alt Hacker News>Kinship societies are actively hostile to economic growth, because economic growth undermines the basis of kinship: that is why kinship societies demand constant, visible sacrifices of wealth—funerals being the most spectacular—that make it extraordinarily difficult for any individual to accumulate capital, reinvest their assets, and pull ahead. The funeral is a window into a system of wealth destruction that serves, above all else, to keep people poor
This reasoning is flawed. Consumer spending is not "wealth destruction" -- who makes the fantasy coffins? Who prints the banners? Local businesses!
Ghana is sitting at a 5.6% GDP growth rate; for reference developmental success India is at 6.5%. Ghana's GDP in 2000 was $5B, today it's $82.B. Its per-capita GDP has more than doubled in the same time period.
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Ghana's GDP per capita is around $2000. It's only a success story because the baseline is so low, and because most of its neighbors are doing even worse.
> Consumer spending is not "wealth destruction" -- who makes the fantasy coffins? Who prints the banners? Local businesses!
This is the parable of the broken window [1].
> Ghana is sitting at a 5.6% GDP growth rate
Ghana is a success story in large part due to having made a clear-eyed recovery after its 2015 IMF bailout.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window