Click above △@ Xu Jin Economist Follow
Author丨Keith Payne Comparison
Recommend l Xu Jin Economist (econhomo)
Come to Knowledge Planet to find Xu Jin Economist, Learn finance and economics with understanding people
The Broken Ladder - How Inequality Affects Your Life
A two-hour flight is enough to change a person's life. On the flight from Washington to Jacksonville, no one knew why Joseph Sharkey suddenly turned around and clamped the head of the passenger behind him. Maybe it was because the passenger spoke too loudly, or maybe it was him. Suddenly he raised the back of Shaji's seat with his feet. However, according to eyewitnesses, the passenger did not cause any trouble at the time.
At this time, the crew quickly appeared to stop the commotion. Undeterred, Sharkey pressed his knee against a flight attendant's lower body, forcing him to walk to the emergency exit and attempt to open the door during the flight. Finally, the flight attendant and several passengers subdued Sharkey and put plastic handcuffs on him. As soon as the plane landed, Sharkey was arrested and faced up to 20 years in prison.
(Pictures from the Internet)
Bad behavior that occurs in first class is always different. In 2009, on a plane that was about to fly from Palm Beach to New York, Ivana Trump (yes, Trump’s ex-wife), who was sitting in the first class cabin, tried to block the chatter of the children sitting next to her. Noise, put on headphones. Despite this, there was still a crying child that she couldn't bear. She suddenly lost control of her emotions and got angry. The staff had to force her to get off the plane. At this time, she was still yelling at the children: "You guys" Little brat! ”
Airplanes are a microcosm of the real world, and the anxieties we encounter every day are epitomized here. We are thrown into a sea of strangers and forced to squeeze our loved ones, ordinary colleagues, etc. into the same level of intimacy. It was like we were stuffed into a narrow metal pipe. The fear fermented in the confined space continued to grow, and we were in danger of being detonated at any time.
Once the plane is in the air, there is nowhere to escape and time seems endless. The fear of heights is triggered when we find ourselves thousands of feet in the air. The fuselage staggered, bumped, and swayed, making us never forget the feeling of being entangled by unknown things. From departure to landing, we have been in such a "out of control" time and space. It was not until we were allowed to use electronic devices that this feeling of "out of control" gradually disappeared. During this part of the flight we waited and were unsure who was traveling with us and how was the flight going? Who should occupy which armrest? In any case, we are always reminded by our own moral sense, which kind of life experience is more existential?
In addition to the anxiety caused by flying, airplanes also constitute a "microcosm" of life from another aspect - airplanes are the physical embodiment of status levels. They are social ladders made of aluminum and textiles - your row, crew and cabin represent your class.
Draw a schematic diagram of the seats inside the cabin to better explain why people attack strangers and curse children in the cabin. A recent study led by psychologists Katherine DelCells and Michael Norton showed that in-flight status can significantly affect people's behavior while flying. To figure out what factors influence the probability of "mid-air outbursts," researchers analyzed data from millions of flights. First, they compared aircraft with and without first class cabins and reasoned: If status inequality leads to bad behavior, then we should see more in-flight tantrums on planes with first class cabins. They found that the rate of "mid-air madness" incidents was four times higher on planes with first-class cabins than on planes without first-class cabins.Other related factors such as flight delays will certainly have an impact, but the existence of first class does increase the possibility of riots. It increases the probability of an accident to as high as a nine-and-a-half-hour flight delay.
Another way to test this reasoning is to observe how status differences are reinforced by observing the boarding process. On most planes with first-class cabins, first-class passengers board first, which forces economy-class passengers to drag their heavy luggage through the aisle in front of the wealthy people who are already comfortably seated before they can trek to their seats. . However, since 15% of airplanes board from the middle or tail of the fuselage, ordinary passengers on these airplanes are exempted from this "torture." As predicted, "mid-air madness" incidents are twice as likely to occur in front-boarding cabins as in other modes of boarding, raising the probability of an accident to as high as a six-hour flight delay. .
The study of "air rage" is telling, but not just because it reveals how inequality drives a wedge between the poor and the rich. What interests me is that "air rage" incidents can also occur when there are no real "poor people" - an ordinary economy class ticket costs hundreds of dollars. Among the "real poor people", many Few people can afford a trip on a new commercial airliner. However, even among respectable middle-class people, the associated differences can cause blame and bickering during the flight. And the quarrels aren't limited to economy class either. In the study, first-class passengers on "front-boarding" planes also came close to "exploding" multiple times when they came into close contact with the "rabble" boarding the plane. The above-mentioned behavior of Ivana Trump confirms that when the inequality between statuses becomes too great to ignore, everyone’s behavior begins to become less “normal”.
