The Poverty of Riches

At Big Questions Online, David Sloan Wilson asks Can riches be a form of poverty?

My colleagues and I have created an extensive database on the neighborhoods of Binghamton, including measures of neighborhood quality and median income. Dan O’Brien, my most recently minted PhD student, has also played experimental games with high school students in their classrooms. Experimental games are wonderful tools for studying the propensity to cooperate in social interactions. The results showed that students from the highest quality neighborhoods were most likely to cooperate in an experimental game, but that median income had a negative effect. The most cooperative kids came from high quality low income neighborhoods.

Once I recovered from the shock of realizing that “poverty” and “pathology” cannot be treated as synonyms, these results began to make sense. Sociologists such as Robert Putnam and Robert Sampson have long talked about “social capital” and “financial capital” as commodities that can substitute for each other. Why bother cooperating with others when you can pay for what you need with a credit card?

Hold Hands and Stick Together

The Common Security Club blog posted an article today about the success of a resource sharing group in Maine.

...Connie...started a “Resource Sharing Group” in South Paris, ME. “I knew several people who were living with limited income either because of unemployment, under-employment, retirement or voluntary simplicity,” she says. “And I thought, if we put this group together, we could all benefit from it. It would make life easier for all of us.”

And she was right. But what she didn’t expect – and what surprised the librarian – was how much fun they would have...

In fact, the list of mutual aid projects they completed is remarkable. Instead of hoarding their possessions or knowledge during a time of vulnerability, the participants opened themselves up and discovered a new source of abundance in each other.

Sometimes, the abundance came from mundane places like bulk stores. “We would bulk shop together,” Connie says. “And we’d tell each other about sales.”

At each meeting, members of the group said what they needed, and what they could offer. “Usually by the time we got around the circle, the needs had been addressed, or at least ideas had been shared about how to address them,” says Connie.

Read the full article on Common Security Clubs.

Great Pumpkin Thoughts

A few years ago I came across a delicious pumpkin soup recipe and made it from the giant decorative pumpkin that had been on the porch for Halloween.  (Not made into a jack o lantern.) 

This year we did not have a pumpkin on the porch, so I went to Freecycle to see if anyone had a spare.  Lots of people did, so I will be making my soup again.  (It's a lot of work, but the result is worth it.)

After being overwhelmed with pumpkin offers, near and far, and thinking about yesterday's post on the gift economy, (I had commented on the original article that inspired the post with some thoughts on The Guthrie Center's community lunch program) I got to thinking about the idea of having some kind of organized post Halloween pumpkin collection and soup dinner.  It would keep those pumpkins from going to waste, bring people together, and be a great community event.  A church or community center could do something like this fairly easily by letting members know to bring in their pumpkins on a certain date.   

I would love to hear your thoughts on this idea.

Photo credit:  Mike McCune issued with Creative Commons license.

Idea of the Day: Neighbor Dining

Vattenfall - Neighbor Dining from Luong Lu on Vimeo.

Take Some Time to Do the Things You Never Have Ooh Ooh

A couple of weeks ago, I posed a question about ways to avoid one of the main pitfalls of the broke life: retreating from social activity.  It is such a central question that I dealt with it in the first chapter of my book.

So you have to be proactive and do the inviting.  Come up with cheery free stuff to do and you suggest the activity.  Have a potluck.  Plan a scavenger hunt. Go mushroom hunting in the woods and cook up your crop.  If you do it early and often, your friends will think of you as a creative person who suggests out of the ordinary activities, and they’ll actually feel positively about you.

Social activities do not have to be extravagant; they just need to be done together.  Philip Simmons author of Learning to Fall gets nostalgic when he’s around garbage.  “When I was spending summers [in New Hampshire] as a child, about the only time I got to spend with my father was while we were working together on something, and so I have fond memories of our trips to the dump.  The work was tedious and smelly, and I don’t suppose we talked a whole lot, but it was good simply to be in my father’s presence…”

 For some reason, my millions of readers did not jump in with their amazing ideas and suggestions.  So I will add one here.  Join a choir.

As I noted in The Elvis Impersonation Kit: "For inexpensive musical instruction, try auditioning for your church choir and practice, practice, practice.  Elvis Presley got his start this way.  He sang in the choir at the First Assembly of God Church in Tupelo, MS, and it was here that he gave his first public performances as a singer.  In fact, his earliest musical influences may have been the pastors who played guitar along with church services."

Minnesota Public Radio concurs.  Their article "Singing in a Choir is Good for You" reports on the findings of a new study by Chorus America:

Americans like to think of themselves as folks involved in their communities, who give back and are good sports about it. A new study out by Chorus America shows that these attributes are particularly pronounced in American choral singers.

