December 5, 2005
From the desk of Jane Galt:Was it worth it?
The post below sounds like I'm feeling sorry for myself. Far from it. Yes, I share 450 square feet with a bullmastiff. Yes, I live on a tight budget, particularly now that I have finally started plugging 10% of my income into my 401(k). (I know that should be 15%, and it will be once annual raise time comes around. But that's another post.)
But I am lucky enough to have what just may be the best job in the entire world. I waste money on all sorts of stuff--cable television, deli sandwiches, diet gingerale. I don't need a car, I don't want an exotic home entertainment system, and I have excellent health coverage. I already live better than 99.9999% of people in the history of hte human race just by being in America, and on top of that I have a terrific family, a very cool dog, great friends, and I'm fortunate enough to be in a profession that provides many opportunities for free food. My apartment, though small, dark, and noisy, is also charming and cozy. I have a terrific life; I just don't have as many material goods as most of hte people I grew up with. The tradeoff has been well worth it.
THe reason I wrote that post was not to express, or invite, pity. Rather the opposite. I was responding to something I thought I saw in Laura's post: a healthy skewering of the sense of entitlement my generation was raised with. Every generation, of course, ends up coming to terms with the disappointing realization that the universe does not owe them anything. But the meritocratic system that produced Laura and me not only produced outsized expectations; it inculcated a belief that we deserved wonderful jobs and a comfortable lifestyle. John Cheever chronicled his generation's downward mobility, but his downward spiral was the decline of an aristocratic elite gone soft; they expected the universe to treat them well for no other reason but that it had always done so in the past. My generation, on the other hand, were the second generation of the meritocracy; we were raised to believe that intelligence and hard work were synonymous with personal worth, and that it was only just that we be rewarded richly for our labours. When the rewards did not follow as automatically as we had always assumed they would, we screamed in outrage.
But if you are healthy enough to walk nto work, have enough food so that hunger pains don't wake you up at night, don't have to suffer the cold longer than it takes to walk from the subway to your door, and don't worry that roving gangs of bandits will steal your cattle and burn your crops and leave your children to starve . . . well, you are so far ahead of the game as far as this planet is concerned that you have no right to ask for anything else. Anything you have on top of that is gravy. Every time you sit rinking chardonnay--or Miller Lite--with a group of friends, bewailing the earthquake in Kashmir or discussing whether it's worth the risk of viral resistance to send AIDS drugs to Africa, there is some lonely woman across the ocean lying on a dirt floor, every breath getting weaker as her life ebbs away. She feels the flesh of her limbs, the twitching of her fingers, the blinking of her eyes, the beating of her heart, just as you do at this moment, but she knows that she will soon loose that warm flesh to the void. She is dying not because she did anything to deserve it, but because she was born in the wrong continent, in the wrong time. She has never seen the internet, her country's capital, more food than she can eat. If you are not that woman, you have all the luck you need to live a rich and happy life.,
Don't get me wrong--I'm even luckier than most lucky Americans. I have never been afflicted by any misfortune worth mentioning. But even at my darkest hour, when I began to genuinely believe that I would never again being employed at anything that didn't require me to state my typing speed, I was unbelievably lucky just to live in a country that is so rich, it could afford to make an entire one-hour documentary on killer jellyfish for me to watch last night while blogging and instant messaging my friends last night.
The other reason I wrote that post is that I really disagreed with Laura's belief that things have, on the whole, gotten worse for our generation. For one thing, I'd imagine that Laura comes from a home like the one I grew up in, where the family was so financially successful that an ordinary middle class existance looks to us like disaster. And for another, while certainly some things, like Social Security are getting worse, other things, like health and lifespan, are getting much better. This may just be because I am young and childless, but I'll take a longer, healthier lifespan over an old-age pension any day.
Posted by Jane Galt at December 5, 2005 6:26 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound linksHey Megan -- Thanks for link and the feedback.
