India’s elites have a ferocious sense of entitlement
newint.org
newint.org
My theory is that poor people rely on cooperation with others to survive, and this forces them to develop compassion and learn good human relations at a young age. Rich people on the other had don't need others so much, and instead are much likely be in competition with them.
Even in family relations this applies. Siblings in poor families offer much needed support to each other. In rich families siblings seem more likely to be considered as competitors for parental affections at a young age, and competitors for inheritance when older. This mentality of constant competition is poisonous.
Honestly, I think that being rich is a pretty clear path to ultimate unhappiness. Better to be slightly poor in money and rich in the things that actually bring happiness, like family, health, friends, spare time, and a clear conscience.
Perhaps richer people are more likely to know this and be sceptical of door to door collections. They may also value their time more and not like being "hassled".
This does not necessarily mean that they do not provide charity donations. They may just do it in a smarter way, for example attending charity dinners/events where they get to rub shoulders with other affluent people.
Smarter = self-serving?
When a rich elite donates money, they are doing it to sing praises for themselves - whether they admit it consciously or not.
The end result is still good - i don't care whether their charitible activities are self-serving, provided that it achieves the results of helping those who needed the charity.
Also, in rich neighborhoods, the police have the time and inclination to speak with unlicensed door-to-door peddlers. It is unquestionably in the wealthy homeowners' interests to discourage both solicitors and burglars from wandering the neighborhood, knocking on doors, seeing who's home and who's not...
[fixed]
And you are saying this based on what? Common sense?
The article tells a story we love to believe: we may be poorer than the people the article talks about, but we are nicer, more empathic, better people. We love to believe it, because it makes us feel good about ourselves and provides a sense of justice: nobody has it all and if someone has more of one thing, he will have less of something else.
We also love to believe it because that way we don't have to consider a far more disturbing possibility: that these people aren't accidentally rich and their moral shortcomings aren't a result of their riches. That they are rich exactly because they are capable of the repugnant behavior described in the article. That our capitalist system is fallacious, can be gamed and is being gamed by these people. The system we are so infatuated with allows people that are undeserving, cheaters, to get the prize.
The last psychiatrist is an ok writer, and a lot of his stuff is fun to read, but he draws some really erroneous conclusions. I'd be careful about being drawn in by that.
I've never bothered to check before but a cursory google shows no real evidence either way, though most others think it's a man as well.
Or if you're referring to me and saying I drew an erroneous conclusion, I didn't draw any conclusions at all, save about the last psychiatrist.
To fix socioeconomic problems means to redivide the pie more evenly, and there are just way too many vested interests in keeping things the way it is.
I see nothing particularly Indian about this story. It seems like part fo the human condition. That being said, we have abolished slavery. Women have the vote and are struggling to control their bodies. Although the rich control the media, the poor still have a vote.
We humans can change.
I personally also see a massive amount of entitlement in the inverse...
A never-ending creation of new laws and controls over citizens lives from "philosopher kings" [1] who think they know how to run peoples lives better than they do via "social engineering and idealism".
Or attempting to create some highly idealistic society of total safety....via as security theater, strictly enforcing victimless crimes [2] (such as owning a pitbull or drugs)... and the constant erosion of basic civil liberties in the process to achieve the former.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher_king#Criticism
[2] http://www.policymic.com/articles/8558/why-we-need-prison-re...
I'm convinced that this stems from the religious caste system which has now become the monetary class system in these new times.
I always wondered why don't the poor just revolt, they're treated so badly, almost like slaves and everyday they lose more and more. They have their kids run over and police will do nothing about it because the rich will pay them off to make the case go away. It truly is sad.
The worst part is poor people will do the same to other poor people given the opportunity. We (Indians) have learned nothing from Gandhi on how to treat our fellow men.
This is just one part of the story that helped your narrative. It is always the fault of the person with the larger vehicle in India, from what I know about the society. If you are involved in an accident and survived, pray to God that you were in the smaller vehicle, otherwise the crowd might beat you death - if they feel like it [1,2,3 and countless others]. From my own anecdote, I was almost hit by a motorbike while being on a cycle, due to my own fault. Not even a scratch, but I had to help the other man not be bullied by the crowd to pay me money.
And pushing people into ditches has nothing to do with being rich, it has to do with being an asshole. Yes there is widespread casteism (religious or economic) but not every unlawful, unfair act has be attributed to the same evil.
[1] http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-09-28/surat...
[2] http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2008-09-06/nagpu...
[3] http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2009-02-28/rajko...
That would be a serious crime in the USA. If you did that, and you got caught, you would be in very serious trouble. And, it would not matter how rich you were. That's assault, perhaps with intent to harm or kill and civilized society does not tolerate it.
http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20101104/NEWS/101109939/107...
Which USA do you live in?
There's certainly all kinds of horrific things about the USA's class system. But the USA has to a large extent depersonalized them: if you as an individual commit physical violence against another individual, you go through our legal system and you get punished.
Where the USA's class system goes wrong is in vaguer systemic issues. Everyone equally has the chance to get an expensive lawyer to argue you down to a lesser sentence, but few can afford the best. Everyone equally has the chance to purchase a house that's not in an ex-radiological waste dump, but that's mighty abstract to the folks in Hunter's Point.
It's pretty brilliant, because you really can't focus on any individual in particular to punish for its sins. Which in the end makes the USA's class system much more fault tolerant, because revolt against it has to take the form of amorphous, unactionable rants about the System.
There's a great scene in "Michael Clayton" where a rich banker calls his lawyer because he hit a bicyclist in his car and fled the scene. The lawyer basically tells him: "I don't know what you think I can do for you, you're fucked." It's a realistic depiction of this situation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-ckEptxp3s.
Even just having someone who's calm, collected, and dispassionate speak at the trial can be an advantage.
Now, that doesn't mean you're going to get the same punishment as the poor black guy, but that's not because it helps to be rich, but because it hurts to be poor or black. Juries don't give poor black guys the benefit of the doubt, they have trouble empathizing with people of a different race, their character witnesses don't come across as sympathetic, etc.
As a bicyclist, I can tell you as a matter of personal experience that Americans do in fact run bicyclists off the road frequently. I have never heard of such things being prosecuted, even when the cyclists were seriously injured, or when their bike is ruined.
Now, why does this happen? It's because the American in his expensive 4-wheel drive Porsche SUV abomination has a certain mindset that he's entitled to something, because he paid a lot of money for his car. When someone is walking or cycling down the road at less than 60 MPH, that person's sense of entitlement becomes enflamed, and they sometimes reach the point of violence. Don't take my word for it. It is a proven fact that people in more expensive cars break the law much more frequently than those in less expensive cars.
So you see, sense of entitlement is not just for India. In America, cars are for real people, and anyone on a bicycle must be in the lower caste.
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20121130/ARTICLES/12113...
