Tying Into Our Discussion Of Living Standards: Mass Produced Dreck
That’s right. All this discussion about standard of living, and the material goods we have at our disposal today that our grandfathers could never have imagined, and we have completely avoided the question of quality.
I’m guessing that our grandfathers would be stunned at the shoddiness of the things we have in our homes. Our rickety furniture, our poorly-made clothes, our highly-processed foods, our mass-produced goods - everything is disposable, easily broken, and none of it made to last. Much of it is also beyond our ability to repair, a hallmark of prior generations who bought things made well enough that they wouldn’t have to buy them again. Emma Johnson at MSN Money writes about this often overlooked aspect of the generation gap:
Americans in their 20s and 30s are now at least one generation removed from the era of homemade clothing and hand-crafted wood furniture, Underhill says. “In the 1950s, 90% of homes had sewing machines, which means women knew something about how clothes were put together. They could look at something in the store and tell if was of good construction or crappy construction,” he says. “In my office, I don’t know anyone who has bought a custom suit. They don’t know the difference between off-the-rack and custom.”
[snip]
How did this happen? How did we lose track of the value of quality things — objects that hold the promise of decades of use and beauty — and come to view all the possessions in our lives as disposable?
Daniel Nissanoff, online retail entrepreneur and author of “FutureShop: How the New Auction Culture Will Revolutionize the Way We Buy, Sell and Get the Things We Really Want,” says today’s consumer culture actually bucks the mindset that brought us here.
“As human beings we’ve been socialized to buy and save,” Nissanoff says. “In times not as prosperous as today, when we didn’t know where our next food or source of supplies would come from, our ancestors bought things with the notion of holding on to them for as long as they could and then passing them on to the next generation.”
In essence: Our forefathers were poorer than we are, and yet they had better stuff, relatively speaking.
[snip]
But appreciation for quality craftsmanship has been swept aside by freely available consumer credit and high-end design on low-cost merchandise, says Dayana Yochim, personal finance writer at The Motley Fool.
“Credit cards let us instantly satisfy our retail desires,” Yochim says. “Our grandparents had to delay that gratification. They figured that if they had to save for it, they’d better get the best they could. Now retailers want to catch that fleeting desire.”
But now that we know how much a veneered, mass-produced bookshelf costs, it is easy for us to dismiss a pricier, handmade, solid-wood version as outrageous — especially if you have never experienced fine furniture, Yochim says.
“All that information is telling us where to set the (price) bar,” Yochim says. “We’re looking at pricing before quality.”
My wife is a big one on the philosophy of, “Invest now, save later.” She prefers to buy her cars new, despite depreciation, because she knows exactly how well they’ve been taken care of and how they were broken in. She’ll buy things like furniture used because she is able to evaluate the sturdiness of a chest or armoire in a way that she can’t peek into an engine.
She learned this from her father, a Chinese immigrant who left the poverty stricken agricultural area of Guangdong when he was 14, and came to America, leaving his family behind. He had nothing. He worked hard. He joined the Navy. He worked in a butcher shop. He learned how to run a grocery store. With the help of a loan from his in-laws, he bought a grocery store. Then he bought a shopping center. He bought other businesses too.
He was a guy who worked his way up from literally nothing. He grew up in the poorest of third world conditions, without any of the things we take for granted. The houses, made from cement and bamboo, are extremely small, with rooms only big enough for one full-sized adult to lay on what looks (in the pictures) like a concrete slab that sits on the dirt. The room is just large enough to stand up and walk out of. The “kitchen” consists or a room just as small, but the concrete slab is waist high and has a hole in it to build a fire in for cooking. Often, the eating is done outside because there is no space. The nearby river serves as toilet, washroom, and drinking water supply for the people. The eat dog, frog, bat, cat, crickets…the kinds of things that Anthony Zimmern might have a hard time with. As my wife put it when I asked her about it, “Everyone is just one step up form the (tribal) people in the Amazon. At least my family wear clothes.”
What my father-in-law learned along his journey from squalor in China to modest American business owner is this: never settle. Save your money when you can, and you’ll have it for later, but don’t blow it on junk. It’s not worth it.
