich, observed correlations between wealth and egalitarian attitudes should also be influenced whether egalitarian attitudes assist or hinder the accumulation of wealth.
So the above data showing that rich people and nations tend to be less egalitarian could still be consistent with my forager-farmer hypothesis if forager-style egalitarian attitudes tend on average to hinder the creation and accumulation of wealth, relative to farmer-style attitudes. And if this tendency is stronger than the other wealth causing attitudes tendency I postulate. For example, perhaps egalitarian envy discourages entrepreneurial risk, or prevents more efficient ventures from displacing less efficient ones.
Added 10a: Another response is to just consider this to be part of the “main exceptions” clause of my claim – a way in which we do not move to forager ways when rich, because it is central to what makes us rich.
BTW, Harlan Boyles was the son of a farmer.
Sackerson, it seems very unlikely that rich nations are so mainly because they are stingy.
Thinking about it, I'd have to disagree. If you're loose with the public purse and with enforcement of law, then how does the infrastructure that a rich nation needs get built?
For example, North Carolina used to have for almost 25 years, a State Treasurer by the name of Harlan Boyles. While googling for some supporting evidence, I came across this from his obituary:
Boyles went to work for the state after college, and his abilities caught the eye of Edwin Gill. When Gill was elected state treasurer, he took Boyles into the office with him. Gill assigned him to find ways to improve the state's credit rating, and in the early 1960s North Carolina was awarded the highest rating available, AAA.When Gill retired, Boyles, then his deputy, ran for the office and succeeded him. That was in 1977, and Boyles remained in the office until he elected to retire in 2001.In 24 years as state treasurer, the soft-spoken Boyles won universal respect for his conservative approach to the handling of state money and his wise counsel to governors and legislative leaders. North Carolina maintained its AAA credit rating, saving the state's taxpayers millions of dollars in interest. The state lost the rating in the year following his retirement. Boyles had warned that state government was growing larger than the tax base could maintain it.
The obituary was probably written by a relative or friend who shared Boyles's values. Note the emphasis on Boyles's advocacy for conservative fiscal policy (ie, stingy fiscal policy) and the AAA rating for North Carolina's bonds (and why I voted for him all the years I could vote in NC). This guy was stingy and proud of it. In return, the North Carolina government had access to the cheapest credit available. It's an anecdote that shows a solid correlation between stingy and rich at the government level.
Another thing to consider is cronyism, which economically is the transfer of other peoples' resources to a relative or ally. One definitely is not being stingy here, and the result is to make the country poorer through corrupt and inefficient economic transfers of wealth.