Example: a rich old woman in my hometown was drunk in the morning and ran over a guy riding a bicycle and killed him. She ended up getting probation. Not a day in jail. Put a poor minority behind the wheel of that car and they are going to prison for a long time.
In India it seems like fairness is not even part of the equation. It sounds like a seriously dog-eat-dog environment, where there are few if any checks on raw, ruthless antisocial behaviour. Society lacks even the value system which would encourage the privileged to feel guilt and regret over their treatment of those beneath them.
Basically it is the difference between a society where people are shocked and angered by unfairness and a society where people are desensitised or even perversely excited by unfairness.
i'd like to talk a bit about this "value system". While i'd like to believe that in a western society that the value system for me to not steal and murder is built in, i really doubt that's the case.
The value system is one which is enforced by laws - and actual enforcement, instead of lip service. I assault a person, i get to go to jail. Imagine if the enforcement isn't there - i'd steal my way thru life! Forget about the morals, when you can have the latest shit for free! This is the exact psyche of a software pirate - because it is unenforceable.
I would say that the value system is so poor or non-existent in india could be because they are unable to enforce their laws, or that those with money can get away from the punishment etc. Hence, the poor sees that and assumes that the laws are selectively applied, and that its OK if you get away with it.
I m sure things will improve (as things have improved in western society over the past several hundred years - you'd see similar behaviour in the middle/dark ages in europe). It just takes time, and takes wealth build up in such a way that those who are most desperate aren't anymore.
Krishnamurti: That is really an innocent question, is it not? To see facts without opinion is one thing, but to have opinions about facts is totally another. It is one thing just to see the fact that a whole people are caught in superstition, but quite another to see that fact and condemn it. Opinions are not important, because I will have one opinion, you will have another, and a third person will have still another. To be concerned with opinions is a stupid form of thinking. What is important is to see facts as they are without opinion, without judging, without comparing.
To feel beauty without opinion is the only real perception of beauty. Similarly, if you can see the people of India just as they are, see them very clearly without fixed opinions, without judging, then what you see will be real.
The Indians have certain manners, certain customs of their own, but fundamentally they are like any other people. They get bored, they are cruel, they are afraid, they revolt within the prison of society, just as people do everywhere else. Like the Americans, they also want comfort, only at present they do not have it to the same extent. They have a heavy tradition about renouncing the world and trying to be saintly; but they also have deep-rooted ambitions, hypocrisy, greed, envy, and they are broken up by castes, as human beings are everywhere else, only here it is much more brutal. Here in India you can see more closely the whole phenomenon of what is happening in the world. We want to be loved, but we don't know what love is; we are unhappy, thirsting for something real, and we turn to books, to the Upanishads, the Gita, or the Bible, so we get lost in words, in speculations. Whether it is here, or in Russia, or in America, the human mind is similar, only it expresses itself in different ways under different skies and different governments.
— From Think on These Things (also published as This Matter of Culture) by Jiddu Krishnamurti, Chapter 11 - Conformity and Revolt. - http://www.jiddu-krishnamurti.net/en/think-on-these-things/1...
Indians are also known to be highly tolerant of different types of behaviours; they usually believe that this world is "maya" - a virtual reality. Depending on one's own predicament, they will create and experience their realities. All this comes from the core Indian philosophy, and those who have read Krishnamurti, know that he very well represents that philosophy.
While this view may not mean all Indians are philosophical; I would say, it may be higher % wise than other cultures. Even the most popular religious channels and their gurus hold extremely engaging philosophical discussions - very different from other cultures.
Atherton has nice little yellow signs that say 'No Through Traffic'. Why? They don't want the poor people from Redwood City coming through. In fact, one Atherton gentleman went to a RWC City Council meeting complaining about it and asking RWC to put up signs on their side too. The folks at RWC apparently told him to go stuff himself, that those little yellow signs were potentially illegal and if Atherton kept pressing, they would disallow traffic from Atherton through RWC. This was about two years ago.
The rich are different from you and me - they take because they can and because they can then get away with it.
[This is not to say that all rich are evil, nor all poor virtuous. Just that as money accumulates, so does power, and this when left unchecked by self-imposed moral constraints leads down this path.]
Do you know what "through traffic" means? If those poor people try to stop their cars in Atherton, they aren't "through traffic".
> The Town of Atherton desires, insofar as possible, to preserve its character as a scenic, rural, thickly-wooded, residential area, with abundant open space with streets designed primarily as scenic routes rather than for speed of travel.
Notice the "as possible?". Cities only exist because the states gave them a charter. Cities must work within state law. The relevant state law is the California Vehicle Code.
You requested: Define "public".
Public here means anyone. "Public to Atherton residents" is not public. Palo Alto has its own openspace area which is only open to Palo Alto residents but not to the public. "Public" even includes a visitor from another country who has never paid a penny in US taxes. Any other interpretation is incompatible with current legal use.
The CA VC says that local officials can close or divert traffic on a road, but only for certain circumstances. (Regulation of Highways, §21101 if you want to read it yourself.): Local authorities, for those highways under their jurisdiction, may adopt rules and regulations by ordinance or resolution on the following matters:
Reading the CA code, there are public roads and private roads. A private road may be open for public, in which case the CA Vehicle Code still applies. If a private road is truly a private road and outside of the CA Vehicle Code, then the city of Atherton will need to make a lot of work to prove that, and a lot more work to develop its own regulations for how to manage those roads. So it's safe to assume that all of the streets under discussion are "public streets" covered under the CA Vehicle Code.
The VC takes a dim view of restricting access to streets. There's only a few ways for local officials to designate something as "not a through street." The most likely is if "The street has an unsafe volume of traffic and a significant incidence of crime." and "The local authority makes a finding that closure of the street likely would result in a reduced rate of crime." That doesn't seem to be the case here.
By "dim view" I give as an example §21101.6.: Notwithstanding Section 21101, local authorities may not place gates or other selective devices on any street which deny or restrict the access of certain members of the public to the street, while permitting others unrestricted access to the street.
I think that helps show that "public" means "public to everyone", and not limited to certain members.
This "dim view" is even more so for arterial streets, which is now almost the only want to get through Atherton from Redwood City.
Earlier you wrote: "maybe they just don't want people using residential streets as highways?"
There can be a lot of things that they may not want. They may not want any streets at all. However, they have to work within the law. The law doesn't seem to allow a posting of "no through traffic."
If the traffic is dangerous because of excessive speed, then they can set up police to enforce the speed limits, or they can get the roads evaluated to see if the speed limit is too high. However, that does not appear to be the case here.
I think it's more useful to read what the law actually says than to try and guess what things might mean. For situations like this, the definitions have been worked out in far better details than I would ever have considered had I just stuck to debating about what "public" might mean.
That is to say, the rich in all societies take and do what they like, modulated either by internal moral codes or external legal enforcement.
EDIT: Well, according to Wikipedia, "Great Ape" is a common name, not a taxonomic label, and is only sometimes used to include humans. I, personally, would advocate not equating the term "great ape" with the hominidae family.