Actually, I'm second generation academic. My father is a very recently retired political science professor. My parents started off, like us, married w/kid (me) pre-dissertation in a cheapo apartment in the Bronx. But they were able to snag a job pretty quickly in the city and support a family on the one academic salary. Can you imagine supporting a family of five on $40,000 (entering salary at CUNY) in NYC right now?
That post was responding to the debate last week about work and women. The author that triggered the massive debate in the feminist blogosphere said that women with kids who dropped out of high powered careers were gender traitors. I had many problems with the remark, but her later comments gave me the impression that she had a very different concept of work than I did. She thought that good jobs were easily won and that couples could, without risk, move from job to job to achieve some magical job parity. Who has the luxury for that? My husband and I just have to get the bills paid and whatever is working at the time, we're going with.
There's no time for idealism, the kids need new shoes.
I only brought up the 70s, because this old feminist seemed to be on such a different planet from the rest of us. I wasn't really thinking about the good old days, as much as trying to figure out why this woman was so off base.
My next post is why those years in the crappy apartment were great, even though we were so damn poor.
re: lack of space in a NYC apartment. I had a recurrent dream when I was in the city that I would walk into the bathroom and find a hidden door to another room. Only the city, do you have space dreams.
"I already live better than 99.9999% of people in the history of hte human race just by being in America"
I'm not sure those numbers work out. First, it would be more accurate to say you live relatively well because you were born in one of a fairly large number of wealthy countries on the globe (of which the US is not the wealthiest).
Second, even if you really were better off than 99.9999% by virtue of being born in America, making a few wild guestimates at the number of people ever born on earth (let's say 100 billion), wouldn't that mean the US would have to have a current population of about 100,000 to put you in the top 0.0001% (and that every living member of that 100,000 population would have to be wealthier than anyone ever before)?
One shouldn't draw conclusions which are too broad based upon the NYC economy. If the median wage earner of today were forced to adopt the lifestyle of the median wage earner of 1975, to say nothing of 1965 or 1955, he or she would revolt. Such a couple would be less likely to own their home, and if they did, it would be much smaller. Such people would be angry about about having to swap their Honda Civic for a Ford Maverick. They wouldn't much like not being able to afford air fare, nor would they be happy about their entertainment choices. They'd be furious and grief-stricken to learn that their child's leukemia was untreatable. The one area in which median wage earners likely would find the past to be superior would be in paying for their offspring's college education, but the corrective to that state of affairs would be unlikely to please many of those that bemoan the current condition.
you know what, i got an BA in religion, a JD and passed the PA bar, but i never practiced law. i worked at a video store and lived in a crappy apartment with my boyfriend AND a housemate for six years having the time of my life and now i take care of my elderly grandmother for a living. i read, play guitar and knit almost all day, its great.
you know why i was able to do this? NO STUDENT LOANS
student loans are now nothing more than a self-imposed form of slavery. and they are taken out to fund occupational decisions made by 18-23 year olds. i knew so many people in law school who already knew they hated it and dreaded becoming attorneys but were trapped under the weight of $100,000 debt and forced to enter a demanding career they had no zeal for.
seems to me it would be better if we are going to live to be 120 that young people take on all the hard important work of trades and childrearing and caring for the truly elderly, and that those inclined towards most of the occupations of the mind should do so as second or even third careers later in life, when they are settled, children grown, house paid off.
I don't know where Oranda gets info, but the US -- with the possible exception of Switzerland and one or two other small places -- is on a per capita PPP-adjusted basis, the wealthiest country on Earth and in Earth's history. Indeed, there is good reason to believe that even the World Bank's PPP numbers are inappropriately biased against material measures of US GDP and that the gap between the US and the average European or Japanese citizen is greater than even their numbers show.
But you are right about the percentage errors. Jane is probably in the top few million of Americans, perhaps higher, not in the top 100,000.
It is distressing to me that you guys don't just recognize hyperbole when you see it. I mean, really, does it actually change Megan's point if she is in the top hundred million instead of the top ten thousand?
