Prole Drift: How Cultural Decay Slides Up the Social Ladder

Everything in the modern world drifts

pearlw all the time. Even the better

classes have to wait in long lines. The

quality of food degenerates.

Airline seating grows more cramped. Paul

Fussell.

Why is it that mainstream culture tends

to consistently deteriorate to the

lowest common denominator? Welcome to

analyzing finance with Nick. In today's

video, we are going to be discussing the

concept of pearl drift and why is it

often that those who are previously in

the middle class or currently in the

middle and classes and above tend to

adopt the habits and the values and

oftentimes the negative lifestyle

choices of the dependent classes and the

working classes. Uh it's a really

interesting observation that was most

notably made by Paul Fussell but also by

notable academics such as Richard Reeves

and Sheamus Khan from Columbia

University who have made a similar

observation of this general

deterioration of quote unquote

mainstream middle class culture. Let's

give a more generic definition of pearl

drift. It's generally the process which

behaviors, norms and aesthetics that

originate from the proletariat. So like

the working class or the procariates

most likely spread upward into the

middle or even the upper classes. In

modern times since we developed welfare

states a lot of negative social trends

often from the dependent classes trickle

up into the precar working classes and

work their way up there. Instead of

trickle down aspiration where people try

to aspire to achieve the the goals and

status symbols of those above them or

try to live like the ways of the people

of the upper classes, people tend to

cope with the chance the odds they'll

never make it up there and they've lost

the status and the class of their

upbringing. So they adopt and reband the

lower class behavior as a lifestyle

choice. It starts with downward social

mobility which leads to aesthetic or

ideological reframing. The normalization

of that behavior leads to further

downward mobility and often can be a

doom spiral. It usually originates from

economic necessity not preference.

saying like, "Why are all these people

adopting these quote unquote trashy

trends or adopting certain lifestyle

choices that

previous generations would be considered

just uncou or culturally unacceptable

because people who grew up with certain

expectation

of lifestyle, they realize the cost of

it is above what they can realistically

do. So they'll retrofit things that are

more common in the class below them that

are more attainable or they may just

personally like better and are can be

more align with their current lifestyle.

They retrofit the moral and cultural

justifications and make new arguments to

try to make it acceptable. And when

enough people does this, a previously

lowerass habit becomes mainstream. But

instead of admitting what it is, you're

experiencing downward social mobility,

the real truth is you're trying to

normalize it in the name of being

authentic, more real, more progressive,

more down to earth when it's really just

again you trying to cope for social

downward mobility in regions of the

world where you have more social upward

mobility such as East Asia in recent

years whose GDP per capita as have

rapidly risen since the second world war

and more recently in places such as

China, you don't see pearl drift as as

common. It's like the other way around.

People there are trying to have a more

aspirational aesthetic and work their

way up. Whereas in places where you're

seeing more downward social mobility and

upward social mobility, particularly in

Latin America, the United States,

Canada, Western Europe, and the former

Soviet Union countries, it's more common

to see pearl drift on the downside

because those places have experienced

more social downward mobility.

Let's look at some examples. The most

blatant example, which we've been

talking about in several videos

recently,

is marriage. The idea of marriage being

optional

is more that marriage is inaccessible.