I would like to point out that poor people in India are a very well represented : Communist part and Marxist parties are doing very well in India. Every political party courts the votes of poor people. If you pull shit like that SUV kid , the vegetable sellers would swarm your car and fuck you up good.
I grew up in Delhi. The poor people in Delhi day are very well aware of their rights and exercise them -- sometimes with violent consequences for the brash rich.
The feudal India that you allude you is gone and good riddance to it . One has to be super fucking powerful to get away with shit like that in India.
Btw , Salman Khan (the actor) is facing jail time. So yeah !
For a crime he committed over a decade ago, right? You think that's justice?
As such yes it is better, but in absolute terms there is still further distance to cover.
As to your claim that he's lying about the vegetable cart story. In order for his car to get swarmed, at least one of those vegetable sellers has to make the first move, sometimes this happens, but 9 times out of 10 people look out for their own skins ahead of righteous vengeance.
You drastically misunderstand the level of righteous vengeance and drama centrism in such a situation. On top of that many people will look at a richer person as someone who is likely to have connections and hence escape justice.
You are more likely to be swarmed than not.
>>no one attributes this kind of stuff to northern Europe and there's a reason for that. Could the reason be a willingness of the those societies to overlook this kind of behavior towards people with ..umm higher melatonin levels ? Slavery / colonialism / apartheid ring a bell ?
This doesn't really make sense to me. People who value relationships or are compassionate generally, in my anecdotal experience, value money less. So of course they'll have less. Th people who rich are the ones who value spending their time getting money over helping others (empathy, essentially). At least, that's how I feel about money, and I assume other people who are rich/desire to be rich feel the same way. More precisely, it's not that people who get rich lose their ability to empathize -- people who never developed the ability to empathize have an easier time getting rich.
There are many ways that people get to be rich. Some are born into it, and stay rich because of systemic biases. Others "value spending their time getting money over helping others" and get rich that way. Still others get there by luck - winning the lottery - or by semi-luck - getting paid in pre-IPO shares of a wildly start-up.
Based on the various stories I've heard, those who win by luck tend to be the most generous with their money.
This essay is about those in the first category; those who are rich because of systemic biases, where society "is so deeply hierarchized along both class and caste lines" and "wealth is so completely tied in with political power, and often to crime without punishment." It's not really the one you're possibly thinking of, where someone starts average and ends up rich.
My income does tend to fluctuate. Some years I make really good money as a consultant. Other times I don't. I don't have much control over it. That would fit with the semi-luck category, since I don't get the feel that my income level is a good reflection of how much effort I put into things; income isn't a good measure of my self.
Unfortunately, the difference in opportunity in India is considered (by both rich and poor) to be something that God has handed down and therefore it's fair. By the rich because it's convenient to think that way and by the poor because they feel like they have no escape apart from reincarnation.
I was traveling in Brazil last year and found that the poor in Brazil (also due to drug issues..) actively blame the rich for their poverty and are also to a great extent violent against wealthier people. (at least in the cities that I was in..)
However, the difference in India is that poor people more often than not attribute their poverty to God and therefore do not blame the rich or seek retribution. I honestly believe this is what keeps the poor in India from revolting en masse. If the Indian belief system was like the Brazilian system, over here there would be a civil war.
that's interesting. I've always considered religion to be a form of control over people by a certain elite group. This gives me more anecdotal confirmation.
I wonder if indian society could be better served if there was a civil war, where the poor raise up, and appropriate the land from the wealthy. I keep reading articles like http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/08/generat... and it sounds like that would be a painful fix, but may be the end justify the means...
(Almost) everyone craves social status. Let people earn it in healthy ways, by their contributions, not their accumulations; don't envy their Jaguars, be dismissive of them. And don't resent people who contribute because "yeah, they should have, they are rich". Congratulate them for doing good and encourage competition to be the largest philanthropist.
This view is that rich people should only be respected for their contributions "back to the society which has enriched them." Not for their ability to acquire and hold $100+ million.
I believe also that the point about 'selling "personal advertising space" on the sides of libraries' is meant to include the Carnegie libraries. Some 2,509 were built between 1883 and 1929. It coincided with a big increase in interest in town planning and personal enrichment.
I think the Carnegie libraries example highlights possible limitations to trhtrsh's optimistic views of philanthropy. The libraries were successful in part because of the Carnegie Formula. For example, towns had to "demonstrate the need for a public library" and "annually provide ten percent of the cost of the library's construction to support its operation."
This was chosen instead of, say, an endowed institution because "an endowed institution is liable to become the prey of a clique. The public ceases to take interest in it, or, rather, never acquires interest in it. The rule has been violated which requires the recipients to help themselves. Everything has been done for the community instead of its being only helped to help itself." (I'm cribbing directly from Wikipedia for these quotes.)
That observation from 150 years still rings true today. Some types of philanthropy aren't good for the society. Any sort of "social status" must bear that in mind. Alas, social status is not easy to define, and mistakes or problems caused by a case of bad philanthropy may easily be misattributed.
I wasn't thinking in my comment upthread as systemically, though, in terms of whether philanthropy or, say, taxation, is a better way to tackle inequality. I actually lean a bit towards the latter myself, and am skeptical of whether very wealthy people are actually good at directing large philanthropic projects on average.
I was thinking more small-scale at just a cultural level, like the anecdotes this article is describing. The article paints a picture of some wealthy people in a certain set of circumstances who are quite dismissive of poor people, even contemptuous towards them. But in other circumstances, it's seen as one of the rewards of wealth that you can act as a sort of magnanimous benefactor, gracious servant of the public. Whatever causes that cultural difference strikes me as interesting. One guess is that it relates to whether wealthy people feel some sense of community with poorer people in the same area, so they gain something socially from being a town's benefactor, because the poorer people they're helping out are in the same social circles. But I imagine that's only one aspect.
In the British style of the 1800s, the system was set up so the lord of the manor (or whatever the title might have been) was the caretaker of the wealth and the people. For example, he would build housing for the people of the manor, provide money to the church, support the sick and elderly, and so on. In return, the people would work for him.
This makes the system dependent on one person. If that person should invest heavily in a sugar cane plantation in the Caribbean, which goes south, then that may mean economic hardship for the entire area.
It's hard for me to say that this model is either philanthropy or taxation. It's remnants of feudalism. That makes me think that the issue actually one of centralized vs. decentralized power, or of resilience vs. fragility. (After all, towns and cities also go bankrupt.)
Wealth is a force multiplier, which can be used for good and for bad. There are ways to attenuate its use for bad: equalize wealth (eg, through progressive taxes or increased philanthropy), strengthen laws (so those with less wealth seek remedy in case of bad treatment), inculcate (eg, through the Carnegie Formula) an ethos towards "good" philanthropy, and so on.
Progressive taxation to me is the easiest to accomplish. It does require a transparent, responsive government, but then again, so do the others.
