Why do rich people do stupid things? It’s a hard question, but we have to ask it. Otherwise we risk missing out on realms. That would be a waste.
Now, of course, I’m parsing an outspoken but rather unfortunate public view: that poor people do stupid things. You know, they get benefits and buy a flat screen. Stupid as they are, they don’t take the long term into account, usually bridging the weeks until the next payout day. The popular science approach to this behavior is that scarcity affects people’s mental bandwidth. And in case you didn’t know yet: the IQ drops by 10 points due to poverty, yes really!
To say that poor people do stupid things is to say that rich people do clever things. But wealthy fellow citizens can also experience scarcity. For example, of time. No matter how rich we are, we never have enough time. Then you have to make the most of it. Because we only live once and what a shame it would be if you ended up under the Randstadrail tomorrow? Live life to the fullestor something.
However, scarcity of time and an abundance of excitement do strange things to people. During the overzealous search for the good rich life, young city dwellers sometimes run into themselves. To avert the slump, burnout purchases are the result: frequently drinking four-euro cappuccinos to find peace of mind, ordering food to buy time and rewarding yourself, taking a taxi because it is so easy and you are so tired and In the evening under the wool, tapping a pampering purchase on your mobile.
Of course, it helps if the bank account allows you to outsource all kinds of things as well as make decisions that you wouldn’t make without an impending burnout. Because even though burnout purchases are a symptom of shrinking mental bandwidth and wasting hard-earned money, young professionals usually don’t suffer financially. At most they save a little less. And when they’re burned out, there’s the Sickness Benefits Act. Thanks to a well-filled CV, the search for a more relaxed job usually does not take too long.
In the case of the poor, it’s a very different story. Their scarcity is money, which makes them dependent on others. And where someone is dependent on the welfare benefit, or is lounging in the VVD hammock, there is a social pattern of expectations. Three things are leading: 1) get started as soon as possible, because holding your hand up is of course not the intention; 2) as long as you keep your hand up, you should nod obediently yes to everything that is asked of you; 3) limit yourself to purchasing the absolutely necessary, because you might just experience a moment of happiness. That is not the intention
The moral of the story is that stress causes everyone to make less rational decisions. It doesn’t matter whether you hop from meeting to congress, or from social assistance consultant to food bank. Stuck between agitation and expectations, the feeling that you are the jester of society predominates. Whether you are rich, almost rich, poor or almost poor is irrelevant.
What is relevant is that every jester wants to be king for a while. That makes the madness more bearable. One jester then purchases a flat screen, the other jester spends hundreds of euros on taxi rides and expensive compensation cappuccinos.
So I gladly retract my outspoken but rather unfortunate view: rich people don’t necessarily do stupid things. They are just like poor people, with the only difference that they can afford a hole in their hand without being socially judged.
We still have to wait for the popular scientific approach to this behaviour. Perhaps that will be something along the lines of: the rich become 10 IQ points dumber due to stress, yes really!
The only question is: dumber than who?
Tim’s Youngers is a senior advisor to the Council for Public Health and Society.