Philippine Family Socialism

[ladislav]

A big part of the PH society is in the peasant/fisherman communal mode social structure.
They live in large family clans, with the able bodied members of the clan contributing to the common economic pool.
Family is the first most valuable entity and must grow and grow, and economic resources are there to support it. But its existence is primary. Money is secondary.
Thus, as the family grows, resources are always stretched to the limit. It is similar to the Japanese JIT ( just in time) system. A need suddenly appears with no warning, and one starts looking for money to fill it just-in-time. Credit is used abundantly, and many people seem to carry large debts which may or may not be paid. If one has to choose between paying the creditor or feeding family now, the latter takes priority. A creditor is supposed to try to collect, the debtor will use endless delay tactics, and eventually, the creditor gives up.
Add to it the Catholic religion which teaches that birth control is a sin, and that children are a blessing, and you have an ever growing family unit. And more and more resources are needed to support it. Younger people, as they became able bodied, go abroad or work in a big city and feed the clan.
People whose family had been living a long time in rural areas or by the sea do not see money as the ultimate resource of food and sustenance because land and water are supposed to provide those.
The resulting family is close-knit, friendly to its members, supportive, and exists kind of like a socialist mechanism in which all share in and all are supposed to benefit.
It seems to work well. There are very close ties within it. One is never lonely, and stress, suicides and mental disorders are rare. There are always good times, always someone who will help with most things. This can be with money, knowledge, advice, a shoulder to cry on, comfort and moral support, connections to get you a job, introduction to partners, etc. It is a pretty successful organism, actually.
A foreigner is usually a welcome member to it and will be expected to contribute, but at the same time, will also benefit from it if he knows how.

[MrMan]

Interesting.

This sounds a little different from just-in-time for manufacturing. Toyota would have it all lined up to have the windows to put into the sedan to come at 4 PM, and the tires at 4:30, or whatever. They plan it all out, probably down to the second, when things will arrive. As long as the supply chain runs smoothly, this saves money and keeps money out of inventory.

But it sounds like the families you describe have no plan to get the money until they need it.

In Indonesia, in the extended family, they might take up a collection to get boots for a brother in the mountain climbing club in school or whatever, or ask a well-to-do relative to pay for them. The Filipinos you describe seem a bit more collectivist with their money, but I haven't seen how the finances work exactly in the village.

If you are able to invest money in an endeavor that gets someone on their feet financially, that's good. I've tried that but sometimes endeavors don't work out. If you invest in a vehicle for someone who turns out to have a drug problem, well that probably won't work out. We invested in a farm endeavor and we heard it rained too much. The little microbusiness fish farm might work out, but it seems like there is a glut of fish on the market. If we got our little investment back, that would be good, though we are supposed to share profits.

Investing in your brother-and-sister in-laws education or career options may help in the long run if they are responsible and you can get them on their feet, also, since someone else gets to support the in-laws in their old age and it might not all fall on you or on your wife working a job and sending part of her salary.

[Gali]

I call it tribal communism

[publicduende]

A foreigner is usually a welcome member to it and will be expected to contribute, but at the same time, will also benefit from it if he knows how.

I know a foreigner in Davao, a former Big Four (accountancy firms) partner in HK who, basically, married his maid and moved to Davao with her. He has been running a rather successful BPO for a few years now.

His wife happens to hail from the T'boli tribe. She's in her 40s now and absolutely nothing to write home about: short, very dark-skinned and with curly hair. She doesn't even look that classy or educated, despite claiming that she is related to one of the tribe chieftains.

Anyway, I had dinner with them a while ago and the guy was boosting that his wife had elected the "champion" of the extended family, He said every member of the tribe swore that they would have literally given their lives to protect him and his wife. Warrior blood and all that.

What I also had to hear, not without a fair dose of head shaking in my mind, was that this guy had basically spend close to 300 thousand dollars over the course of several years, to provide to his wife's family and, by the sound of it, the whole tribe. He built not one, but four different homes for the "family", plus one he "could have used" to spend time with the wife. Needless to say, all five homes got shamelessly squatted, with the majority of the tribe living there, often with their partners and children.

Now, I am all for generosity. But how stoopid does one have to be to be convinced that, in exchange for "allegiance" and "protection" from a tribe, the price to pay is build housing for all of them?

Anyway, the guy is probably loaded and somehow loves to feel the "champion".

Just another example of socialism predicated on the wealth of the few.

[MrMan]

Well, you cannot take it with you. It sounds like the guy probably has plenty of money. I respect it when people earn money and try to bring others out of poverty. (Is that what was going on?)

I would like to do some things to help my wife's ancestral village. They aren't starving, but they could use some development. It's actually kind of nice up there, minus the recent infestation of plastic wrappers covering the whole place, something new since I first went up there. There is apparently no garbage collection from the government, there, and they haven't figured out how to clean up their own environment. We've thought of ideas ranging from branding their own coffee to figuring out how to get people to buy the crops rotting in the field. There is a problem of very inefficient markets for farmers in Indonesia. I would rather help them develop something that involves them working and developing a new system. I would probably go the social business route where I share profits with them, whether I keep them or direct them elsewhere. I don't have fat stacks of cash, so building a village is not an option at this point.