So here's the thing. This article is pretty spot on. We, the privileged of India, do indeed feel entitled. There's absolutely no doubt about that.
My theory is that the population pressure in India is so very high that you're always fighting for your piece of the pie and over extending yourself (such as the man with the large house who took over the pavement). Yes, it's greedy, but it's a particular mentality that comes out of being part of this massive rat race with millions.. billions.. of competitors. I have several friends in India who I would call upper class. You know, rich people with 4 bedroom apartments on the 17th floor in and around the capital.
You know what these people call themselves ?
Middle class.
They refuse to acknowledge that they are wealthy. That they are privileged. That they are truly upper class. I have a friend who drives an Audi presented to him by his father who thinks he's middle class.
These people struggle (or think that they do..) for so long in the rat race that they forget that they have risen above it and gone far beyond that. Perhaps that is why they seem to lack compassion and empathy. Maybe they feel that they are still struggling to survive and therefore can't spare a moment for someone else ?
The rich do need to take a moment to feel rich and then feel responsible. Unfortunately, as the article mentions the rich in India - to a great extent - are failing at this. Maybe it's desensitization due to the immensely large number of poor people. Maybe it's something else - further study is required.
Of course, I'm not even going into how hierarchical and class oriented Indian society truly is. Most people who the 'middle class' perceive as lower class are almost sub humans in their eyes. This is another reason in my opinion the Delhi gang rape case was such a big deal. The middle class got to point fingers once more at the lower classes who 'rape us'. They got to ask the government what they are doing to protect them from these 'evil immigrants who come into New Delhi and ruin our fair city'. I've had statements from rich girls in New Delhi who don't like 'these poor people who stare at us', but are completely fine with spoilt rich brats driving circles around them while honking away.
On the flip side though, this article mostly covers behavior in New Delhi. I'll go as far as to say that New Delhi is possibly the most horrible city in India when it comes to these things. Other cities tend to be more relaxed. There are far far better places than New Delhi.
The class system in Delhi is enforced and reinforced by the rich and poor collectively. I had a reservation at the Hilton for one night two years ago and I arrived on a friend's motorbike. The security at the hotel wouldn't let me through because I didn't look 'rich enough'. The security at the hotel by this logic, wouldn't let in people who looked like themselves either.
Situation's complicated.
EDIT:
There are a lot of replies to this post comparing the mentality I've mentioned above to that which exists in the west. I can see where that is coming from, but the main factor that needs to be taken into account is the kind and scale of poverty that exists in India. In India we say that if you have two meals a day, and a roof over your head, you're already rich!
Consider that, some posts here say that SV millionaires do not consider themselves upper class. That would be absolutely ridiculous in India! But, there are people here who go by the same ideals.
It's VERY EASY in India to make a difference in someone's life. Even if you're middle class, you can make a difference because people around you are way poorer than you. The problem is one of large scale apathy and complete indifference.
As an example, being middle class in the west, it's impossible to think that you could change someone's life by just hiring them to work in your house - by giving them reasonable pay and good working conditions. In India this is quite possible, a middle class person could easily hire 3-4 people and therefore start to create change. Maybe not the best example of how you can make a difference but the article is about how the privileged in India should feel more responsible and try harder to make a difference. For example, if you do hire people to work in your house, make sure that you encourage them to educate their children ? (stuff like that helps us move forward with these problems..)
My point is, being privileged in India is not really like being privileged in the west. You may not have government and industry connections but you can still make a massive difference at a personal level and if enough people start doing that, there will be a change. It's probably our only shot at it.
No, they've got it right. The distinction between middle class and lower class is entirely about wealth, but the distinction between middle class and upper class is not. Wealth is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for being upper class; the distinguishing features are flexibility and power, not money. It is possible to convert money into these things, but most middle-class people who acquire sufficient wealth nevertheless fail to become upper-class because they lack the mental toolkit, or are embedded in power structures that won't let them.
With that freedom comes a responsibility to acknowledge it and to not act like complete idiots. Unfortunately, even the rich to a large extent aren't aware of how rich they truly are.
Sorry I refuse to believe in this victim hood mentality. We seriously need to get out of this 'Somebody needs to do it for me' ideology. Nobody is going to help you and shouldn't. Because frankly no matter whom you can speak to is going through a little battle of their own.
I am working hard here pushing 19 hour schedules to ensure I have a good life. Somebody else is all welcome to do so. I can understand if the person is ill or is physically disabled. But a healthy person who doesn't work hard deserves his condition.
And in a country like India, expecting somebody to come and help is not a unrealistic expectation but a 'unjust' expectation.
>>By comparison those who have acquired sufficient wealth are free to do whatever they please!
You make acquiring wealth sound like somebody just woke up one day and found a sack of gold biscuits at their door step.
>>With that freedom comes a responsibility to acknowledge it and to not act like complete idiots
Exactly.
There by each man for his own and shall deserve net result of his own work.
>>Unfortunately, even the rich to a large extent aren't aware of how rich they truly are.
Because nothing is really enough but that's a totally different discussion altogether.
> I am working hard here pushing 19 hour schedules to ensure I have a good life. Somebody else is all welcome to do so. I can understand if the person is ill or is physically disabled. But a healthy person who doesn't work hard deserves his condition.
> And in a country like India, expecting somebody to come and help is not a unrealistic expectation but a 'unjust' expectation.
I think you misunderstood what he's talking about. India isn't the United States.
Until recently India had a rigid caste system where it was simply impossible for people to move outside of their caste. If a person's parents were laborers, they became laborers - that was their caste. It had nothing to do with how hard they worked or if other people helped them. Their caste was "laborer," so that's the only job they'd be able to get.
It's not as strict as it used to be, and it's slowly dying out, but it does still exist.
Caste system is a option, you can either associate yourself to it or leave it. This is true at least in modern day India and has been the the case for nearly 20 years now. You can easily ditch your caste, just like atheists ditch their religion.
The fact is caste system offers a comfortable cushion of victim hood and gives you enough reasons to justify failure or even not trying.
These days belonging to a lower caste is a gift because you get reservations nearly every where. There are protests by many communities to include them in back ward communities because of the reservations. People are fighting to be backward, Read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Gurjar_unrest_in_Rajasthan
The situation is such that people want to belong to backward communities and castes.
True freedom is dangerous, many people know it, and they don't even want it.
Caste system is not just reservations/backward communities. It includes the different sub-castes (Ex - Different sub-castes in the Brahmin caste). This is very relevant in vote bank politics. A candidate belonging to sub-caste X will not get elected if the region has majority people from sub-caste Y, even if the candidate is known to be capable.
The main reason for the terrible infrastructure conditions in India is politics and corruption. These are strongly rooted in the caste/sub-caste system. Money has always been flowing freely in politics and it is what makes politics attractive.
The terrible infrastructure I refer to is basic - water, electricity, medicines. Malls, fancy cars cannot substitute water. In India, People are dying for water these days. This will only increase exponentially. There has been research showing that 24 hour water supply is possible with the current fresh water resources in India, but it won't happen, thanks to politics, corruption and the caste system.
