We Live in a Society

When we first moved to California, our next-door neighbors—a very kind Gen X couple—knocked on our door and invited us over for dinner. In the following weeks, they’d pop over to check in, periodically lending a tool or an extra set of hands. One day while I was stuck in traffic coming back from San Francisco, I texted my neighbor: Hey, can you go over and let Beans out in the backyard? It was no problem. I walked their dog the next time they were out of town. Every time we exchange excess baked goods or text one another to check in about the state of our respective PG&E bills, I feel that sparkling little reminder: Someone’s looking out for me, and I, them. 

Recently, I’ve seen an uptick in content hard-selling the “little favors” economy. The thesis goes something like this: We’ve been inundated with therapy-speak that essentially provides a script to let ourselves off the hook when we’re not in the mood to show up for people in our lives. (The most dramatic example is probably that cursed copypasta paragraph that recommended telling your friends you didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to care about them, so could they take their personal crisis elsewhere or schedule a different time to need you?) This emotional boundary-setting is often encouraged under the guise of “self-protection”: always putting yourself first is what’s best for you.

But what if it isn’t? What if this is short-sighted selfishness, and ultimately personally detrimental, too? There are predictable consequences of divorcing friendship from assistance: It often means we are left with no choice but to pay for absolutely everything we need. 

This worldview has framed asking for help or needing support as an inexcusable burden. Its huffy refrain is don’t be cheap; do not ask me to take you to the airport. (And, I mean, sure: LAX at 4 am? Or… any time of day. Woof.) But the sentiment is clear for even the smallest asks: You must be needy, boundaryless, or inadequately self-sufficient, and your friend has every right to hit you with that I don’t have the emotional bandwidth paragraph. 

So rather than asking your friend for a ride, you take an Uber.

Need help mounting your TV? TaskRabbit.  

Instead of trading your neighbor a six-pack of beer to feed your cat while you’re away, you pay a stranger on Rover $30 a day. 

Cooking an elaborate meal and realize you’re out of a crucial ingredient? You don’t know the people in the apartment next to you, so instead of knocking and asking if they’ve got a spare lemon, you end up on DoorDash.

The fear of being a burden atomizes us, and as a result, further entrenches our reliance on something else: money. The central promise of so many apps is that they can eradicate the need to maintain relationships, look out for one another, or inconvenience yourself for the sake of a loved one. (For a price.) 

I’m heartened by the emergence of the “little favor” countertrend (aka: the way society has functioned since the beginning of time) because it acknowledges that sometimes asking for help or inconveniencing yourself for someone else’s sake (aka: friendship) strengthens bonds in your community. 

And since you’re part of that community, you benefit, too—even if, in the short-term, you’re the one troubling yourself on someone else’s behalf. 

There have long been efforts to formalize this type of money-free giving and receiving. It’s different from bartering: You aren’t necessarily trading one thing for another; at least, not simultaneously. Instead, it’s about reallocating resources amongst yourselves over time. The FI/RE (“financial independence, retire early,” for the uninitiated) community, which has its origins in an anti-consumption movement, are big proponents of local “Buy Nothing” groups, a sort of free Facebook Marketplace that allows you to ask for what you need and give what you can, with no exchange of money (though not without their flaws and scandals). You don’t need this extra pack of hangers? Meet the person two blocks over who was just about to head to Target to pick some up. 

The financialization of our every move strips us of our humanity and weakens our ties, while Little Favors create trust and common ground. The beauty in asking for what you need is not just in the straightforward receiving of it, but in allowing other people to give it to you. We glorify individual ability and self-sufficiency, which are great—but to be human is to need. So, too, is to give. 

Still, sometimes we forget this interconnectedness, disregarding that the quality of our culture necessarily shapes our individual experience of it. The other day, I saw this Tweet in my mentions: “@moneywithkatie, if the tax system were changed so that income sources were taxed equally, do you foresee any adverse consequences for regular people? Is it likely to mean the IRS taking a bigger share of inheritance or other one-off windfalls?”

I’m less interested in litigating the ins and outs of inheritance taxes (see also: my temporary retirement from thought experiments, as I am still tired). What fascinates me about the underlying assumptions baked into this question are more human, less Internal Revenue Service. 

At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be much out of the ordinary here. Am I, a regular person, going to suffer from something intended to benefit society as a whole? It’s the separation of the individual from society as a whole that jumps off the page; this idea that our individual actions are somehow divorced from broader context.

If something is good for society, and you are a member of society, it stands to reason that a better society benefits you, too. In this particular example, sure, your grandchild may stand to inherit less money, but they’re also more likely to live in a world with less wealth inequality and more opportunity as a result. Is that an adverse effect? (That’s rhetorical. Please do not send me an anti-taxation screed.)

The goal of atomizing us as individuals is that we won’t think of ourselves as members of the whole; as members of an ecosystem who can give and take as we’re able, but instead as competitors in a cutthroat game who need to take every chance to get ahead. 

Of course, these ideas are connected in an even more literal way: Your grandkid will need every penny of that inheritance if they exist in a world wherein meeting their every human need is a transaction with a price attached.