Do you have friends from different socioeconomic backgrounds? If not, do you wish you did, and how do you think it would influence your perspective?
I travel a lot, and the most valuable intrinsic lesson I absorb from it is interacting with people completely different than me socioeconomically and in every other way and realizing how fundamentally similar everybody is underneath the trappings of their immediate environment, whether that be culture, birthright or another wave crashing into their egos.
I'm lucky enough to be middle class, ever since landing a somewhat boring job that pays, like, 75% more than my old one, all in web development. I still can't afford luxuries like a car or a house, but hey, I have a nice electric bike! And I can pay someone to clean my apartment every two weeks. It costs, like, 7% of my income, but I know I wouldn't be able to keep it clean otherwise. Health issues suck.
I have poor friends who don't earn much more than the minimum wage. They often complain about the price of groceries, and say things like "I've wanted this game so bad for so long but I don't have any money left this month". Each time I'm reminded of how thankful I am that I don't really worry about prices anymore at the grocery store. And it makes me sad that we hadn't such bad financial priorities that we have people WITH jobs who have trouble paying for food. Imagine those who can't find a job!
There's also my dad, as well as a friend couple of mine, who are rich. The friends, it's crazy. They each have a car, PLUS a special summer car, they buy Dungeons and Dragons books on a monthly basis, they go on international trips yearly, they go camping in an RV, they're always doing activities that cost a lot of money, they go to the restaurant a lot, etc. My dad is also on an airplane on a yearly basis.
It makes my head spin to just think about the sheer money. But none of these people are evil my rich friend is definitely more left-wing than anything else, and he's a very smart person. They were just both blessed with luck, energy and talent, I guess. My dad is just a normal near-boomer. Neither better nor worse than the rest of them. He just got a high-paying factory job and had the energy to keep going.
I'm reminded of those people whenever I'm tempted to put all rich people in the same basket.
What’s interesting is what you’re describing of your rich acquaintances sounds solidly middle-class to me.
There’s a whole other level of rich out there that make your rich friends look practically frugal.
The problem is that everyone has a different definition of "rich". I think OC has a good definition.
I'm not personally a fan of "middle-class" meaning "has about as much money as me, or as much money as I'd like to have", or "anybody who has to work for a living, but doesn't need to use a food bank".
Yeah, I wouldn't classify myself as rich, just middle class and I do some of those things, my mom and her boyfriend could do all of those things and I would not classify them as rich either, just upper middle class.
The actually rich people buy stuff that is so expensive that I couldn't afford it, even if I saved for years, and the price is mostly that high so they can show their rich friends just how rich they are.
I live in Germany, the definition of middle class might be different in other countries, though.
I have a friend that grew up very poor and with a difficult family, where drug abuse was a constant issue. It went to a point where they were just living under one roof, but stopped communicating. He luckily moved out, managed to go to university and got out of that downwords spiral. His brother didn't. He's now a drug dealer with no vision for a different career.
I think it's very important for me to have that perspective. It's in a way humbling to see how much of a difference it makes to have a working family. In general I think this changes my view on society as a whole. You allways hear that some people have problems, but I allways thought that those people "just" have a hard childhood and are just normal people when they grow up and move out. But that shit leaves marks. I allways have to think about his brother who didn't get out of that circle. He will continue to have a very hard life.
Do you have friends from different socioeconomic backgrounds?
No. Most people I come across scoially are through education, job and family/friends; and all these places have a preselected population in a broadly similar socioeconomic class. Some friends started from a lower socioeconomic position and moved up, but are now in a comparable position to me.
do you wish you did
Yes. I wish society as a who wasn't so stratified. I wish everyone had opportunities and the experiences of people from different social classes wasn't so alien and unrelatable (which would be the case if there were equity in society). I've known people from different socioeconomic groups and their company and experience has enriched my life.....but an ongoing friendship hasn't been maintained somehow.
how do you think it would influence your perspective?
I'd like to think I keep a pretty broad perspective even now. I do see and support very different people's personal lives in my work. I would really wish to have everyone on equal fitting as mentioned above.
Hard to say. In my culture even the wealthy don't particularly show off their wealth so it's hard to judge unless we talk finances which we don't. My grandmom's brother died a while back with 300k in the bank. He lived in an old farmhouse and drove a 20 year old car.