The SUV situation brought up in the article is not caste based. It was money based and money is the new, bonus caste system on top of existing ones.
They don't really know another way of life. That is all they have ever been exposed to. They don't know about Apple/Google/iPhone or Steve Jobs or what a computer is because their village is so fucking remote that the Government of India decided it would be a hassle to provide electricity, and their parents decided to make additional income by renting out a few kids to make ends meet.
These people don't really consider themselves victims, because they don't think they have been wronged. They were mostly unlucky in the lottery of life and born in poor circumstances.
You can refuse to believe whatever you want but the fact is that you were extremely lucky in life to be either born in a relatively well to do family or in circumstances that exposed you technology, educational experiences over the course of your life. Having an internet connection can be a life changing effect, because of the access to information it provides.
>> Nobody is going to help you and shouldn't.
>> But a healthy person who doesn't work hard deserves his condition.
>> expecting somebody to come and help is not a unrealistic expectation but a 'unjust' expectation.
>> There by each man for his own and shall deserve net result of his own work.
^^ I am glad that everyone doesn't think like you because the world truly would be an awful place if they did.
I never denied that. My whole point was, now that you are- What next?
If you think you are happy with poverty then the story ends there. If you aren't then, the government can do little, Sorry but there are simply too many people in our country. The ordinary citizen will not and can't do anything about you.
It will be your and your problem alone.
It will be difficult, hard and a tiring lifelong worth of work. Just like it is for everybody else.
What else were you thinking?
The situation is very similar in South Africa. The poor makes up such a large proportion of the population that their situation cannot be improved significantly without major wealth redistribution (combined with a massive reduction in government corruption, preferably). Neither of these things are likely to happen (unless there is a revolution), so a poor person can only realisticly rely on himself to improve his situation.
Kamaal's point does not contradict the OP's. It's just a statement of reality from the perspective of the poor.
Arguing they have only themselves to rely on, feels like a rationalisation to not help them.
EDIT: I see where you're coming from now that I've seen his higher-up posts.
Not to mention that in the end, even if everyone did 'just work hard', there isn't enough wealth to go around. The civilised thing is at least to give people basic services and let themselves work to higher wealth from there.
And I am not saying that most poor people expect handouts. If anything I would guess that most of them are hard-working. I only brought it up because of the parent post. I realise I owe my own middle-class status to the fact that my parents are middle-class.
And I am all for the well-off helping the poor. I only wish the (South African, in my case) government would do their part.
My position is less about handouts, and more about the assumption that poor people know how to get out of poverty and all that's missing is the elbow grease. Yes, relying on the government for handouts isn't going to work, and you also want to be careful of welfare dependence. But education is a significant wealth-enabler, and merely knowing how to deal with various things can give people a leg up. Kamaal's point is about giving a giant shrug and saying "eh, what can you do?". It reflects the current realities of the situation, but the lazy part is not bothering to think of better ways forward.
Though one often reads that acquiring/making wealth isn't a zero sum game.
There was actually a revolution. When I was a kid, Nelson Mandela was in jail. Did the revolution improve matters?
One thing is very different between .in and .za: .za is one of the most violent countries in the world, while .in is one of the least violent.
(b) to recognize the caste system, you have to go somewhere it doesn't exist. Right now you know as much about it as a typical fish knows about water.
(c) we're human beings, and none of us gets ahead alone; we all have people to help us. We can't even survive infancy without help from other people. The people a kilometer from you who have expensive SUVs without having to work 19-hour days? That's mostly because they got a lot of help from other people, such as their parents, and only partly because they worked hard — in some cases, not at all. Working hard is really, really important, but far from enough.
Many unmarried techies live in the same apartment and share a room and still have a maid/servant. These guys earn $500-$1000usd a month. They have a TV but it isn't a flat screen. They have a decent mobile phone but it is not an iphone 5. They might have a decent motorcycle but not a car..
They split the cost of the servant who comes from another part of India. The servant might cost $150 a month, split 4 ways. The techies are not above middle class at all. The guy they employee is just really poor.
Make a million dollars a year, and you can go to all the charity balls and opera galas you want. And your kids can go to whatever prep school you want to send them to. That tells me it's about your wallet, not where your parents went to school.
The article takes one event, and then reapplies it liberally to a popular narrative.
I could never have imagined that this was HN material.
Care to elaborate on said traits?
To save so much that you ultimately have a lot but spend none of it.
"Let me tell you another story: my neighbour in the upper-middle-class area where I live is a man who owns luxury hotels. His house is huge, but no sooner had he moved in than he appropriated about half of the pavement space to the front and side of his house, claiming it for his own. This means less parking for others, less pavement for children, less walking space for everyone. Of the 400-odd houses in this area, at least half have done this. At the same time they have also collectively seen off the only roadside tea stall in the area that served all the service providers – the guards, the drivers, the domestics, the sweepers. "
Both the writer and you are discounting the 200 odd houses in the area that have not claimed an entitlement on the pavement, by doing so you are discrediting the willingness of those who are playing by the rules to further an argument that does no hold scrutiny. Further more as others have stated in comments, there is nothing in the article that is uniquely Indian.
> In India this is quite possible, a middle class person could easily hire 3-4 people and therefore start to create change.
Most people do not have a need to hire 3-4 people. Growing up it was common to have a maid who helped with household chores due to the absence of amenities like a dish washer or washing machine. As these services become available there is no need to hire folks to do such work. Hiring folks and having them laze around only to take home wages is a ridiculous idea, moreover wealth saved by not hiring these folks is spent on other purposes (movies, restaurants etc.) that the so called wealth might consider a good return on investment. These in turn create jobs for services that are required (taxi drivers, ticket vendors, waiters, restaurant managers etc.). The fact that the so called upper class people do not hire folks to do their dishes and laundry is if anything a move towards a society with fewer artificial classes.
I completely agree with this. When I was living in New York, I rarely felt a need to "hire" someone to do stuff for me. Apartment didn't get dirty so easily. Clothes didn't get dirty so easily. Very easy and convenient access to laundromats. Dish washer at home. Easy access to fairly high quality groceries. Lots of places to eat around which had healthy food options at reasonable prices (relative to your salary). Anything you wanted could be ordered online.
If on top of all this, you just hired a maid by the hour, for a couple of hours, to come clean your house like once in two weeks, you didn't need anything else.
Here in India, it's hard to get by without a maid. Clothes get dirty fast, house gets dirty fast, no laundromats, no dishwasher, no space to keep a washing machine at home, poor availability of healthy food options, groceries sellers have bad quality of food and vegetables so you need to spend time picking them out, supermarkets have massive checkout lines etc.
And then yes your usual dowry, caste system issues thrown here and there.
And those who leave India to settle else where too, find these topics indulging. It gives all them all the reasons in the world why they were right to leave the country.
