Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness
The Psychology of Money (2020) looks at the way money works in the real world. Financial decisions are rarely driven by the theories of economists and the neat spreadsheets of accountants. Instead, a myriad of factors, from personal history to pride and even envy, shape our decision-making. The results are often surprising – and always fascinating.
The story of the Great Depression is well-known.
After a disastrous stock market crash in 1929, the global economy entered a decade of sustained decline.
In the United States, the “roaring twenties” came to an abrupt halt. Businesses folded, families lost their farms and homes, and hard-earned savings disappeared into thin air. Poverty and joblessness skyrocketed, while faith that tomorrow would be better than yesterday plummeted.
Today, this version of events has become the standard narrative. That stands to reason – it does, after all, describe the experience of millions of Americans. But it also leaves something important out of the picture.
The key message in this blink is: Everyone has their own experience of the economy and money.
When John F. Kennedy ran for president in 1960, he was asked about his experience of the Great Depression. His answer surprised many voters.
The Kennedys, he said, were already wealthy in 1929. And over the next ten years, their fortune wasn’t wiped out – it actually grew. By 1939, the family had more servants and lived in a bigger house than it had at the start of the decade. It was only when he went to Harvard and read about the Depression that he realized how badly many of his fellow citizens had suffered.
Not all Americans, it turned out, had been in the same boat. Kennedy wanted to change that, which is partly how he convinced voters that he wasn’t just an out-of-touch elitist, but a worthy president. But it’s not only the rich and the poor who have contrasting experiences of economic life – we all do.
The son of an unemployed farmhand and the son of a successful Manhattan stockbroker don’t just come from different walks of life – they also learn profoundly different lessons about things like risk and reward when it comes to money. But, as we’ll see later on, the same applies to equally well-off people depending on their individual life experiences.
For example, a wealthy individual who grew up during periods of high inflation will have a different financial worldview than a similarly wealthy person who’s only ever experienced stable prices. The resulting lessons of these different perspectives shape what we do with money.
We all like to think we know how the world works, but we usually only experience a small sliver of that reality. And that’s the first thing to understand when it comes to the psychology of money: we know less than we’d like to think we do.
Not all success is due to hard work, and not all poverty is due to laziness. Keep this in mind when judging people, including yourself.
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Blink 3 von 12 - Eine kurze Geschichte der Menschheit
von Yuval Noah Harari