He is literally allergic to cheap stuff. I have no idea how his body knows, but it reacts. You give him a glass of cheap bourbon, and he sneezes after taking a sip. You hand him a snifter of Hennesy VSOP, and that’s a different story. With experience as a butcher, there are only certain cuts of meat that he’ll eat. When he bought clothes for his children, he bought them the best, most durable kind. Pay more upfront, but they’ll last longer later. His philosophy can be summed up as follows - “Why spend all your money on a bunch of junk? It’s no good and then it gets thrown out… might as well as put your money in the garbage.”
And yet, that’s what the free market forces a lot of families to do. I’ll bring up the big box stores again (if for no other reason than to poke at Joe Marier 
because they simultaneously drive many small businesses out of business, and then hook the low-paid wage-earners on their rock-bottom prices - prices made low because nothing they sell is made here. (It’s made by people from China, living in squalor.) Of course, the quality standards of the products being produced in the factories of the third world are horrible. Nothing lasts. Planned obsolescence, which was invented here in the good ol’ U.S. of A., has become the norm. If I can coax this toaster oven through the next 12 months, I’m happy, because I only paid $20 for it. Then, I’ll just replace it.
When you start adding up the cost of all those things you have to replace, it makes you begin to wonder - is it worth buying the cheap stuff? I’d say no, but what choice do we have? For most of us, getting it cheaper is far more important than getting it better. We have tight budgets to keep. Sure, I’d love to buy that rock-solid Pennsylvania Dutch dining room set that I can pass on to my kids, but it costs as much as a small car. Our wages reflect the reality of our global economy, not a domestic, attention-to-detail, craftsmanship-based system of goods.
I can hear the shouting about mass-production and how I’d never have a DVD player if they didn’t and blah, blah, blah. The fact remains that it would be great to have local, well-made goods. I try, when I can, to buy from farmer’s markets and local food-producers. It’s one of the only places I can invest in a system that encourages quality and relationships between producers and consumers - relationships that demand accountability, I might add. Years ago, I started buying New Balance sneakers, because most of them were made in the U.S. Many are now made overseas, though they do keep a decent amount of production stateside. Economic patriotism isn’t dead out of pure apathy, it’s dead because people have been trained to try to get the most quality they can out of the cheapest possible product, even if it’s made by children. Even if the children are slaves.
I’m guessing that some of my capitalist objectors here might say that the money I spend at the farmer’s market, or on locally produced goods - all of which are more expensive - are a luxury that artificially bloats my cost of living. But that’s because capitalism seeks to maximize profit and lower expense, not correct what is wrong with the system. If I want to vote with my money, that’s fine, but I shouldn’t complain then about not having enough of it. After all, I could get by with less.
Should wealth be a prerequisite for having well-made goods? Should our reliance on globalization-induced pricing mean that our standard of living should preclude concerns about quality, or local sources? And by the way, what about adjustments for inflation? Speaking of our grandfathers, how did salaries then compare to now?
According to MeasuringWorth.com, a site dedicated to helping compare costs between various years according to a variety of metrics,
In 1931, an accountant in the US would be earning about $2,250, an amount that would represent a comparative purchasing power of $30,631 in current dollars. However, this salary is almost 45% more than what the average household spent in those days. This would correspond to $72,300 today, a “status” of nearly twice the national average.
So even with higher-quality goods, many of them local, a household in 1931 could live on $2,250, which amounts to Kevin’s arbitrary standard of $30,000 (in today’s dollars) with approximately $13,500 (today’s dollars) to spare. To accomplish a proportionate living standard today, a salary of $72,300 would be needed.
Yeah. I’m guessing our grandfathers would be surprised by our standard of living in more ways than one. They might be impressed by our TVs and dishwashers and DVD players, but overall, I’m willing to bet that their quality of life might make us pretty jealous.
Filed under: Distributism, Economics
Steve, I’m largely with you on the issue of low-quality stuff that’s designed to be thrown away; at least that it’s there, and it’s real.
A couple things, to consider:
1) Cars. As you know, they are better made now than in, say, 1973.
2) Secured loans were a lot more common then than they are now. If you’re going to try and repossess the fridge and sell it on the used market in case of a default, then you want it to hold its value (and be built so the customer can’t bust it too easily). If you’re going to just give your customer a credit card, who cares?