But the "abnormality" of this behavior is different from the previous situation. Inequality is affecting our behavior and emotions again and again in systematic and predictable ways. It makes us short-sighted, adventurous, and willing to sacrifice a certain future for present gratification. It makes us more inclined to make some "self-attack" decisions, it makes us believe some incredible things, and become superstitiously obsessed with the world we want to see, while refusing to accept the real world. Inequality divides us into camps based on income, ideology, and race, and undermines our trust in others. This layering creates tremendous stress and makes us feel neither healthy nor happy.
assumes that there is a community in which people from each of the above-mentioned "camps" live - short-sighted, irresponsible people who have made wrong choices, people who are segregated by race and ideology, the so-called "unworthy" "Trust" people, superstitious masses who have no time to listen to your reasoning, and people prone to self-destruction when faced with the pressures and anxieties of daily life - the images in this community portrait reflect the basic tendencies of the poor and can be used to describe a typical poor neighborhood in any city or a depressing rural mobile home. But as we noted earlier, inequality leads to the same tendencies among the middle and rich classes.
Another issue worth paying attention to in the research on "Infuriating in the Air" is that inequality does not equal poverty, even if the two seem to have a lot of overlap. The subject of this book is the study of this phenomenon. Even if some people are not truly poor, "inequality" can make people "feel poor" or "appear poor". Inequality is so similar to poverty in our minds that the United States, the richest and most unequal country in the world, has much of its characteristics more akin to a developing country than a superpower.
As most reports indicate, income and wealth inequality have reached an all-time high. The 85 richest people in the world today own more wealth than the 3.5 billion poorest people on the planet combined. In the United States, one of the richest countries in the world, more than 20% of the wealth is controlled by 1% of the people.
Comprehensive analysis of the scope of economic inequality in the United States today is difficult because it is beyond human imagination—like trying to measure a light-year distance, or capture a hundred billion neurons in the brain, or measure these Hundreds of trillions of connections between neurons. This type of data is clearly beyond human reach. So let's first look at the economy within a more reasonable framework and explore how people view their economic status within this framework.
Many human characteristics, such as height, can be roughly described as a " bell curve" (normal curve). This curve has a huge middle section - because most people are concentrated in the mean area - and long tails at both ends that slope down. This model applies to other descriptions to a large extent as well. For example, the number of crests on a fingerprint, the chemical composition of Irish beer, or the bust size of a Scottish soldier, etc. The "bell curve", once thought to be a universal law of nature, has now been proven wrong. However, the model is so general that it is easy to see why earlier thinkers came to this conclusion.
When people measure their social class, they seem to do so within the parameters of a "bell curve." The Pew Research Center recently launched a survey asking Americans to identify their class. A classic "bell chart" appears. Shockingly, approximately 89% of respondents considered themselves “middle class/middle class” and only 2% placed themselves in the “upper class” position. It can be said that in the eyes of Americans, almost everyone is "middle class."
Let’s look at the actual income distribution in Figure 1, and you’ll get a completely different picture. To put it in the context of all of humanity, I've delineated the range for this chart, where the top 0.1% reaches a height of 6 feet, which corresponds to about the poorest 20% of the U.S. population; to the tip of the model's toes , the “median income” is reached, with half of U.S. households earning at this level and half at this level. The bottom 80% of households have an annual income of less than $100,000: If your household income reaches six figures, you are in the top 20% and are 4 inches above the yardstick . The wing shape on the left side of the
graphic means that the vast majority of the population is crowded at the bottom. The thin line extending upward indicates that the number of people earning more than a million dollars is extremely small. There’s no such thing as a “bell curve,” and 80% of households live below the model’s ankles.
Figure 1 U.S. income distribution represented by human height
Although the upper limit at the top of the graph is $1.5 million, some people actually earn more than that. If you include the "super rich", the book you are holding must be designed to be longer and taller to keep the chart scaled within the bounds of the page, otherwise the bottom 99% will be too small to be noticed. . Therefore, like most representations of income distribution, the representation in Figure 1 omits most professional athletes like Alex Rodriguez and does not include "celebrities" Counting No. 1 Oprah Winfrey, we also ignore those hedge fund managers - if this graph included the highest paid hedge fund manager today - John Paulson Paulson's annual income, then it would not just reach the head of this six-foot-tall man, but should reach the top of a tower. The income distribution of
is always one-sided for two main reasons. First of all, there is a natural, lower boundary at the bottom, because you can never get less than 0 - at least this cannot last long. Second, "money" can "generate money". Because wealth can be invested, and only investment can increase wealth exponentially. Money creates an ecosystem in which the rich get richer and create a long-tail effect. Those who have nothing to invest cannot join this circle and can only stay at the bottom of the income curve.