Yes, it matters because the result is she isn't leading as charmed a life as she's trying to tell us.
And as far as PPP-adjusted figures, I can confidently say, having lived in 3 G8 nations plus one not in the G8, that they don't tell the whole story. For example, Jane's final comment was about how wonderful it is to have a healthier life and longer life-span. The average US life-span is 48th among the world's nations. So by her own example, she'd be luckier to be Jordanian or Puerto Rican (both places have longer average lifespans than the US).
Yes, it matters because the result is she isn't leading as charmed a life as she's trying to tell us.
When your soul finally re-enters your body, have it evict your inner engineer and your inner mathmetician.
And as far as PPP-adjusted figures, I can confidently say, having lived in 3 G8 nations plus one not in the G8, that they don't tell the whole story. For example, Jane's final comment was about how wonderful it is to have a healthier life and longer life-span. The average US life-span is 48th among the world's nations. So by her own examplee, she'd be luckier to be Jordanian or Puerto Rican (both places have longer average lifespans than the US).
That doesn't tell the whole story, either. The average lifespan of nearly 300 million people with the kind of social and climactic diversity (the US being somewhat unique by having such a range in both areas, yet one 'place') is going to have a rather wide span.
Deconstruct your own logic: Puerto Rico is one referendum away from independence or statehood, if they actually wanted either. (Frankly, I don't blame them for liking the status quo.) Supposing they became a state: suddenly, the average lifespan in Puerto Rico drops to the US average, and you're no more lucky to be born in Puerto Rico on average than in the other 46 locals that remain ahead of the US.
On the other hand, if you must look at it on a per-nation basis, 48th isn't so bad, especially compared to the lifespans available as you get toward the bottom of the remainig 250-ish places on the list.
Or, you could argue that since the US has the single largest population of any defined 'place,' and has generous immigration policies, people born in or near the US are less 'lucky' on average because the odds of a person being born in or near here are fairly high.
Last option: recognize the monumental irritation you make of yourself when arguing this way, and just take Jane's point for what it was worth: colloquially imprecise and yet generally accurate.
Jane, these two related posts were among the best you've ever written. They have captured quite beautifully the often-steely reality of an existence we should be grateful for, but often complain about.
Due to a sociopathic boss (and my own naivete), my career in a large midwestern medical facility was cut off at the knees. After the near-homicidal anger phase, I began to realize that I was amazingly lucky. I still work in a famous place, write and study about things I want to, have few after-hours responsibilities, and have time to coach basketball for my son. Management gets all the perks, but also gets to "savor" 80-hour plus workweeks, and a high divorce rate. No thank you. Me, sour grapes? No ma'am; I'm lucky as hell.
My god, what a great couple of posts!
China and India both have larger populations than the US, and are one "place", although IIRC they have lower average life-spans. I've no idea about the variance, though. That'd be more interesting, I think.
As for Jane's point: I live in a time and place where I can read this post, have my own blog, and have internet conversations with my friends. The marginal tax rate is of great concern to me...this means my life is great, because I don't have to worry about things like starving to death, or freezing, or being run over by an ox-cart.
Boo-hoo, I have to make my own lunches until I get my credit card paid off (probably only take a few months, it's only about $1000), life's great!
These posts have been great.
I suspect that living in NYC and funding a lot of private school education with debt tends to exacerbate these problems/feelings as has been noted.
I highly recommend the midwest to my expensively educated and housed east and west coast friends. Metro areas like, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Madison (WI), Minneapolis-St. Paul, St. Louis, and KC. You can house yourself quite affordably, get a good meal, see a decent play, and send your kids to a Big Ten university all for a reasonable price. Plus you get all four seasons. What more could you ask for?
What more could you ask for?
Uhh, salt water and a view of the Olympics within walking distance (i.e. I don't have to pay for it in my mortgage!) Puget Sound area is pretty affordable, too, if you stay outside the peak housing-bubble areas--though certainly not as cheap as most of the Midwest.