That being said, you may recall a bit of a credit contraction that began in 1931… if people could afford their well-made stuff that well, then why were they borrowing all the money?
3) Repair costs. You can buy a twenty-dollar toaster, or buy a two hundred dollar toaster, and pay someone sixty bucks to fix it every 3 years or so. Pick one.
4) The state of China in 1970, before all the evil capitalists “enslaved” them. There are worse things…
This comment is purely so I can be notified of followup comments. If there are any.
Yeah. I’m guessing our grandfathers would be surprised by our standard of living in more ways than one. They might be impressed by our TVs and dishwashers and DVD players, but overall, I’m willing to bet that their quality of life might make us pretty jealous.
It’s a tradeoff, no doubt. But what REALLY kills people in our society is the recurring monthly costs — cable TV, cell phone bills, electricity, water, etc. I’m personally a happier man without a cell phone or cable TV. In 1931, how many people had cars? How much was car insurance? And then, there’s taxes.
The one area that distributists and libertarian-leaning capitalists agree is that taxes are simply too high, and exist where they shouldn’t.
Even so, you aren’t comparing apples to apples. I haven’t met many today that would be content raising 7 kids in a 2 or 3 bedroom house. I dumped one of my ex’s because she INSISTED that every child we have gets his or her own bedroom, and that it is psychologically unhealthy to share bedrooms with your siblings. How many families are willing to go without 2 cars? Without cable TV and a cell phone, etc.
Aaron, I hope you’re talking about a girlfriend…
Joe:
1.) Yes and no. Cars today are amazing. Better now? It’s a matter of perspective. My grandfather grew up working on cars. He met my grandmother partially because her car (a classic Model T) caught his attention. He used to fix cars himself, and re-sell them.
He couldn’t do that now if he were still living. They’ve become too complex. It’s great to have air conditioning and power windows and stability control and anti-lock brakes and DVD navigation systems, etc., etc., but there is sort of a problem when you need a computer science degree to diagnose an engine.
So, yeah, cars are better now. But they were simpler, and often just as durable then (if not more so).
2.) Who says all that credit is a good thing?
3.) I think you’re oversimplifying. People who, say, lived through the depression, often learned how to fix things themselves. They made them last that way, without the added cost. But I also feel like you pulled the numbers you’re using out of thin air. ($200 toaster? $60 for repairs?)
4.) China has been screwed up for a long time, no doubt. Communism is worse than capitalism, but they’re two branches of the same tree. Note in the article I linked that the communist government kidnapped those kids to work in the factories, but I guarantee those bricks are being sold in markets around the world. In capitalist countries. This is nothing new. Globalism creates demand for cheap labor, and places like China are all-too-willing to supply it.
Aaron,
It’s a tradeoff, no doubt. But what REALLY kills people in our society is the recurring monthly costs — cable TV, cell phone bills, electricity, water, etc. I’m personally a happier man without a cell phone or cable TV.
I agree. I could do without cable, personally (and have) but it’s cheaper to get my internet and landline phone if I get it in a bundle with cable, so I won’t complain if I get to watch some tube now and then.
Cell phones are expensive, but I’m expected to have one for work. They pay for my PDA phone and data usage, and I put the phone on my own cell plan. Living in a big city and taking public transport kind of requires a cell phone. Since I’m on trains or in between them for up to four hours a day, facing any number of delays, cancellations, etc., having a phone is pretty important to being able to get in touch with my wife and let her know where I am. (Vice versa, when she’s out with the kids.)
Have you tried to find a payphone recently? Good luck. Say a prayer to St. Anthony and be prepared to walk many, many miles.
I haven’t met many today that would be content raising 7 kids in a 2 or 3 bedroom house.
I don’t think most people ever were “content” with this, but they dealt with it. My mom was one of eight kids, and they lived in a four-bedroom home. When I was growing up, there were five of us in a 2-bedroom home for a while. My brother Matt and I shared a bunkbed and my younger sister and brother shared a twin, all in a 10X10′ room. It was miserably cramped. The baby slept in mom and dad’s room.
When we moved, we went to a 3-bedroom, 1bath home, and there were six of us kids by the time it was all said and done. That was far more doable, though we really could have used an extra bath.