You see the same thing here in the U.S., and to be honest, I think it's somewhat accurate. The vast majority of the United States is middle class, and there is a huge range of privilege within it. Some parts of the middle class are virtually inaccessible from other parts. The mistake is not in labeling those rich, privileged people "middle class," but rather in thinking that there is no such thing as middle class privilege. In fact, being born into the middle class is a privilege, and there is a vast range of privilege within the middle class. In the U.S. a middle class kid could have parents with high school diplomas or parents with PhDs, parents with no connections or parents with Ivy League connections, parents who have never been more than a few hundred miles from home or cosmopolitan globe-hopping parents, parents who force them to take out loans for college or parents who pay the entire cost of an Ivy League education with a break year plus professional school afterwards and apartments and cars the whole time. The label "middle class" just doesn't mean much these days.
In that sense, even the SV millionaires are outsiders to the real power brokers, the real upper class, the real movers of the country.
Although that is probably also a bit of an overstatement in Europe as well, this issue is really one of the major historical distinctions between the US and Europe.
If these are people who have "made" the money themselves in their own generation, I can see why/how they still view themselves as middle class. It's a mindset.
I have had the fortune of getting to know many SV millionaires who grew up in modesty/poverty, and still buy shorts from Target and pinch pennies madly. They have their mansions and their fancy cars, but they're still bound by the mindset of their lower/middle class background where they fought ferociously and squeezed themselves and their financial abilities to get to where they are today.
As long as that mindset persists, even very wealthy people won't consider themselves to be "upper class".
Give it one or two generations though. Their kids and grandkids will probably behave and believe that they're upper class.
It's actually a problem in Australia where we all sort of treat each other as equals, for example our hospitality classes won't scrape and bow and call you sir, and everyone is ok with that. Racism has started to emerge because the only Indians who can get to Australia are the rich ones. All it takes is a few bad interactions and people start to write off the entire race, when I'm sure that 99%+ of Indians are actually pretty damn nice people.
I just wonder if those new generations will be less cheap but more entitled than ever.
I don't know about India, but in the US there is a bizzare cultural phenomenon where everyone wants to see himself as middle class. Being identified as rich is somehow faintly embarrassing.
You see all kinds of strange verbal gymnastics in trying to justify middle class status. Heck there is plenty of it in this thread!
So I suspect that is going on with your wealthy friends, and that it will continue in thier kids and grandkids (unless the overall culture shifts).
There are a few advantages. One difference is I don't worry about how I'm going to pay for e.g. a $1000 car repair (but it's still painful). I'm also more likely to hire someone for maintenance or gardening. Also, I theoretically could quit my job and live off my investments, but that's unlikely to happen.
Of course this is partially a linguistic argument. If you define upper class as the top income quintile, for instance, than I'm upper class, but that's meaningless.
I do wonder if I'm doing things wrong, and there's some secret for admission to the upper class. Maybe I should start flying first class, buy a Ferrari, stop shopping at Target, and hang out with rich people. (Although I think that would just make me nouveau riche, not upper class.)
(My motivation in this comment is that these HN threads tend to be entirely speculation, and the semi-rich never comment, so I hope to provide a useful perspective.)
What I wonder is what you think the upper class (as you define it) have that's so great or special that you don't. Sure you could cabin it so narrowly as to be people that e.g. get personal access to the President, or can get there kids into Harvard with a single phone call or something, but that definition is so narrow as to be useless (which gets back to the whole all Americans are middle class thing).
Having known several people with net worths in the 7-9 figure range, from brand new money through came over on the Mayflower, it really is a continuum. There's no secret handshake.
But that doesn't mean that somewhere along the continuum you really are living a different lifestyle than a family of four living in Northern California with both one parent working as a teacher and the other as a hygienist, each making $40,000 a year. They've got credit card balances, student loans, a long commute because that's where the affordable houses are, stress over how they are ever going to pay for college, and so on. You may shop at the same stores, but is that really a good indicator? Call what you have upper middle class if you feel like it, but that family is solidly middle class by any reasonable definition. So if there's a difference in kind, and someone has to give up the label, it shouldn't be them.
Finally, I should note that I find this little quirk of American culture fairly harmless. The one area where it can be pernicious is when it effects certain policy areas. For example, many people agree that the "rich" should be paying higher taxes, but since hardly anyone sees himself as rich, it is always a little farther out that the tax burden needs to fall. A good litmus test is the home mortgage income deduction, which is massively tilted to the high end of the income scale. If in justifying a high phase out you start to hear yourself say things like $1.5 million doesn't really buy you that much -- then you may be in the problematic zone.
For example, if some, but not all (or even most), of your family members need to work in order to maintain a comfortable lifestyle (which includes healthy food, a home that is not crowded, access to decent education, and one to four vehicles) then you are middle class. If you have to work but don't have these things, then you are lower-income. If you can have these things without working at all in perpetuity, then you are well-off.
The stark contrast between such a person and another that drives around in an air conditioned SUV is what often shocks people. By comparison, a western middle class person in India would be considered pretty well off! Unfortunately, the Indian upper middle class/upper class do not apply those standards to themselves.
There are some people commenting on this topic saying that SV millionaires are not upper class. That sounds ridiculous in India :)
Part of the issue is that lots of people talk about the USA being a "classless society". Some of them even believe it. More than most nations, America loves the idea that a person can arrive as a poor immigrant or be born the child of poor immigrants, apply uncommon drive and intelligence, and create a business that makes him extremely rich. (Whether that is the rule or the rare exception is another question.)
Any references for that? The one I found, partly disagrees with your claims [1]. [1] also suggests that wealth disparity in India is better when compared to world. I am not saying the situation is good, but it is not as bloddy and fearing as you suggest it is. And there isn't something very particular about India in this case, I think the problem is a more widespread. And yes, the rich in India compare themselves to global standards when they determine if they are wealthy - because the world is more global now than we would like to believe. You suggest elsewhere that these people are upper class because it takes so little to help the lower classes. If that is any metric, most of the western hemisphere should be categorized as upper class because it helping a significant majority of eastern hemisphere will not have significant negative impact on lifestyle or wealth of the west.
[1] http://www.wealthbull.com/stock-market-today/878-wealth-dist...
I agree but let's not lose track of the fact that empathy doesn't end at national borders. We Indians have a responsibility to help those of us who are less privileged than us, but so does everyone else in the world. And let's also not forget that our conditions are the way the are thanks largely to colonialism and that the British in particular and the western world in general profited massively from our suffering during that time. And finally let's also not forget that immigration and employment laws in the western world even today actively work towards denying economic opportunities to people in developing countries and this plays a huge part in countries like India staying poor.
My point is that it's a bit too simplistic to frame it as Indians need to do X instead of Y and then they will be fine. Indians are doing Y not because they're genetically deficient but because we've gotten stuck in a local maxima that is mostly not of our own making.
