Spend years away from social media. It’s the best thing you can do today for your mental health. In gearing up for the memoir, I’ve been dipping my toe back in. It’s like what they say about relapse. No matter how long you’ve been sober, you don’t ease back. You pick up where you left off. In no time you’re scoring coke to stay up longer and keep drinking.
For me newly back to social media, that means engaging with morons. When I see a poorly educated comment, I just can’t help myself. First, a snapshot of the Miraflores district of Lima, Peru.
At the time of publish, there are 149 homes in Miraflores listed for sale for at least $1 million. These are just the millionaire homes for sale right now. Of 40,000 houses and apartments in Miraflores, about half are worth $1 million or more.
Miraflores is home to three of Lima’s five restaurants ranked in the “World’s Best” lists, 12 five-star hotels and just under half of the embassies and consulates from countries with diplomatic missions in Peru. Famous Miraflores residents include former President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, celebrity chef Gaston Acurio and opera tenor Juan Diego Florez.
Miraflores is home to Markham College, the high school featured in Peru’s famous novels chronicling the lifestyles of Peru’s rich and famous such as “Un mundo para Julius” and “No se lo digas a nadie.”
Recently I was dreaming of the children doing a year or three in a Peruvian high school. I looked up how much it would cost to live in Miraflores. I’m not sure about the upper limit, but the minimum rent for four bedrooms is $2,000 per month.
Below is the comment that set me off (context irrelevant).
Lince and Jesús Maria are not middle class 🙏 I’m from Miraflores, that’s middle class here..
Another Peruvian, one who (surprisingly) knew the name of Peru’s statistical agency, says:
Miraflores es media/alta y JM es media eso según clasificación x zonas del INEI
I couldn’t resist. I jumped in.
Middle class is Breña, Bellavista, Ate.
Miraflores is one of the most exclusive districts not only in Peru, but the continent. Many properties would be upper-middle in the U.S.
La mayoria de Lince / Jesus Maria es NSE B.
Then I dropped a couple screenshots of data produced by INEI.
The original came back with:
Colin Post that’s not true, I’ve lived my whole life in Miraflores and I know my neighbors. High class and exlusive ppl have at least a quad bike for summers here, and I went to a pretty expensive high school at Miraflores. And none of my neighbors, or school class mates got one. We are middle class. High and exclusive class live at La Molina, casuarinas, and more exclusive places. And got at least a quad bike. And those are not millionaires. Those ppl also went to high class middle schools. You probably think we are high class because you compare oye privilege with other Peruvian districts who are extremely poor. But we are not high class. There are a lot of old ppl who live in Miraflores, ppl who cannot own a car, that is not high class. Also high class is not at tourist zones like Miraflores, and that’s mostly the reason Miraflores looks good, because tourism. But we are not high class. We are middle class
It’s clear I’m punching down here, but by now I knew this would become a blog post. So I went for more.
The statistics are available. You can verify them yourself.
What you are talking about (Julius’s world) is a tiny sliver of the upper echelon. Las Casuarinas may have a few thousand people. Lurigancho alone has 10 times the population of La Molina. Callao tambien. As a percentage of the total, every resident of Miraflores is somewhere in the top decile of Peruvians. Many are in the top 1%.
This is a common bias in the U.S. too. Well-to-do people believe they are middle class. I don’t think it’s anything to be ashamed of. Ignorance on the other hand…
That ignorance jab was bait. She didn’t bite.
In researching this article, I learned I understated the case. The entire district is top 1%, except maybe the live-in maidservants (who may qualify as middle class given the wages they command lately).
Back to the question … in Latin America, why do upper-class people think they’re middle class?
This phenomenon isn’t confined to Latin America. You see it in the United States too. But it’s particularly egregious in the stratified countries of Latin America, where the economies are shaped like pyramids and someone’s social class is branded on their identity. In Peru and Colombia, the governments define social class by income and address. It’s literally not debatable (and I don’t like to use the word “literally”!).
Sample Bias
The most obvious factor is sample bias. In stratified countries, especially Latin America, people don’t mix much with other social classes. Especially upper-class people hang out only with other upper-class people.
Most don’t know any poor or working-class people on a personal basis, unless it’s the maidservant. They don’t go inside their homes or attends their parties. This woman’s whole world is the upper class. When she sees people from Julius’s world, what I have called the top 0%, that world is overrepresented in her imagination. The things she doesn’t have are vivid in her mind. What the millions outside that bubble live like is abstract. Theoretical and ambiguous.