I didn’t mind sharing a room with my brothers, but it’s optimal to have enough space for everyone and their clothing in one room. I think 2 kids per room is actually ideal. It’s good to have to learn how to share the space.
I also believe wholeheartedly that kids need a yard to play in. That’s something that adds a lot of expense to the average family. But kids need to be able to go outside, not be cooped up in a condo or townhome.
1. On this point, I declare victory and go home!
2. Er, I’m not sure you’re getting my point. I was just giving a reason for better-made stuff, and making a point that a lot of people (possibly including your accountant example) couldn’t afford well made stuff without making payments. Hence, the Great Depression.
3. What? I can’t pull numbers out of thin air? Fascist.
Okay, fine. People knew how to fix things then. With a 25% unemployment rate, they had the time.
4. “China has been screwed up for a long time” doesn’t excuse the Great Cultural Revolution, which was just wrapping up its unprecedented murderous rampage in 1970.
I did read the article. Frightening stuff. But no Cultural Revolution, or Great Leap Forward. 50 million dead under Mao. Globalization couldn’t have killed more than that.
I tend to agree that things (cars and electronics excepted) were more solidly built in past times. We live in a house that’s well over 100 years old, and I doubt most modern subdivision houses will be in this kind of shape 120 years from now. I have an old mantle clock from the 1940s that came down from my great-grandmother, and as long as I wind it it keeps perfect time.
But before we get too romantic, think about clothing. Before clothing was mass-produced, it was extremely expensive — and women had to spend many hours each week patching and mending it. Women never left home without a sewing bag; if they had a few spare minutes while waiting for a bus or in a doctor’s office, they mended socks. There was always some article of clothing to fix; mending was terribly tedious and time-consuming.
If any of you have grandmothers old enough to remember those days, ask them if they prefer (1) clothing cheap enough to be thrown away and replaced when it tears or (2) much more expensive clothing that required many hours of mending each week.
Speaking for myself, I’m happy I can buy socks for six bucks a pack at Wal Mart, use them as rags when they get holes in them, and spare my wife the chore of mending.
There is something to be said for cheaper and more temporary goods as well. My kitchen table and chairs came together for about $100 from a big box store. They aren’t going to last forever. But in addition to not having to spend a lot of money on them at that time, I get the freedom to develop my aesthetic sense for several years and then pick out a new set, which might please me better.
And when you get to the subject of electronics, even kitchen appliances really are getting better all the time: becoming safer, using less energy, etc.
And then there is the discounted value of money over time. That $20 you will spend to replace your toaster isn’t really $20 in today’s money. You could invest somewhat less than $20 today to cover that cost. At an assumption of 5% interest, if you replace a $20 appliance every 4 years, paying anything over $112.80 for the “life-long” version would be too much. And that’s before considering the technological improvements that come with the later versions.
Of course it is nice to be able to buy something that you know will last. I read recently that millionaires tend to buy things with that quality in mind. But I think this has to do with how they value their free time, more than anything.
The good news is: The trade deficit is creaming the value of the dollar, which is going to make American-made goods competitive again. Manufacturing in America hasn’t seen its end yet.
Give it up Steve. Kevin and Aaron will just go on and on about how we live in the best of all possible systems in the best of all possible worlds until everyone else just gives up trying to reason with them. Then they will go somewhere else thinking they have won the argument.
Aaron, I am 27 years into raising 11 kids in a 3 bedroom house. I’ll be done (as much as one is ever done) in another 14 years or so. the boys slept in 2 sets of bunk beds in a 10′x12′ room. The firls (who are fewer) have a bunk and trundle in an 8′x12′ room. But we do have 10 acres, which is really necessary for this big a family.
girls, not firls
I can hear the shouting about mass-production and how I’d never have a DVD player if they didn’t
now here’s a crazy..wild, radical and insane idea…
nobody needs a DVD player.
Nobody.
nobody needs a DVD player. Nobody.
I agree, 100%. Totally superfluous.
Well, yeah, if you own a Playstation 2 or 3.
Danby, Danby, Danby.
Re: yard being necessary… I disagree. I really want a big back yard, but it is a luxury.