I don't even know my friends' socioeconomic backgrounds
Yes and for an interesting reason. I am a member of a minority group. Doesn't matter which, and I have never seen it as a defining part of my identity, but it has one obvious advantage: my friends have come from a wider variety of class backgrounds than they otherwise might have.
Personally I'm skeptical about multiculturalism, I think it can be dangerous in democracy if taken too far. But the fact that humans inevitably sort themselves into groups does have some upsides. De Tocqueville mentioned the political one: groups are a bulwark to protect the individual from the state. But there's another: a group which is based on ethnicity, or sexuality, or some other immutable personal condition, or religion, or a political ideology, or even a hobby, is at least not one which is based on money and social class.
Yes. I was born privileged but made friends through work and social situations (I partied a lot, took drugs, went to raves) from other backgrounds. Work, too. I didn't complete college and worked in retail, restaurants, etc, while teaching myself a lot about computing. I later worked at one of the leading tech companies in software development (as a QA tester). I now work for the government (in IT). People in my life have varied backgrounds; I think all come from relatively good homes (as in no parents who were destitute drug addicts or otherwise), but everyone is emotionally developed even if they / we took extra time to mature (I couldn't love myself until 2019).
I've lived in trailer parks and worked for multi-millionaires/firms worth billions, so yes. With some exceptions, rich people are insanely insecure and often just fucking boring.
I come from bizarre family, with an upper class father and a mother who grew up in extreme poverty, experienced wealth and now lives in poverty again after divorce.
Although most of my friends are lower middle class, two of my closest friends are homeless asylum seekers and two are doctors, one of which is a neurosurgeon. Some others are unemployed or upper middle class. One of my closest friends is so wealthy I can't even fathom it.
I don't have dozens of friends, as my writing could imply. We're talking 15 persons tops. So there's indeed a little diversity in there.
And frankly? It's exhausting and often infuriating. Switching is complicated. But hey, I won't complain. At least I have close ones. I know some people want for friendship (e.g. my gf).
My family is upper middle class, although my mom did struggle financially for a few years. I went to school in a poorer neighborhood, so I do have some friends with less money, I have some friends with parents who make about as much as mine, but I dont have any friends with really rich families, although I was sort of friends with one who went to vocational school with me.
It does help to understand just how much it sucks to have no money, so yes.
Yes.
Yes, because I have experienced varying levels of prosperity myself, and because my dad's family had money and my mom's parents literally lived in a trailer.
Not sure that it influences my perspective, except that I have an urge to "be nice on the way up, so you don't crash so hard on the way down", and I feel comfortable in most places whether run down or opulent, and consider that an asset.
I have only two people one could, without any doubt, call friends. One comes from a family wealthy enough they could instantly pay off someone's mortgage if they wanted to. The other comes from a family that straddles the poverty line but which is respected enough they could probably change if they wanted to. And I come from a community so small and so isolated economy as a thing just doesn't exist (but I do happen to be rich in rai stones, not that this helps me).
We don't tend to think about wealth unless it comes up or if the first friend's father is doing something special, in fact they're usually pre-occupied with one of the very few things they have in common.
I was born in the lower bourgeoisie. Not rent rich but very comfortable like vacations in foreign places every year and alpine skying. My family also was very catholic and conservative and so was I.
During my highschool years I distanced myself from religion (partly thanks to an awesome priest at my school). I also befriended some folks who were more open than I was but still palatable to my shitty views.
Then throughout college I made some leftwing friends who helped me discover a whole new world of concepts and personal freedom.
And through these friends I realized I was trans, polyamorous, and mostly a massive removed.
So pretty much everything of who I am and my current life which hinged on meeting the right folks from other backgrounds.
Yes! My parents make more than average and I never realized it until I started hanging out with friends as a teenager. I once had a friend who would always come over to play games on my PlayStation/Xbox/Gamecube. I asked him why he didn't ask his parents for a console and some games since he loved playing mine so much. He just responded "dude...my parents can't afford it."
I didn't get it. How could two people working full time not be able to afford a few hundred dollars? His parents were nice enough to tell me their hourly wages. I then asked my parents for theirs. That's when I realized the difference. My parents made 3 times what his parents made. When I mentioned this to my parents, they told me it was his parents' fault for choosing bad jobs. They should have chose to make more money! Obviously! That's when I learned my parents were rich jerks.
Yeah, I definitely worry how much I spoiled my kids, how that they’re college age and heading out into the world. We were never wealthy, nor spend ostentatiously, but I do earn quite a bit over average and they’re used to getting essentially anything they want.