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.
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.
This is what both my parents and myself did. When my mum was diagnosed with Stage 4 melanoma, it was one less thing to worry about arranging and trying to find money for.
She went from diagnosis to death in two months so things were a bit disorienting and just getting a RESPECT form (aka DNR) completed was such a struggle as everyone I spoke to had no record of my previous conversation with the last person I spoke to.
When mum was admitted to the hospice, despite explaining the arrangements we’d made and showing them the paperwork, it was only by chance that one evening I happened to overhear a nurse mention that mum had ascites, which is one of the few things that disqualified her from being able to donate her body. I googled it and realised we would need to arrange and pay for her body to be collected, stored and cremated.
She died the next morning and luckily I was able to get that sorted about 2 hours earlier. I suppose the point I’m trying to make is that if you go through the process of arranging to donate your body to a teaching hospital (which you must do yourself ahead of time) don’t assume it’s on medical records or that anyone will advise you that the body isn’t suitable for donation for any reason. Like all NHS-related things in the UK, the systems are breaking or broken and so are the poor staff, so you need to advocate for whoever needs it and never assume what you said one day will be passed on to the next shift.
And for folks that do want to bury the body, it can be done way cheaper than the funeral industrial complex would have you believe. Our church keeps a simple coffin on hand that the family can use at cost. And we have folks who will prepare the body and bring it to the church. The only part we don't usually do is dig the grave. Cemeteries usually include that in the cost of the plot.
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.
I’m not trying to get pity, but it would be mistaken to say that I brought it on myself. My wife didn’t bring it on me either. We simply eroded over time. But when marital bonds erode, it turns out they take family bonds with them; or at least, her side of the family. My side isn’t much, so hers was my primary source of social interaction.
This is a self inflicted wound in the sense that I could have formed a lot of social bonds with people other than my wife. And I tried to, sometimes. But when you’re spending 20 years with one person, it’s hard to make time for anything else, especially if you want to do good work (in the researcher sense).
So it’s more of a “pick two: family, friends, work”. I went the family and work route. I don’t regret it, but it means that now all that’s left is work, which can be a hollow existence.
Luckily, modern society has a surplus of ways to help motivated people form social bonds. Once I get my car back, I’ll be going to the local therapy groups, one of which is wood crafting. Random hobbies like that with random people sounds fun.
The thing to avoid seems to be dating apps. Jumping from one relationship into another is universally known as a bad idea. I’m hoping that casting a wide net (going to groups, reading clubs, DnD, or other activities) will fill the void.
Honestly though, what helps the most is that I have a daughter. She’s almost 3. I’m very happy we had her, and just remembering that she’ll have a nice life helps me appreciate my own.
Modern society makes it easier than ever to isolate yourself. I spend my days sitting in a house alone, having Amazon drop off USB-C cables, with my biggest social interaction of the week being the door to door salesman (who, ironically, is trying to sell me a door) that’s coming by tomorrow. That’s the default state; you have to push back against it, and that’s hard. But it’s probably mistaken to say that those who go with the flow are suffering from self inflicted wounds. Societal flow used to be towards social groups (church being the most obvious example) instead of paths that end in loneliness.
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?
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.
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..
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.
You can always find disaster stories about couples who wipe out their savings and put themselves in a precarious financial situation for a wedding they can’t afford, but it’s actually super common.
Traditional weddings costs are paid in part or full by the parents. Many well off young people pay their own way. If neither is an option it’s also common to have a smaller or home-grown wedding.
If you know enough people we can all likely think of someone who overspent and regretted it, but I disagree that it’s the common cultural thing to do. It’s a topic where righteous people like to heap scorn on others for doing it, though.
Ha, have you been to an indian wedding in India? Now that’s big big money. And the societal pressures to make it so are huge .. American weddings are so tame and sensible by comparison.
Far better to spend those $$ on weddings rather than funerals though !