Ever been to little mountain towns in Italy? Nobody has a yard. Houses are built up to the streets, back-to-back and directly adjacent. That’s the town that all of my ancestors for like 5 generations on my mother’s side come from. The town is surrounded by huge fields that the kids have access to to play in.
Danby,
God bless you, and your family! That’s a lot of kids! One of the families at my parish just had their 11th, and they are some of the sweetest, most well behaved group of kids I’d ever met. Of course, their mother is a drill-sergeant, and a saint.
Hilary,
When I argue the good of mass production, I usually list either PC’s (which many of us, such as computer scientists like me, wouldn’t be able to perform our professions without) and various pieces of medical technology.
DVD players certainly are a luxury, but they’re a relatively cheap one. So are TV’s (all though the good ones aren’t cheap… hence I don’t own one.)
Aaron,
I’m sticking with this. Being able to play outside is essential for the kids’ development. We don’t live in a society where it’s safe to just let your little kids play in the field across town. We DO live in a society where sitting around inside in front of the TV all day is the norm.
When you’re homeschooling the older kids, the younger ones need something to do. Sitting in the house isn’t it.
Steve,
I do NOT rebut that playing outside is essential to kids wellbeing (particularly boys) I was just trying to state that a big yard is NOT the only option.
If safety in your area is a concern, that modifies the situation. I wouldn’t say it’s a societal problem, as much as a local problem. The neighborhood I grew up in in southern NJ was perfectly great for wandering around. That’s exactly why my parents moved there.
Aaron,
Understood. One of my main concerns, aside from the way the Internet seems to cultivate sicko culture (which then spills over into real life) is, quite simply, traffic.
We lived in a townhome with a common yard in the back and even a small playground. But toddlers can’t be out there alone, and because my wife homeschools our oldest, the two little ones have to stay inside while school is going on. Leaving them out there when they could head toward the very busy street was not a great idea. (Not that toddlers have any notion of boundaries in general. You’d be liable to lose them because they’re just exporing.)
We have a quasi-fenced-in yard now, and it helps, but there are still escape points and a very busy road. I miss the days when I was growing up too, and we all just played outside all day with minimal supervision.
I think you guys have different ages in mind. Older kids can roam around in a relatively safe neighborhood. Pre-schoolers can’t, which I think is what Steve is talking about.
Aaron
Re: yards. Your ancestors probably knew most, if not all, of their neighbors and could trust that their children would be safe among them. How many of us live where we’d let our children roam throughout the neighborhood? I’d love to have the sense of community that our ancestors shared with each other, but, at least in my neighborhood, it doesn’t exist.
Is a yard an absolute necessity? No, but for most of us with children it is more than mere luxury. Kids do need to have plenty of time outside everyday and most mothers with several children don’t have the free time to take their kids to the local playground and supervise them for an extended period of time everyday.
A little off-topic: One thing that I notice again and again is that Kevin and I have similar values and goals to distributists, merely different means of achieving them. We both want to live in more rural areas with big yards that we own debt-free, want to raise lots of kids in an old-fashioned way, we like making things ourselves (we brew our own beer, etc.) and love the idea of growing some food for the family in a home garden (as well as hops), and like the idea of home-schooling.
Aaron,
Distributism isn’t a mater of taste. Most people would like to live in a more rural area, own their home with acreage debt-free. Many people who haven’t been brainwashed by the school system and the media want to have lots of kids, a big garden and home-brewed beer.
Distributism is about the impediments to normal families achieving that state. You would contend that the current system is fine because you feel that in a few years you could get there. I would contend that most people can’t, and the reasons are structural, not individual.
And that, Danby, is the rub. I believe most people CAN get there. And more could get there if only government were smaller, and there were less regulation across the board, and most importantly, less taxes.
I also believe that distributism cannot work, unless the entire world turns distributist, and distributism is rigidly enforced at gunpoint. No thanks. I’d rather not have anyone telling me how much land I can own, who I can sell goods I produce to, and how much money I can have.
Aaron,
I also believe that distributism cannot work, unless the entire world turns distributist, and distributism is rigidly enforced at gunpoint.
You’re confusing distributism with both socialism and with the government-backed corporatism falsely called “capitalist”.