I find it quite hard to believe that most (or any) girls would be fine with anyone driving circles around them and honking. All women I know from Delhi are quite sick of eve teasing and don't really give a shit whether the guilty person is poor or rich.
In general it seems to take a couple of generations of security for any given elite to look around and decide that it has obligations. In an American context, think of the Rockefellers, Harrimans, and Kennedys.
By contrast, the Indian elites described in the OP seem to consider themselves above humanity and the law. Wealth alone does not make you a horrible person, though it's fun to believe that it does.
But of course, publishing an article that does not conform to the worst stereotyping of India will not get to to HN first page.
1. "I've had statements from rich girls in New Delhi who don't like 'these poor people who stare at us', but are completely fine with spoilt rich brats driving circles around them while honking away."
How many "statements" did you get?
2. "These people struggle (or think that they do..) for so long in the rat race that they forget that they have risen above it and gone far beyond that. Perhaps that is why they seem to lack compassion and empathy."
Based on what do you conclude this?
3. "You know, rich people with 4 bedroom apartments on the 17th floor in and around the capital."
Rich?
4. "Most people who the 'middle class' perceive as lower class are almost sub humans in their eyes."
Based on what do you conclude this?
5. "The middle class got to point fingers once more at the lower classes who 'rape us'. They got to ask the government what they are doing to protect them from these 'evil immigrants who come into New Delhi and ruin our fair city'."
Did you participate in any of the protests? You know, this is an egg on the face of all who spent days protesting after the incident. Again, what is this based on? Can you point to any news articles or any research/survey that got this out?
Yes, situation is complicated but people have started debating about a lot of things. There is a lot more participation from the common man. This never happened in the past. This evolution of 1 billion people to a developed and civilized society is indeed slow as much as it is unique. But I am confident it will happen - India is still a democracy, people still have a say in determining their future...
India definitely makes you feel this. I know this one senior guy who lived for a very long time in New York (~10 years) after his grad school and moved a few years back to Mumbai. He is very rich but he says that he feels poorer in Mumbai than he ever felt in New York, even compared with the time when he working in his first job, fresh out of grad school.
Areas around New Delhi suffer from an acute nouveau riche problem. Most well educated (programmer like..) people wouldn't act out in such a callous and insensitive manner. However, they will most likely still view people from lower classes differently, this may not be evident in the way people act but you can catch onto it if you pay attention to certain remarks that people may make. (eg: I can't ride with those smelly people in the Delhi metro)
Again, these are generalizations, not everyone is an asshole. Most people aren't. However, there is a great deal of prejudice and I believe the only way forward is for people to acknowledge it in the first place.
unless you are with in the top 1%, i wouldn't say you are upper class.
I completely respect your opinion, but the fact that you think that doesn't "surprise" me, it's in fact the very phenomenon I was pointing out. Do you think that curve looks any different in India or Colombia?
India was a hybridised socialist country for a very long time - coming out of that will look at lot like Britain the in the eighties I suspect - and if you want to put bets on the next two term incumbent - they will look a lot like the drivers if the SUVs and will tell then its good to be hard working, it's what will get us to moonbase alpha
Welcome to running the planet. Beware.
If I were to take sides in what's worse... well, I wouldn't. Don't take sides on account of lesser of two evils. Just condemn evil.
The fact that children are labelled as anything other than children, that Indian society calls them "Dalit" at birth, to me, summarizes why the region will remain retrogressive for a long, long time.
You can find elsewhere an study about how psycopaths are usually found in leading positions, like politicians (specially in 3rd world, where salaries are high) and CEOs, amongst others.
If there was a limited amount of a certain resource, i would certainly have to own more than the next person in order to acquire that resource.
When the poor know that every cog in the society is biased against the poor, people are quick to dismiss them and their misery. If it was another car instead of the cart, the SUV guy won't have hit the car, for the person riding the car would certainly be able to sue/ report to police, and might even have insurance.
This is about the lack of entitlement of the poor, rather than the ferocious sense of entitlement of the rich. The rich are just exploiting the absence of any entitlement to poor.
For one thing, the vieux riche inspired entire revolutions with their compassionless, ridiculous, indefensible behavior. The wealthy nobility is a primary reason why so many countries are now democratic.
Clearly "being a complete dick" is not the exclusive purview of the nouveau riche. The notion that people who inherit their wealth are less likely to abuse it over people who earn it quickly also doesn't pass a lot of mental muster.
The distinction between "nouveau riche" and "vieux riche" smells like (and is) a classi No True Scotsman.
This is exactly it. If one is born into money, the sense of entitlement is in-bred and it doesn't need to be asserted explicitly, leave alone aggressively.
Who are the 'poor' in India?
The poor in India, according to the Planning Commission, are people who live on 32 Indian Rupees/59cents per day.
How many people are poor in India?
The Planning Commission of India reports that there are 29.8% of the population who are 'poor' [0,1]. This roughly equates to 360 Million people who live below the poverty line.
Are the numbers for poor accurate?
May be, may be not. Some believe these numbers could be as high as 77% specially considering the inflation rate and other factors.
Is it possible to live on 59 cents per day?
No but that's not even the main problem. Here is a comment from Jean Dréze, an economist and former member of the National Advisory Council India [2],
“What is really shocking is not that the official poverty line is abysmally low, but that even with that abysmal
benchmark, so many people are below it.The belated discovery that it is impossible to have a dignified
life on the official poverty line draws our attention to the appalling living conditions of the Indian poor.” Taking a
position diametrically opposed to Mr. Bhalla and Mr. Panagariya, Mr. Drèze argues, “The message about the terrifying
nature of 'hidden poverty’ in India has been somewhat lost in the din of the recent debate.”
Is there a class divide in India (in particular Delhi) and possess a sense of entitlement?
Yes. I would recommend reading on how the elite tried to stifle Delhi's first Bus Rapid Transit system by filing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Delhi HC [3]. Here is the reason from the petitioner's (a car owner in Delhi) on why he decided to file the petition
"Car owners are the creators of wealth. Do you realise that they get exhausted sitting in their cars due to traffic
jams and they reach office completely tired? It affects their efficiency. Do you want them to perform less?" asks the
main petitioner BB Sharan.You cannot keep a commander-in-chief waiting in traffic while his army is waiting for his
orders. How does it matter if a peon reaches office five minute before time?"
[0] http://planningcommission.nic.in/news/press_pov1903.pdf
[1] http://planningcommission.nic.in/reports/genrep/rep_pov.pdf
[2] http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/04/what-does-indias-p...
You're absolutely right about the huge gap that exists between people trying to just make it, and even the middle class who have a roof over their heads. Unfortunately, most city dwellers fail to acknowledge this.
Too many people means: Too much inequality,inability of governing people properly,lack of regulations and so on.....
India is 3 times more populated than USA but 1/3 in land size of USA!
Population does matter. Nothing about riches only in India. Put these conditions in any other country and you will see same behavior.
Which is better for the country: asking people to employ domestic workers, or have higher unemployment?