The narrative adopted you don't need to

get married to validate your

relationship. The reality is that median

income individuals can no longer afford

to marry or support a household in the

traditional way in a high cost of living

city. As a result, marriage has become a

status good and achievement for

unlocking financial stability and not a

starting point. Instead of saying, "I

can't afford to get married yet," you

say, "I don't want marriage." to cope

with the fact you may never be able to

afford the wedding you dream of. The

other one is this idea of several

alternative lifestyles. The traditional

thing, especially for men in most

generations, is that I want to get an

education and work hard so that I can

make enough money to provide for a

stay-at-home wife, have a few kids and

give them a better life than I had. And

that was able to work for several

generations in American history mostly

in the mid 20th century when economic

forces changed and it became more

difficult and impossible to achieve that

a lot of people instead of saying oh I

can't really afford to have the

traditional family lifestyle try to

invalidate and say oh I never wanted

that I want a more alternative lifestyle

with more free expression I can do x y

and z and they may feel that way on a

conscious level, but I think a lot of

the drivers is a prolift in the sense

that I can't get the traditional dream

and I don't want to live my life in

depression because I am a loser. So what

I have to do instead is I need to create

a news stream that I can achieve or a

new goal for a lifestyle that is within

my means. And so this is how you see

pearl drift and social norms. First one

I talked about marriage. All I want is

the idea of child-free. A lot of people

aren't meant to be parents and don't

want to be parents. So it doesn't apply

to everybody. But a lot of people now

choose freedom, travel, and career

instead of having children. Not

necessarily because that's what they

really want, but they can't have

children without moving down a social

class. And so like there's not a

coincidence that fertility rates are

dropping the most in places with high

cost of living.

high housing costs in places where wages

are not high relative to living costs

and the places where birth rates are

dropping the least whether it's metro

areas within developed countries or on a

macro basis is the reality is is that

those places are having the highest

birth rates. They're the ones most

likely to live in the suburban house

with a traditional family of the married

couple, kids and a dog because it's

actually attainable. Whereas in the

places where it's just so far out of

reach, people try to give up and create

a new progressive narrative to build

their new life. And it's like a lot of

young adults instead of wanting children

now, they either want to delay it or not

at all because of this financial

constraint. Another example is

cohabitation is just as good as

marriage. The narrative is just marriage

has become a piece of paper. The reality

is it still offers a lot of social

legitimacy, inheritance and legal

protections. Cohabitation is because

marriage seems to be unaffordable

or unreasonable to ask for a marriage

level commitment because of the economic

stab instability of either partner.

Another example is gig work and flexible

work. Like the idea of having a stable

job or a traditional business with

stable clients in my community is not as

cool as being a digital nomad. I'd

rather just have work when I can. A lot

of people would actually prefer a more

stable form of employment or a more

stable client base for their business,

but they just can't due to just how

quick things are being disrupted in the

economy. economic forces have made the

employment market less stable. So they

package autonomy

as a positive eupheism

for labor market fragility. As an

entrepreneur, I don't entirely agree.

The idea that flexible work and gig life

is a eupheism for the precarious state

of the modern procurate class often can

be the case. like the other examples in

Europe where a lot of Europeans claim,

"Oh, I'm not materialist. We're a

post-materialist society. We can be

happy with a lot less." Well, a lot of

that is kind of just cope to the degree

that they can't afford a single family

house in an American suburb. They can't

really afford a lot of luxuries that we

take for granted, such as air

conditioning. I saw a really crazy

statistic that more Europeans die

related to heat related deaths than

Americans die due to gunshots in the

last two years which I never thought

would be the case but it's just an

example of a cope. It's like instead of

saying, "Oh, I don't need air

conditioning, like having a washer and a

dryer, or I don't need to go live in a

spacious house or driving a nice SUV or

going a lot of things that Americans

take for granted because I'm not

materialistic or I like a simpler life.

It's really more just you're creating

new narrative stuff because you can't

really achieve those things." And a lot

of progressive ideology, but there's

right-wing versions of this, too. It's

just more social issue related around

relationships or economic roles in

society are kind of cope and internal

drift. But it's not really just in terms

of relationships. It goes into other

things like example would be a fashion

and aesthetics. Like

people used to dress a lot nicer in the

1950s and60s than they do today. A lot

of people just say that's because of a

more casual and laid-back culture. Or

maybe they need to buy cheaper clothing.

