Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure what kind of poverty you've seen, but the kinds I'm familiar with both personally and from studies place far more emphasis on maintaining relationships and social capital because that's what they have. Lending or pooling money is not only common, but often without the expectation of direct repayment.

View on HN

>I'm not sure what kind of poverty you've seen, but the kinds I'm familiar with both personally and from studies place far more emphasis on maintaining relationships and social capital because that's what they have. Lending or pooling money is not only common, but often without the expectation of direct repayment.

Fair, in that the experience I'm describing is among the poor whites of the US; a notoriously atomic and individualistic group. This probably does not map to other cultures as neatly.

I grew up in that poor white demo. My experience is that there's the idea of individualism - ie. "I won't ask for someone to solve my problems" - vs the practice of constantly trading off skills with your network of family and friends to stay afloat. Uncle A is good with cars, so he does everyone's repairs, Uncle B does all the plumbing. Their best friend growing up is useless, but they still help him anyway and maybe get some help next time they have to move, etc.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com