Let's take South Africa, which I know better than any place in Asia. There's high unemployment. The government encourages people to hire domestic workers. Checking now the rates are about US$ 1/hour. These are maids/domestics, gardeners, childminders, caretakers for the sick and elderly, and so on.
I grew up on the US, and from my family learned a strong moral principle that it's best to do everything yourself, rather than have 'people cater to my every need' at home. As an adult, I followed that same moral principle.
Then I bought a house. With a garden. A quite beautiful garden that I wanted to keep. I couldn't do it myself. More importantly, my rates as a software developer were more than 8x that of a gardener. I fought that moral training and realized that it's little different than regularly going to a mechanic to maintain my car.
The position of the South African government is similar. If you have the money, then why not use it to hire people to help around the house? Living in South Africa for a short time, I learned about some of the advantages of having someone who would do laundry, including ironing, sweeping, or mowing the lawn. None are tasks I enjoy.
As you (and the essayist) point out, that's fraught with difficulties. At what point does that turn into a sense of entitlement? How can abuses in the workplace (that is, the home) be monitored and reduced?
You can read some of the difficulties and different viewpoints at http://www.sacsis.org.za/site/article/473.1 .
You should be paying someone who is more efficient than you at those tasks, so you can write software to solve problems more efficiently than your customers do otherwise. That is wealth creation across a community.
You should not be paying someone (x N) to work at a much lower hourly wage than you simply because you have accumulated more wealth.
Now, some dose of income inequality is healthy, to motivate individuals to better themselves and be valuable (education, skill, physical execise), but extreme inequality is to be remedied by rebalancing the income, not just making someone work for you.
I don't see the "of course." Using that argument, it sounds like I shouldn't hire a carpenter to work on my house but should instead pay more taxes so that the carpenter can work on improving the public buildings, and only use my own skills and time to improve my house.
I shouldn't ever hire a mechanic to fix my car but rather I should always pay more taxes in order to fund the mass transit system.
I shouldn't ever hire a gardener but should rather let the existing garden in my yard fall into disrepair - or learn the skills myself - in preference for a neighborhood garden.
"You should not be paying someone (x N) to work at a much lower hourly wage than you simply because you have accumulated more wealth."
I never held that position, and I don't know how you inferred that that I had that assumption in mind.
There is some boundary on where it's better for myself and/or the community that I do something myself, and better sometimes for others with more time and/or better skills to do it. My argument is that one of the reasons that people don't hire domestic help is because of moral qualms. Sometimes those qualms are unfounded, and in that case, an educational campaign to change attitudes may be an appropriate means to mollify those qualms and improve wealth creation across a community.
In your words, they are doing something less efficiently than they could, and need a reminder backed by a good argument for why they should hire someone else to handle those jobs.
"simply because you have accumulated more wealth"
That is part of a different argument. The mathematics I outlined are based on differential income, not wealth accumulation. That is, had I spent every penny of income or contributed it through taxes, such that I had less wealth accumulation than my gardener, it would still make economic sense for me to hire a gardener instead of tending to the garden myself. As you said, your goal is 'wealth creation across a community'. The scenarios I described are not incompatible with that goal. I can outline others if you wish.
Also, at that time my work was very bursty. I would sometimes visit a client site for a month or two, then not work for a few months. Her work was relatively constant, so she could maintain my garden while I was away. Even if I maintained the garden myself, I don't think it would be morally or economically objectionable to hire someone for that case. It can be even be worthwhile to hire someone on a continual basis, in order to ensure availability during odd times.
The domestic-help arrangement often seems to end up with weird power dynamics, though, where it's more like having a "servant" who is clearly of lower social status, and is supposed to cater to their employers' whims in some kind of old-fashioned aristocratic style. Feels less like "freelancing" and more like something more problematic.
The most shocking thing is that I don't think these people realize they are doing it either. Now certainly there are some who realize it and just don't care (psychopaths or sociopaths), but I think it is more common that people lose the ability to think about the consequences of their actions.
Evaluation of my actions is something I try hard to do with myself. It is very, very difficult to objectively evaluate yourself and how you come across to others. Something you may not even think twice about can have a lasting, negative effect on someone else. You don't know what that person is going through; maybe they just got laid off or lost a relative -- who knows what really.
Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky have shown this in numerous studies, but here's an easily relatable example of theirs: Financial advisors.[1]
Predicting markets is an inherently random game. We often point to those who have been successful for a long period of time as an example that it is possible to beat the system, but that analysis fails to account for the other end of the probability distribution: those who have failed for a long period of time (or failed so hard early that they had to get out of the game).
In other words, for every big winner, there is a big loser. The fact that some people win or lose can (mostly) be explained by randomness (or cheating).
But Kahneman & Tversky's stunning finding with Financial Advisors, and humans in general, is that those who are successful attribute their success mostly to skill, hard work, etc, while failing to adequately acknowledge how large a role chance played. For the humble, this is not a problem, but for the arrogant or uninformed, this can easily turn into entitlement.
(BTW I definitely believe that, in most fields, a person needs to meet certain thresholds of hard work, energy, intelligence, etc. to be successful, but the level of success after reaching those thresholds is largely a function of chance.)
We humans are very good at drawing false conclusions from random data. Have you watched a basketball game recently? If a good shooter misses a couple free throws, commentators seem obligated to explain that the reason for this is fatigue, or poor form, or this, or that. How about the fact that it just randomly happens sometimes?
Applying this thinking to Indian elites: they have a lot of money, probably through their families or their own success. They believe their status is well deserved and earned, either because of superior genetics or superior skills (or any other number of reasons), and as a result, the uninformed feel entitled (and act accordingly). The author's anecdotal examples aside, this is no different than how many (but not all!) people behave on Wall Street, in athletics, at the high levels of corporations, etc. This is not an Indian problem, or an elite problem; it's a human problem.
Fooled by Randomness[2]. Again.
[1]http://www.businessinsider.com/daniel-kahneman-on-wealth-man... [2]http://www.amazon.com/Fooled-Randomness-Hidden-Chance-Market...
http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cnn.heroes/archive10/naryana...
You see chaos everywhere, in the roads, children playing around electricity cables(non insulated, working cables), so much people living in trash...
If I were to live there for extended periods of time, I will get crazy. It is like living in a beehive.
"this car can buy your whole family" - same attitude everywhere mate!!
If you wrong someone, and s/he tries to then injure you with a heavy blunt object but fails, it doesn't mean "you got off easy". You can then counter sue for attempted murder.
So now who got off "easy"?
It takes a single incident and extrapolates from their to the authors biases.
How is this at all worthy of discussion for intellectually curious people?
there are just too many people fighting for same resources. hence it gets messy
While the US is a first world country (disclaimer: US citizen/resident), we have nowhere near the social programs other more progressive first world countries have.
My father is li gang!*
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That is better than here in America. Here its our lazy freeloaders whom have a ferocious sense of entitlement.