It's so funny you say that. Was literally just chatting to my wife the other day about how mediocre weddings are. You spend $20-$50k basically LARPing as landed British gentry, and end up having less fun than the average 21st, Christmas or New Year's. So much more stress in planning too.
a couple can have a really big wedding for a really decent price if they plan everything themselves / with family
if they go through a wedding planner, the 'coordination' eats most of the budget, almost entirely so if 'their people' get involved with setup/teardown
This seems very different that what the article describes.
Sure, some young people may spend more than they can really afford on their wedding, but this still seems like a personal choice - tons of people have cheap weddings (or gasp, elope). I don't think may people are cutting back on eating (when they already suffer from malnutrition) to have a big wedding like how the article describes funerals in Zimbabwe.
Plus, I think the relatively few cases in the US where young people do feel intense family pressure to overspend on a "big wedding" show similar dynamics and downsides to the "kinship societies" that the article is really about.
Same thing with engagement rings, it's just a stupid fake tradition created by DeBoers in the 1950s that costs an inordinate amount of money for nothing.
I really hope that lab grown diamonds puts that entire industry out of business.
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.
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.
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?)
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.
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.
Lots of buzzwords in your comment, but pointless. This is a complete waste of money, and a burden on the living to ‘show off’ their status. The ancient egyptian kings at least had the resources, power and wealth to build their pyramids..
You're talking about funeral costs; the author generalizes _a_lot_ from funeral costs to "kinship societies are bad". That's the leap the comment you're replying to is discussing.
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.
This is the most insightful comment in this thread. Unfortunately Oks decided to use a clickbait title that made people jump to conclusions.
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.
This is what both my parents and myself did. When my mum was diagnosed with Stage 4 melanoma, it was one less thing to worry about arranging and trying to find money for.
She went from diagnosis to death in two months so things were a bit disorienting and just getting a RESPECT form (aka DNR) completed was such a struggle as everyone I spoke to had no record of my previous conversation with the last person I spoke to.
When mum was admitted to the hospice, despite explaining the arrangements we’d made and showing them the paperwork, it was only by chance that one evening I happened to overhear a nurse mention that mum had ascites, which is one of the few things that disqualified her from being able to donate her body. I googled it and realised we would need to arrange and pay for her body to be collected, stored and cremated.
She died the next morning and luckily I was able to get that sorted about 2 hours earlier. I suppose the point I’m trying to make is that if you go through the process of arranging to donate your body to a teaching hospital (which you must do yourself ahead of time) don’t assume it’s on medical records or that anyone will advise you that the body isn’t suitable for donation for any reason. Like all NHS-related things in the UK, the systems are breaking or broken and so are the poor staff, so you need to advocate for whoever needs it and never assume what you said one day will be passed on to the next shift.
And for folks that do want to bury the body, it can be done way cheaper than the funeral industrial complex would have you believe. Our church keeps a simple coffin on hand that the family can use at cost. And we have folks who will prepare the body and bring it to the church. The only part we don't usually do is dig the grave. Cemeteries usually include that in the cost of the plot.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49198405
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.
> Modernity is about not doing what your family says
The flip side is that rich and modern people feel lonely and sad that they don't have strong social bonds.
Ok, so better to be poor and backward, eh ?
perhaps.
That is more of a self inflicted wound than an intrinsic aspect of modern society.
I wish it was self inflicted. Instead, it seems to be an artifact of modern society. I posted “How to Be Alone?” exploring this issue somewhat:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47296547 690 points, 500+ comments.
I’m not trying to get pity, but it would be mistaken to say that I brought it on myself. My wife didn’t bring it on me either. We simply eroded over time. But when marital bonds erode, it turns out they take family bonds with them; or at least, her side of the family. My side isn’t much, so hers was my primary source of social interaction.
This is a self inflicted wound in the sense that I could have formed a lot of social bonds with people other than my wife. And I tried to, sometimes. But when you’re spending 20 years with one person, it’s hard to make time for anything else, especially if you want to do good work (in the researcher sense).