To prevent losing contact, scan the QR code to follow "Economist Reading Club"
Even if income distribution is always skewed, in today's United States, the degree of unfair distribution has expanded several times compared with before, and is more serious than in other developed economies. . Figure 2 illustrates how the incomes of Americans, including the top 5 percent, have changed in each decade over the past 50 years (dollar figures are adjusted for inflation). In Figure 2, you’ll see that the long tail from Figure 1 appears again:
Figure 2 Average household income, 1967–2015 (2015 USD)
Source: U.S. Census
It appears again: the rich get richer, and at the same time Poor people become more...well, just like poor people are doing interesting things. The poorest 5% of Americans have become more firmly at the bottom over the past 50 years.
You may not expect to see this outcome for the poor (nor for the middle class, who are basically staying put), as the well-known adage clearly expresses: the rich get richer , the poor get poorer. That’s what most people get from the headlines — inequality is growing in the United States. We hear so-called “increasing economic anxiety”, “increasing despair” and “increasing loss of hope for the future” all day long. In a recent poll, half of Americans under the age of 30 believed that the "American Dream" was shattered. This anxiety is real, and one of the purposes of this book is to fully understand it. But even on an inflation-adjusted basis, the poorest 5 percent are still where they were in 1967, when they were far behind the majority.
While the poor may not actually get poorer, one compelling aspect of inequality is that even if you stay where you are, you can feel left behind if those around you keep getting better. . Have you ever experienced this - you are sitting on a stationary train and the train next to you starts moving and you feel like you are moving backwards? As the upper class steadily gets richer, the middle class and the poorer classes will feel poorer by comparison. This feeling is not just a phantom. As we will see in the early chapters of this book, this "phantom" will have fatal consequences.
There are shelves full of books on the causes of economic inequality, mostly focusing on large historical trends, such as advances in technology and global trade patterns, or policies such as taxation and excessive consumption. This book does not engage in these analyses; instead, it examines what inequality means to us as individual human beings. It aims to study how “other people’s wealth”—the wealth of the top 5%, 1%, or 0.1% of the population—changes our understanding of the world.
Why does the wealth of the rich affect the lives of the middle class? After all, there is no direct logical relationship between the two. Of course, there is no logical relationship between the moving trains around us and our own perception of motion, but it does have an impact. This obviously cannot be explained by the properties of trains. Rather, these interpretations can be found in the human mind, which has the power to turn your perception of "Hey! We're moving!" into action of "Hold the armrest!"
Why is this? For example, during your "poor" days, did you "feel poor" longer than you were "really poor"? Why the size of your neighbor's house affects your stress hormones Why does property insecurity lead us to make decisions that push ourselves into more unsafe situations? Why is it that your financial success makes you think of people who disagree with you as fools, while it is so difficult for you to think of them as people who disagree with you?
Knowing the answers to these questions will not change the distribution of income, nor can this book provide new policy recommendations to change tax rates or improve Social Security. However, it will offer something meaningful, such as helping to explain some of the paradoxes of living in a global, modern, high-tech world - just because a flat-screen TV is cheap for you, doesn't mean you can Gain financial security.In a world where the average home is 2,600 square feet, many families still can't afford an emergency room visit that costs $400 in cash.
While it is important to assess the macro-level causes and economic consequences of inequality, my goal is actually more personal. The goal is to connect what we know about income distribution and survey data to the reality of individuals living in the here and now. Because everyone has family, friends, and colleagues heading into an unknown future together, understanding how wealth distribution shapes our thinking can make us more comfortable living among them. If enough people embrace these ideas, they can gradually reduce inequality itself. We will now start from the already recognized human experiences of "airplane conflict," "immobile carriages," and "other people's luxurious homes." All of these experiences make us feel as if we are falling.
Author: [US] Keith Payne
Translator: Li Dabai Publication date: May 2019
How the soft class builds a second-hand life | Xu Jin
Soft class society, longevity is a nightmare of bankruptcy
Nobel Economics Winner Deaton: How do the descendants of coal diggers view freedom and inequality?
Can money printing save the economy | Xu Jin
"Xu Jin said"
I have talked a lot about the soft class and inequality on Planet. The book
recommends today is from "The Broken Ladder" by Keith Payne. 》
He is a professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As an international pioneer in the psychology of inequality and discrimination.
From the perspective of the soft class,
economic inequality is only one aspect.
Invisible factors such as identity and psychology and social capital are more important.
Self-growth is more important. What do you think of the gap in your knowledge of
?
The topic of China's economy is still being followed. I will continue to share more exclusive
on the planet, https://t.zsxq.com/rvz3fQr
