This is the best article I’ve read on the relationship between income, autonomy, status, and happiness. It happens to be from the Onion. Best bit:
Braxton, who earns roughly one-fourth of what the firm’s lowest-seniority full-time employees make, said he has no desire to make his coworkers feel bad about their “boring, shitty lives.”
“If somebody complains about how bad it sucks to work overtime five days straight, I just nod and agree,” said Braxton, who spends his weeknights at parties, at concerts, and playing basketball in the park. “No point in rubbing in the fact that no matter how busy things are, I leave at exactly 5 p.m. every single day. If anyone asks me to stay later, I just say my agency doesn’t let me do overtime.”
After graduating from Wesleyan University in May 2000 with a degree in Russian literature, Braxton worked a series of part-time jobs in and around Boston. In December 2001, he signed on with QualiTemps, the city’s largest supplier of temporary office labor, which currently pays him $8.44 per hour.
“I have so much going on in my life right now,” Braxton said. “I’m helping a friend start up a little Cajun food stand, I’ve gotten way into this Russian poet Mayakovsky, I’ve been hanging out with this really cool girl I met when my band, Sophie Drillteam, did a show with hers. Honestly, I just don’t have the time or energy to put into some job.”
In spite of his happiness, Braxton said he makes sure always to project an air of dissatisfaction, in both facial expression and posture, while in the office.
Income and position in the office hierarchy are far from the only dimensions of satisfying status. And don’t miss the larger lesson: Braxton’s ability to live a deeply engaging, self-directed, creative, relatively low-income lifestyle is a side-effect of overall abundance. He is, in effect, free-riding off the miserable productivity of his co-workers and people like them. Liberal arts degrees, obscure Russian poets, and vanity bands are for rich people. Being rich and personally having a large income are completely different things.
Sure, overall abundance is important, but if the free-riding charge is correct, then aren’t you and me free-riders, too? (Or is the point that anyone who takes a job and then doesn’t work hard – to some sufficient degree – is free-riding on the labor of others?)
Sure, overall abundance is important, but if the free-riding charge is correct, then aren’t you and me free-riders, too? (Or is the point that anyone who takes a job and then doesn’t work hard – to some sufficient degree – is free-riding on the labor of others?)
All well and good. Until Braxton wants to have a child, let alone move into the kind of neighborhood with good enough schools for his son or daughter to qualify for a liberal arts degree (see Robert Frank). If Braxton is among the tiny fraction of Americans whose wellbeing can be vouchsafed living like a graduate student well into middle age – I’m part of that fraction myself – fine. Otherwise, this post is radically glib, quite nearly nihilist.
All well and good. Until Braxton wants to have a child, let alone move into the kind of neighborhood with good enough schools for his son or daughter to qualify for a liberal arts degree (see Robert Frank). If Braxton is among the tiny fraction of Americans whose wellbeing can be vouchsafed living like a graduate student well into middle age – I’m part of that fraction myself – fine. Otherwise, this post is radically glib, quite nearly nihilist.
Matt, Yeah. We’re free-riders. In good societies, the cost of internalizing all the benefits from production are prohibitive, so everyone gets a ton of stuff for free. Free-rider is often used pejoratively, but I mean it here as a good thing.
Matt, Yeah. We’re free-riders. In good societies, the cost of internalizing all the benefits from production are prohibitive, so everyone gets a ton of stuff for free. Free-rider is often used pejoratively, but I mean it here as a good thing.
Rick, See my reply to Ezra just posted. Nearly nihilist? That people are able to make choices about the kind of life they want and take responsibility for it? You’re being silly.
Rick, See my reply to Ezra just posted. Nearly nihilist? That people are able to make choices about the kind of life they want and take responsibility for it? You’re being silly.
But isn’t part of the joke that Braxton isn’t really rich (monetarily), and that he’s chosen a different way of life than pursuing the “fucking brass ring”? Is your point that he can only make – or have that choice – in a land of plenty? I’m not completely sure I buy that. (Aren’t obscure Russian poets also for obscure (poor) Russian people?)
But isn’t part of the joke that Braxton isn’t really rich (monetarily), and that he’s chosen a different way of life than pursuing the “fucking brass ring”? Is your point that he can only make – or have that choice – in a land of plenty? I’m not completely sure I buy that. (Aren’t obscure Russian poets also for obscure (poor) Russian people?)
Matt,
I suppose Russianpoets are for Russian people, but probably not for Haitian people. They only get obscure Haitian poets.
Matt,
I suppose Russianpoets are for Russian people, but probably not for Haitian people. They only get obscure Haitian poets.
While I don’t 100% agree with Rick, I think it pays
to consider that while Braxton is happy now, it is
not certain that his current choices will allow him
to be happy for another 10 years or 20 years. What
should we optimize: happiness right NOW, or happiness
over lifespan? I have no answer, it’s just a question.
Second comment is that Braxton may very well have
considerable parental monetary support. It’s hard to
say, but we cannot say with any certainty that this
anecdotal article reveals much. He may be free-riding
in more ways than one.
While I don’t 100% agree with Rick, I think it pays
to consider that while Braxton is happy now, it is
not certain that his current choices will allow him
to be happy for another 10 years or 20 years. What
should we optimize: happiness right NOW, or happiness
over lifespan? I have no answer, it’s just a question.
Second comment is that Braxton may very well have
considerable parental monetary support. It’s hard to
say, but we cannot say with any certainty that this
anecdotal article reveals much. He may be free-riding
in more ways than one.
This is *The onion*, people. This is a spoof of the idea that the poor and powerless are really rich in what money can’t buy – a perennial plank in the apologia for obscene inequality. Have you all ears of tin?
This is *The onion*, people. This is a spoof of the idea that the poor and powerless are really rich in what money can’t buy – a perennial plank in the apologia for obscene inequality. Have you all ears of tin?
This is *The onion*, people. This is a spoof of the idea that the poor and powerless are really rich in what money can’t buy – a perennial plank in the apologia for obscene inequality. Have you all ears of tin?
This is *The onion*, people. This is a spoof of the idea that the poor and powerless are really rich in what money can’t buy – a perennial plank in the apologia for obscene inequality. Have you all ears of tin?
You suppose a graduate of Wesleyan (#10 USNWR liberal arts college)is supposed to represent “the poor and powerless?” Or does my tin ear prevent me from grasping your subtle joke.
You suppose a graduate of Wesleyan (#10 USNWR liberal arts college)is supposed to represent “the poor and powerless?” Or does my tin ear prevent me from grasping your subtle joke.
If you believe that the top of the corporate hierarchy is filled with people living joylesss existences and the bottom is occupied by free-spirited Wesleyan graduates, you’ve been at Cato too long!
If you believe that the top of the corporate hierarchy is filled with people living joylesss existences and the bottom is occupied by free-spirited Wesleyan graduates, you’ve been at Cato too long!