Choral singers are more likely to vote, give money to philanthropies, and also to volunteer; they're the kind of people you want on your team. These civic-minded, socially adept folks are in enormous numbers in the U.S. Some 32.5 million adults sing in 270,000 choruses.

What draws people to singing -- beyond the sheer artistic experience and communal expression -- is partly the accessibility of singing. There are few economic or educational barriers. And a singer need not possess the level of skill of an instrumentalist to still feel like a contributor to the creation of art.

What a singer gets in return is an intangible mix of pride and joy. But this particular study has found that singers in choruses also develop positive attributes that can be measured. 

 

Greater civic involvement, discipline, teamwork, increased social skills, volunteerism, philanthropy, and support of other art forms are some of the very tangible qualities that increase when a person sings in a chorus.

I mean, don't these guys look like they're having fun?

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What Does it Mean to be "Poor?"

One of the main reasons I wrote Broke is Beautiful was to talk about the things that really bother a person suffering financial reverses. Most of the articles and news features on dealing with a tough economy talk about money. But it is not really the lack of money that keeps people awake at night.

I came across an interesting article in a Christian social justice blog called The Just Life that supports this premise. Even though politicians measure poverty in terms of money, the actual poor describe their situation in terms of power and social status:

A survey conducted in Niger in 2002 by the Office of the Prime Minister asked the poor of that country to describe poverty. Their answers provided the following:

* Dependence was mentioned by 40 percent of the respondents, with some noting that a poor person always had to “seek out others” or to “work for somebody else.”

* Marginalization was noted by 37 percent, who defined a poor person as one who was “alone,” had “no support,” did “not feel involved in anything,” or was “never consulted.”

* Scarcity was included in the poverty definitions of 36 percent, who used statements such as having “nothing to eat,” a “lack of means to meet clothing and financial needs,” a “lack of food, livestock and money,” and “having nothing to sell.”

* Restrictions on rights and freedoms were associated with poverty by 26 percent of the respondents, who stated that “a poor person is someone who does not have the right to speak out” or “someone who will never win a case or litigation against someone else.”

* Incapacity was mentioned in connection with poverty by 21 percent, including the incapacity to make decision, to feed or clothe oneself, or to act on one’s own initiative.

Only 36 percent of the poor in this survey described poverty in terms of material lack [scarcity]. Here, the poor described the experience of poverty primarily in terms of suffering relationships and lack of belonging, dignity and freedom. Similar descriptions were found in a major World Bank study published in 2000, Voices of the poor: Can anyone hear us?

The poor describe poverty in terms of suffering relationships. Relationships are central to a person’s belonging, identity, affirmation and other socio-emotional needs.

(See also my post from two days ago on the social aspects of being broke.)




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The Vow of Wealth

Jean-Francois Noubel has given me kind permission to post his "Vow of Wealth" here. "I made the choice to live in the gift economy," he writes. "I have nothing to sell but everything to share. I see myself as a tree offering its best fruits. If fruits are good then people will enjoy them and will provide care for the tree. This is an ecology of relationship built on mutual offering rather than dependency and fear. This creates abundance and joy.

By taking the Vow of Wealth,

I decide to welcome and embrace all the Wealth that is given to us, be it in material or immaterial form.

I welcome Wealth as what brings us closer to what is True, Good and Beautiful.

I welcome Wealth as life giving life, and life evolving life, for the great alliance between matter and light.

I commit to build meaningful, generative agreements that lead to harmonious and joyful relationships with my human brothers and sisters and with other living beings.

I commit to offer others what they need for the fulfillment of their life.

I commit to welcome what others offer me for the fulfillment of my life.

I commit to be naked and vulnerable, and to welcome my incompleteness, so I can open myself to receiving from others.

I commit to welcome others’ nakedness and vulnerability, and to welcome their incompleteness. There I find the joy of proposing my gifts.

I will not support whatever keeps living beings separated from Wealth.

I will not support ideologies and acts that degrade abundance into artificial scarcity, for that triggers greed and war.

But rather than fighting against these ideologies and acts, I will tap into the infinite creativity that is given to us at birth. I will be an artist, I will co-create with my fellow brothers and sisters, and new paths will be revealed. The future will not come from my reaction, future will come from my creation. Future is pure art, it springs up from my presence to the present.

I will invent and master every tool, technology and practice that allow the strict application of this Vow, in the context of our epoch and culture.