Sample bias leaps out from the woman’s comment about quad bikes and parties in Las Casuarinas. She sees things that other families have that she does not, and concludes that because there are families in Peru that are richer than hers, she must not be rich. It’s like someone whose family is worth $50 million and goes to school with the children of billionaires and hundred-millionaires. They don’t feel rich.
If you’re even being invited to those elite parties, you are probably not middle class. Especially in Latin America.
Another kind of sample bias is being exposed to gringos, which you are every day in Miraflores. Most international tourists, especially to a place like Lima, make more than the Peruvian average upper-class salary of $4,000 per month.
And every upper-class Peruvian has visited the United States or Europe. Most see they can’t go on a spree like they can in their own country. They don’t sit atop the economic pyramid anymore, or even near the top. Some may find themselves staying in accommodations next door to American proles. That would reinforce the view that they’re not rich.
Bubble Life
Latin America’s upper classes living in a kind of bubble contributes to sample bias, but it also fosters ignorance about how the rest of the country lives. I doubt this woman is unaware that extreme poverty and malnutrition exists in the mountains, the jungle and the urban slums. But she is completely ignorant of how varied the experience is for millions between the top and bottom deciles.
I named a couple of districts that are statistically defined (literally!) as middle class, and she seems to say they’re extremely poor. There is a huge difference between cement and dirt floors, or constructed vs. sheet-metal roof. I think that is lost on many of Latin America’s upper class because they never visit. They stay inside their social bubble.
She cited a tiny neighborhood of one upper-income district as being upper class, an area known for celebrities and politicians but not big enough to warrant a footnote in any macroeconomic study. For a laugh, see it on Google Maps. That neighborhood would have her descriptions of the upper class: the top 1% of the top 1% (the top 0%). If you are around those people enough, they will seem statistically significant.
Average household income
- NSE A: $3,800
- NSE B: $1,970
- NSE C: $1,100
- NSE D: $740
- NSE E: $450
The upper class as defined by Peru’s national statistics agency (INEI) has an average household income of $3,800 a month. That’s not a minimum, that’s the average. That upper class makes up 1.2% of the country (2.9% of Lima). The INEI-defined middle class has an average household income of $1,100. The middle class makes up 30% of the country (48% of Lima).
I’ve written how gringo expats can’t believe how cheap labor is in Latin America, how little money the poorest people make. On the other side of that coin is how little the upper class makes. It doesn’t take much. If you make $50,000 per year in the United States, you’re barely middle class. In Peru, you’re upper class.
Motivated Reasoning
The final driver of the misconception among Latin American elites is their psychological need to believe it. Psychology Today defines motivated reasoning as “the subconscious tendency to fit data into pre-existing beliefs, … to reach a desired, predetermined conclusion rather than an objective one. It serves as a defense mechanism to reduce cognitive dissonance and protect self-identity, often leading to the rejection of contradictory evidence.”
Throughout history people were ashamed of being poor. But in the rich world, growing up poor has become a badge of honor. We in the rich world prize victimhood. Everyone wants to be a victim.
In the developing world people still hide or downplay their poverty. They don’t wear it on their sleeve. But the upper classes are hip to what is going on in our world. They want to wear the victimhood badge too, at least around us.
Or if their politics skew left, as I suspect is the case with this woman, they don’t want to be seen as part of the tiny elite in a country with extreme poverty and malnutrition. They don’t self-identify as part of the oligarchy. Being wealthy implies unearned privilege, detachment from reality and, in Latin America, exploitation of the poor masses.
They need to believe they aren’t privileged. They need to believe they are average in their blessings. They need to believe they did not start with an unfair advantage over their countrymen.
Obviously they come in all types. Some couldn’t care less about that, and are proud to be from the upper class. Others may wear their class on their sleeve with their countrymen, subtly signaling their superiority. But when with gringos they are humble, hardworking, middle-class citizens.
Moral of the Story
Everybody is ignorant of something. We are all victims of bias. But once you’ve been exposed to the truth, you have a choice. You can remain committed to your preferred belief with a religious devotion, or you can update your opinion. That is the difference between ignorance and education.
Education does not stop at graduation. It is never-ending. Wisdom takes work and a curious mind.
In light of this 1500-word response to a poorly educated Peruvian, delete social media from your phone. I have. Again.
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