If you wanted to dress like that old

style aesthetic,

every day in the modern era, it'd be a

lot more expensive. Back then, people

spent 10 to 15% of their incomes on

clothes, where today it's 2 to 3% of

your income is spent on clothes. So like

you can't really afford nice high-end

tailored fashion anti-consumerrist or

it's just more comfortable. That's a

rationalization for pearl drift in a lot

of ways. And just as a note, I don't

agree with all of these metrics

necessarily. Like you don't see wearing

a suit every day on these videos, for

example. But I'm just trying to get

examples of how Pearl drift works

ideologically in people's mindsets and

evolves into what it is today. Another

one is work life balance matters more

than climbing the ladder. What this

really might mean is there's declining

real wages, fewer career track jobs. You

may not feel like you can out compete a

globalized labor force to move up. And

so you decide, I'm not going to try to

achieve because I'm probably not going

to make it. So instead of saying that,

you're saying, "Oh, I just want to have

a more relaxed lifestyle and prefer work

life balance." So it's presenting

precarious or low paid work as an

intentional life design. Another one is

like, "Oh, I love urban density and

minimalism and living with roommates

because it's better for the environment

and more fun to be in a walkable city."

where the real idea is that I can't

afford to buy a house, so I might need

to live with roommates until my 50s. Van

life, which Joel Cotkin was quoted for

saying that van life is like glorified

precariat homelessness

and it's branded as nomadic freedom. So

like it is example of like what

previously is branded as like being

living in a van down the river is like

oh I really screwed up in life is now

kind of glorifies this chance to travel

and experience life in a different way.

Example is art. It's like oh modern art

and pop culture is just as valid as

traditional high culture. And basically

it's more that maybe like the ability to

experience high culture like going to

some high-end museums if you don't live

in like the big cities in America or

going to things like the opera or the

symphony or having the leisure time to

read more advanced books and instead

only have a few minutes to watch some

Tik Tok videos or TV shows that is kind

of diming was previously how middle

class people develop culture. and

consume media is now as out of touch and

elitist because you can't afford it. So

you can see they create these feedback

loops where there's a structural decline

in wages or real wages where the cost of

living goes up but your salary stays the

same. So you're forced to have a lower

quality of life or forced to do certain

lifestyle choices more associated with a

lower class and you reframe it instead

of saying I have to do this you say I

choose this this is actually better it's

more creative it's more free enough

people make that same choice they

culturally reinforce it mainly through

the media and social media nowadays and

then the new social norm emerges and

normalizes the decay of a more authentic

and free style living when it's really

just cope and justification for not

being able to make it. And this is

compounded in so many generations which

is why you see over the last several

years living standards have kind of

declined for most of the population.

Like I don't think pearl drift was

really that bad say between like world

like the World War II and the 1990s. It

oscillated with economic conditions like

you saw more pearl drift when times were

hard in like the late 60s and the 70s

and it kind of reversed itself during

times of prosperity such as the 50s, 80s

and the '9s. But really starting in

2000, you had the real peak in wages and

living standards in many western

countries such as the US and the UK. And

the decline in real wages and economic

opportunity became more of a steady path

downward for not everybody because the

internet and technologies create a lot

of opportunities for

entrepreneurial-minded people but for

the general population who has generally

a lower living standard than they did in

the 1990s.

Like it comes compounded enough that it

really started to accelerate in the 21st

century. And that's why people complain,

particularly since the late '9s, you've

seen a lot more moral decay, a lot more

tolerance for previously socially uncou

and taboo behavior, and a more casual

culture. I think a lot of people who

think they are class above, particularly

middle class people, and watch my video

on the history of middle class for this,

really aren't. A lot of people think the

middle class is anybody from the 20th to

the 80th percentile of income where it's

really probably closer to like the fifth

to the 25th percentile of income that

has shrunk considerably. People don't

want to acknowledge that. They'll

acknowledge on a macro level but they

won't acknowledge it for their

individual lives. And so instead they

get into the pearl drift feedback loop

that I have mentioned. It's a problem

where basically procarity is filtering

slowly upward among the population and

they're disguising it as an evolution in

morals and values and they criticize it.

Let me know what you think. What do you

think is the most notable example of

pearl drift? And do you want me to do a

video where I do more examples of pearl

drift? Because in my research on this, I

have found more examples of pearl drift.

And just thinking about this and looking

at my observations of these trends. Once

you start to notice it, you see it

everywhere. And it is like a red pill

moment where you realize that

impacts the economic trends you hear

about on a macro level are really

impacting your day-to-day life. whether

it's your own life or those you interact

with on a day-to-day basis. Feel free to

reach out to me with your questions on

wealth management and financial

planning. Thank you for watching.