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Question of the Day: Social Aspects of Being Broke

Studies show that people who feel financially strapped are much less socially engaged than those who feel more secure. Adjusting for income and education, the most financially stressed attend two-thirds fewer meetings of clubs and organizations than the least economically anxious. The broke not only go to movies and stuff that costs money less frequently but they also spend less time on things that don’t cost a cent like having friends over, going to visit friends, attending church, volunteering and participating in politics. The only thing financial stress seems to make us do more of is watch TV. Such social isolation can easily lead to clinical depression, which further isolates, and makes it harder to engage in the kind of productive, creative thought that can lead to novel solutions to your problems.

Have you had this situation? A friend says "Can I take you to lunch?" "Take you" implies he's paying, but you're not sure, and you have $3.23 in your bank account. Rather than risk an embarrassing conversation or an even more embarrassing moment when the separate check is placed in front of you, you find an excuse not to go.

Your neighbor has invited you over for dinner two times. You'd like to invite the neighbor to your place, but you only have ramen and boxed macaroni and cheese. The next time the friend invites you, sensing the growing disparity in the feeding-to-fed ratio you make up an excuse not to go.

Or this one-- you've been asked to be part of a committee at your church. The idea of "giving back" appeals to you tremendously, but on the day the first meeting is scheduled your gas tank is on fumes and you don't think you can make it to the church and to work the next day, so you don't go and don't join the committee.

I'm interested to hear your strategies for avoiding social isolation when broke. Post in the comments.




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Hold Hands and Stick Together

Robert Fulghum, in his book, Everything I Need to know I learned in Kindergarten, famously pointed out the first thing we learned as children:

"Hold hands and stick together."

Have you heard of "common security clubs?" Here's how Yes! Magazine describes them:

Common security clubs are typically founded by people concerned about their economic security. These small groups of 10-25 adults are consciously breaking down the isolation and fear triggered by the 2008 economic meltdown. Clubs have strengthened communities and enabled participants to learn together, engage in mutual aid, and take social action.

Read Yes's article.




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The Power of Complementary Currencies

This clip of an interview with Charles Eisenstein, author of Ascent of Humanity, is from a forthcoming documentary, Money & Life, described by its director as:

Inspired by the possibility of generating real transformative social change from the opportunity of the current economic and financial crisis, I have been on a two year odyssey studying the money system and interviewing cutting edge thinkers and leaders on the issue of the day.

The film proposes that money, like other social technologies, is a reflection of our consciousness as individuals and as a society. If we are indeed in the midst of a planetary evolutionary shift, then money is one of the most important aspects of the postmodern world to grapple with, given its pervasiveness in our lives and throughout the world. The film's basic inquiry is: can our understanding of money and how we relate to it be transformed to serve our highest capacities and values?

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It Takes A Village: But it May Not Be Legal

Me on TV

The Lost Finale and Social Capital

USA Today's review of the Lost Finale sums up its theme this way:

"It wanted to tell us something about ourselves: Individual improvement and redemption are vital, yet not enough. We are not in this alone."

Time Magazine's review says: "Lost is a story about community, connections and interdependence. You live together, it told us, or you die alone. And when you live together--when you share of yourself and make meaning with others--you never die alone..."

Could the idea of the importance of community and relationships, instead of the tale of the rugged hero who goes it alone be a new cultural trend? Broke and Beautiful Losties, discuss.

Erotic Capital and Karmic Debts

One of the main focuses of Broke is Beautiful is suggesting different ways to look at familiar ideas like "being broke," "capital" and "debt." I suggest measuring how "broke" you are not in terms of financial capital, but in terms of social capital-- the resources you have in terms of social connections, community, family and friends.

A couple of articles came across my radar today (via Twitter) that offer unique takes on capital and debt. The first from ResPublica offers hope to the truly "broke and beautiful" among us. (Although it might add insult to injury for those of us who are a bit less than model-esque.) The article "Liberalism and Erotic Capital" discusses the link between sexual attractiveness and earning power. If you're in debt, perhaps you can blame it on your oversized nose or wildly crooked teeth.

Good-looking people can earn up to 13% more than average-looking people. The most attractive lawyers are 20% more likely to achieve partnership in their firm. Research shows that teachers invest more time in cute children. Prettier girls are more likely to be married and live in higher income households. Last year, a study found that attractiveness has a roughly equal effect as qualifications on earnings

I've heard these kinds of statistics before and I'm not entirely sure what to do with the information. Are you? Ryan Shorthouse, the article's author offers some not-too-practical ideas for leveling the playing field. I haven't come up with any better ones myself, but it does sound like a boon for the cosmetics industry.

The second article for your consideration is "Facing Down Business Debt" from the blog Heart of Business. Mark (he's a first name kind of guy) takes a spiritual approach to the whole concept of debt. He suggests seeing debt not as an aberrant obligation but as the natural state of life in our interdependent web of existence. Here are some excerpts:

Debt had become an angry monster, snapping up every scrap of money coming in. Because the debt monster was running her business, it was like having an evil vacuum cleaner connected to her clients. It didn’t feel good to them, or to her, and things were spiraling down...