'student loans are now nothing more than a self-imposed form of slavery.'
Something tells me you don't know what slavery is.
I'm not sure, but I think there was a study that showed that academics who had come from the Midwest were better placed in the medium to long run than comparable academics from the two Coasts. The Coasties would accept jobs that were lower-paid or less prestigious just to be on one of the Coasts. The Midwesterners were less biased geographically.
It is certainly the case that many people bitching about Palo Alto or New York would never consider a job in Indianapolis or Raleigh, NC. They are entitled to their choice but it is amazing how much bellyaching about housing and the need for two-income families comes from professionals located in big cities.
One year I remember that Harvard advertised a ridiculously low wage on the job market in my field. (In private they admitted that it had to be modified upwards) A hot young grad student asked his interviewer: "Does that come with food stamps?"
'student loans are now nothing more than a self-imposed form of slavery.'
Something tells me you don't know what slavery is.
Bond slavery was subsumed by chattel slavery under common law by 1700. It is still used illegally by immigrant smugglers, and is not irrelevant to a discussion of student debt.
China and India both have larger populations than the US, and are one "place", although IIRC they have lower average life-spans. I've no idea about the variance, though. That'd be more interesting, I think.
You're right, of course. I still had my mind organized in terms of the top-50 locals, and expressed that sentiment incorrectly.
'It is still used illegally by immigrant smugglers, and is not irrelevant to a discussion of student debt.'
That's ludicrous. You insult the coyotes and Tongs by comparing their tactics for dealing with deadbeats to the fed gov't. Or the other way around.
Kirk Responded to:
What more could you ask for?
Uhh, salt water and a view of the Olympics within walking distance (i.e. I don't have to pay for it in my mortgage!) Puget Sound area is pretty affordable, too, if you stay outside the peak housing-bubble areas--though certainly not as cheap as most of the Midwest.
Sounds like the Wasatch front in Utah. The Great Salt Lake (smell the brine shrimp . . .) and the 2002 Winter Crooklympics (and don't try to tell me that Vancouver didn't grease the skids).
In any event, migration out of economic necessity is a good thing, long term. I understand the family pull (my kid's grandparents are less than an hour away), but if the work wasn't here, I know I'd be better off working elsewhere than on the dole here.
Well here's the other side of the "things ain't so bad now and the good old days weren't so great."
Mr. Common Reader tried to stay with his violent alcoholic wife as long as he could, but eventually she figured out he was going to dump her so she made the first move and emptied the bank accounts and filed domestic abuse abuse charges. He was barred from his house, and had to set up another household good enough to make a bid for custody - family court doesn't take you seriously if you're sleeping on someone's couch, even if you're doing that because you're still liable for rent or mortgage on the house you got kicked out of. Over half a million dollars and four years later, he has primary residential custody, but it took her flipping out in front of a social worker and two police officers to get anyone to believe that SHE was the danger to the children, not him. And she still has visitation and joint legal custody.
We can't move out of the Bay Area. We can't plan for the future. She could haul him back into family court pretty much on a whim, and does - the last time a judge awarded her a couple of thousand for moving expenses. Mr. Common Reader has to pay all costs because she's so crazy and indigent, of course.
It doesn't matter how interesting your job is when family court allows your ex-wife to treat you as an ATM. It doesn't matter how big and comfie your house is when you could be kicked out of it at any moment. It doesn't matter how theoretically easy it is to save when there's a huge and thriving divorce industry ready to drain your savings. No-fault divorce and the family court system are not as bad as wandering thugs with AK-47s but they have a pretty similar effect on stability and prosperity.
Single people have little to complain about and should be enjoying their historically unparalelled standard of living. Married people and people with children, on the other hand, are totally screwed, and it's probably only going to get worse. In the future we are likely to see the same kind of institutional support and propaganda drives for children suing parents for support as we currently see for spouses suing each other.
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