Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id RAA06399 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 18 Feb 2002 17:02:12 GMT X-Sender: unicorn@pop.greenepa.net Message-Id: <p04320404b896e2a15661@[192.168.2.3]> In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020218101423.02c92090@pop.cogeco.ca> References: <5.1.0.14.0.20020218101423.02c92090@pop.cogeco.ca> Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 11:57:16 -0500 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk From: "Francesca S. Alcorn" <unicorn@greenepa.net> Subject: RE: draft abstract Sex, Drugs and Cults Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>At 01:23 PM 18/02/02 +0000, you wrote:
>> <There was a time when children *were* wealth. You could use their
>>labor to have more children yourself and to make the tribe resistant to
>>being attacked.
>>
>>> Times have changed.>
>>>
>> They have but not that dramatically. A few months back on the list,
>>I believe we touched on research suggesting that the social investment in
>>ensuring a child reached an acceptable level of social standing was behind
>>the small number of children had by the most highly developed nations. The
>>same principle is at work- the average middle class parents can't afford to
>>send 6 kids to law school, so better just have one or 2, but if they get to
>>law school, they'll be able to to look after the parents in old age, and
>>provide for any children they may have at the same standard of living. In a
>>subsistence existence, as millions of people still find themselves in all
>>around the world, more kids makes sense due to low survival rates etc. etc.
>
>You make many of the points I have considered.
>
>There may be a deeper mechanism at work here.
>
>Social status is (and more important was) a matter of so much
>importance not only for the children but the parents that limiting
>the number of children to invest more in the status of each of them
>may have a higher weight than having more children. Wealth is, of
>course, a major contributor to social status.
And in my recent Frans DeWaal-inspired reformulation - wealth is a
significator of accumulated reciprocal altruism.
frankie
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