So it’s more of a “pick two: family, friends, work”. I went the family and work route. I don’t regret it, but it means that now all that’s left is work, which can be a hollow existence.
Luckily, modern society has a surplus of ways to help motivated people form social bonds. Once I get my car back, I’ll be going to the local therapy groups, one of which is wood crafting. Random hobbies like that with random people sounds fun.
The thing to avoid seems to be dating apps. Jumping from one relationship into another is universally known as a bad idea. I’m hoping that casting a wide net (going to groups, reading clubs, DnD, or other activities) will fill the void.
Honestly though, what helps the most is that I have a daughter. She’s almost 3. I’m very happy we had her, and just remembering that she’ll have a nice life helps me appreciate my own.
Modern society makes it easier than ever to isolate yourself. I spend my days sitting in a house alone, having Amazon drop off USB-C cables, with my biggest social interaction of the week being the door to door salesman (who, ironically, is trying to sell me a door) that’s coming by tomorrow. That’s the default state; you have to push back against it, and that’s hard. But it’s probably mistaken to say that those who go with the flow are suffering from self inflicted wounds. Societal flow used to be towards social groups (church being the most obvious example) instead of paths that end in loneliness.
Speak for yourself.
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?
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.
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..
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.
You can always find disaster stories about couples who wipe out their savings and put themselves in a precarious financial situation for a wedding they can’t afford, but it’s actually super common.
Traditional weddings costs are paid in part or full by the parents. Many well off young people pay their own way. If neither is an option it’s also common to have a smaller or home-grown wedding.
If you know enough people we can all likely think of someone who overspent and regretted it, but I disagree that it’s the common cultural thing to do. It’s a topic where righteous people like to heap scorn on others for doing it, though.
Ha, have you been to an indian wedding in India? Now that’s big big money. And the societal pressures to make it so are huge .. American weddings are so tame and sensible by comparison.
Far better to spend those $$ on weddings rather than funerals though !
I am so glad we had a big wedding. It was so much fun, and all my friends and family had a blast.
Are you otherwise well off? How do you define "big?"
It's so funny you say that. Was literally just chatting to my wife the other day about how mediocre weddings are. You spend $20-$50k basically LARPing as landed British gentry, and end up having less fun than the average 21st, Christmas or New Year's. So much more stress in planning too.
The good thing is you can have a big wedding without going into debt (assuming you’re rich or don’t mind public parks)
a couple can have a really big wedding for a really decent price if they plan everything themselves / with family
if they go through a wedding planner, the 'coordination' eats most of the budget, almost entirely so if 'their people' get involved with setup/teardown
This seems very different that what the article describes.
Sure, some young people may spend more than they can really afford on their wedding, but this still seems like a personal choice - tons of people have cheap weddings (or gasp, elope). I don't think may people are cutting back on eating (when they already suffer from malnutrition) to have a big wedding like how the article describes funerals in Zimbabwe.
Plus, I think the relatively few cases in the US where young people do feel intense family pressure to overspend on a "big wedding" show similar dynamics and downsides to the "kinship societies" that the article is really about.
My wife and I eloped at the city hall. Our wedding was $0.
Same thing with engagement rings, it's just a stupid fake tradition created by DeBoers in the 1950s that costs an inordinate amount of money for nothing.
I really hope that lab grown diamonds puts that entire industry out of business.
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.
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.
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?)
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.
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...
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.
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.
Lots of buzzwords in your comment, but pointless. This is a complete waste of money, and a burden on the living to ‘show off’ their status. The ancient egyptian kings at least had the resources, power and wealth to build their pyramids..
You're talking about funeral costs; the author generalizes _a_lot_ from funeral costs to "kinship societies are bad". That's the leap the comment you're replying to is discussing.
There are definite problems with the American system, but what is considered unaffordable healthcare there is lavish compared to much of the world.
The USA system is hardly the only alternative.
No.
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
Sounds like failed priorities, spending that much on dead people, rather than the living.
Meanwhile I want to be tossed into a hole bare naked with a tree planted on top of me.