Joshua Allen has a blog post entitled He Bought Houses for the Whole Village where he writes
In China, nearly everyone has at least one story about, “someone from
village ‘X’ started a business and got really rich, so he bought houses for the
whole village.” I’ve heard several variations, from people in different
walks of life, over the past couple of years. Although the details vary widely,
the stories are sometimes true, and follow that same basic pattern.
I began to wonder, why is this such an appealing story for people to tell one
another, and do we have similar stories in America? That is, what kind of “good
fortune” story is likely to get quickly passed from mouth to mouth among
Americans?
I found it interesting reading to see Joshua trying to map this concept to American examples and failing to find a good comparison. Similar stories are quite common place in Nigeria or at least were when I still lived there almost a decade ago. There are lots of reasons why such occurences are common in places like Nigeria & China but not in places like America. My impression is that the top two are
- Deeper Sense of Community: People from the same village in Nigeria typically share the same ancestors, the same culture spanning hundreds of years and speak the same language. Neither cities nor small towns in the America have the same history or depth of connectedness between people living in the same area. This sense of community also makes it more likely people will feel an obligation to helping their people from their village when they have good fortune. The closest analog to that sense of obligation being widespread in America has been college alumni associations. When I first moved here I found it surprising that people are more likely to spend money helping the school they went to college than their home town.
- A Little Goes A Long Way: In Nigeria, most of the affluent people are a generation or less removed from living in huts in some remote part of the country. When my dad grew up, the richest man in the village was the guy with a bicycle and a radio. In a country where 70% of the population lives on less than $1 a day, it doesn't take much [by American standards] to better people's lives. In comparison, the average income in the U.S. is around $100 a day.
The rest of the reasons are mainly variations on the two mentioned above. The reason that in America
our word of mouth heroes are people who spend their money on incredibly stupid stuff.
as Joshua puts it can mainly be explained by the first point above. In Nigeria, you are expected to help those from where you came from
as well as spend money on incredibly stupid stuff. In America, there isn't an expectation to help your roots except for looking after your parents and sending in donations to your college alumni association.