Here’s what Sufism has to say about debt: we humans are born with debt. Instead of “original sin” think “original debt.” The Divine gave us life and existence, and for that we owe...

The intense weight and power that debt is given in our society creates prisons that keep us from our creativity and resourcefulness. This can bring up resentment, and we can end up feeling angry or scared about any obligation to anyone. What a bind this puts us in. How can you live a fulfilling life or have a successful business without a healthy interdependent give and take from people and resources around?

Instead of rebelling against obligation, I’m suggesting you lean into the sense of healthy obligation that is available. Pay your debts in order: First to the Divine, then to yourself and loved ones, and finally to other obligations. I bet you find yourself surprised by the results.

Science Proves It: Giving is Contagious

What you learned on Sesame Street (cooperation is good!) has finally been put to scientific test. And researchers found-- I'm paraphrasing here-- that "the more we get together the happier we'll be." You can read all about it on Eurekalert.

In a study published in the March 8 early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from the University of California, San Diego and Harvard provide the first laboratory evidence that cooperative behavior is contagious and that it spreads from person to person to person. When people benefit from kindness they "pay it forward" by helping others who were not originally involved, and this creates a cascade of cooperation that influences dozens more in a social network...

From a scientific perspective, Fowler added, these findings suggest the fascinating possibility that the process of contagion may have contributed to the evolution of cooperation: Groups with altruists in them will be more altruistic as a whole and more likely to survive than selfish groups.

"Our work over the past few years, examining the function of human social networks and their genetic origins, has led us to conclude that there is a deep and fundamental connection between social networks and goodness," said Christakis. "The flow of good and desirable properties like ideas, love and kindness is required for human social networks to endure, and, in turn, networks are required for such properties to spread. Humans form social networks because the benefits of a connected life outweigh the costs."

Video: It Takes a Village

About a community effort to form a gift based micro economy in Fairfax, California:

The Grateful Dead Studied As Example of "Passion-Based Pay Off"

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Is That Fair? Depends, How Much Are You Paying?

A new study, discussed in Science Daily, shows that:

...when it comes to distributing resources, people's ideas about what's fair change depending on what's being handed out. If it's something that has its own intrinsic value -- in-kind goods such as food or vacation days -- people are more likely to see equal distribution of such items as fair.

But if it's something that is only valuable when it's exchanged -- such as money or even credit card reward points -- ideas of fairness shift to a more market-based attitude. In that case, the thinking is that people should receive according to what they've contributed.

This study furthers a great deal of psychological research that suggests that when you bring money into the equation, it has a social distancing effect.

I discovered too many studies to mention all of them in a chapter that deals with the phenomenon in the book Broke is Beautiful, so I'm pleased to have the opportunity to share some of this material here.

The moment money enters into the equation everything changes. Researcher Kathleen Vohns conducted a series of experiments to gauge the influence of money on social obligations. In one experiment, she and her team invited subjects to take part in a "get acquainted" conversation. The experimenters met by a desk with a computer running a screen saver. One screensaver had fish swimming, the other was a blank screen and the third showed a shower of money. The people exposed to the money screensaver put a significantly greater distance between their own chair and that of the experimenter. Next they asked subjects whether they would want to work alone on a task, or with another person. Of those exposed to the money screensaver, 72% chose to work alone, compared to 16% of those who saw one of the other screensavers.

Sitting near a poster of money has a similar effect, another experiment showed. Those seated near the money poster chose solitary activities from a list of what they would most like to do. People sitting under a floral poster were more likely to choose social activities.

In yet another test, research subjects had to unscramble phrases, some of which involved money, and others not. On the way out of the lab, participants were told that the University student fund was requesting donations, and there was a box outside if they'd like to contribute. Those who had been subconsciously prompted to think about money donated less.

In a 2004 experiment, researchers James Heyman and Dan Ariely asked three different groups to perform a simple menial task, dragging as many circles across the computer screen as they could in five minutes. Each of the three groups was offered something different for performing this task. One group was told they were doing this as a favor to the researchers, the second was told they would get 50 cents, the third $5.00.

The group that performed the task as a favor dragged the most circles across the screen, more than the $5 group and significantly more than the 50c group. People seem to be willing to work as a volunteer, and to work for a fair wage, but when they believe they are being underpaid, performance really suffers.


"It seems that our brains activate this concept of 'money,' suddenly we look at the world around us and prioritize things differently," wrote psychologist John M. Grohol, "It appears to make a person more self-interested and more socially isolated."

A Good Winter Pudding

-Health Magazine, 1904