Yours is a counsel of despair — essentially, you are saying you oppose distributism because you believe in the inevitable concentration of capital into a few hands, and you can’t see anything but government tyranny as a means to attempt to oppose that trend.
Your lack of imagination (and of historical reference) does not constitute a disproof.
By your same standard, our current “capitalist” system fails — what are the “Global War on Terror” and “exporting democracy” but the notion that capitalism “cannot work unless the whole world turns capitalist, and capitalism is rigidly enforced at gunpoint”?
peace,
Aaron,
I’d like to see you (and/or Kevin, if he’s willing) to address Danby’s point:
I would contend that most people can’t, and the reasons are structural, not individual.
My own approach to this (stolen from G. K. Chesterton, but I’m sure he won’t mind) is to say “very well — let’s go about identifying those structural obstacles, and begin eliminating them.”
In some ways, this lines up with what you say you want — a large tax burden and bureaucracy is one of those structural obstacles to the widespread ownership and control of capital.
And there are certainly government regulations that act as obstacles too — the only reason I get twitchy about the call for “more deregulation” is that I observe, by some strange coincidence, no doubt, a strong correlation as to which regulations get loosened. Curiously, the ones that act to restrain large corporations from doing what they wish get gutted, while those which act as barriers to market entry for home-scale producers remain in place.
Is it so radical to simply suggest a reversal of these priorities? It would seem so, from the way it seems to hit a nerve.
peace,
And that, Zach, is exactly the point. The socialists want the small producer out of business because he’s a micro-capitalist. The corporations want him out of business because he’s a competitive threat. He’s too small to have his own voice heard, and when he gets together with others he’s either co-opted for the corporations (national federation of small business), or neutralized (chamber of commerce).
How about some simple deregulation that gives the small guy a break? Exemption from labeling requirements is one big one in the small farming world. Elimination from the animal id program being rammed down the throats of small farmers is another. Payroll taxes are enormous, cut them. God only demands 10%, why does the government think it deserves 50%?
Aaron,
Would you disagree with this?
“To establish the Servile State on has but to follow certain lines which lead rapidly to an ideal conclusion, a society where all men, the few Capitalists and the mass of proletariat are all securely nourished - the latter on a wage, or, lacking this, a subsidy in idleness. The same is true with regard to the Communist State: a society where all men are securely nourished as slaves of the government. A simple formula and its exact application will, in each case, produce the ideal society envisaged.
In the first case all that is needed to produce the complete Servile State is a series of laws whereby every family - or every individual, if the family be eliminated - shall receive at least so much wealth as will maintain a certain standard of comfort and leisure; this minimum being provided for the dispossessed out of the stores controlled by the possessors. It will be distributed either in the form of wages, that is, the granting to the dispossessed by the possessors of some portion of wealth which the dispossessed are producing by leave of the possessors; or, in the case of those who cannot be so employed, of relief during their forced idleness…
…The Possessors alone remain to enjoy economic freedom, the dispossessed - the very great majority - are deprived of it; but there is already at least security of some revenue for nearly all, and there can, with proper organization, be sufficiency for all as well. The only good lost to the masses, if it be a good, is freedom. For in such a state of society (the Servile State) the determining note is lack of freedom: the determining mass of society have no experience of economic liberty.”
- Belloc; Essay on the Restoration of Property
You’re confusing distributism with both socialism and with the government-backed corporatism falsely called “capitalist”.
Incorrect. I speak more of a traditional laissez faire capitalism. I detest corporate welfare and handouts, government-created and -protected monopolies, and the unfair advantages granted to corporations. I frankly think that a good check against giant corporations would to remove the protection that owners of corporations have from liability.
For instance, company Bob owns company Foo, which creates widgets. Bob got rich building Foo, and is already financially secure. Bob wants to decides to turn a blind eye when his marketing team chooses to use substandard parts, and a widget created by Foo explodes and kills a room full of babies. Foo is sued out of existence, but Bob’s personal assets are untouched because it is the fault of the corporation. This is bad.
How much MORE responsibility would stockholders have to take if they were financially liable for bad decisions made be the employees of the company they held stock in? This would make it harder to get venture capital, and thus harder for businesses to grow overly large. But it is certainly more equitable, without enforcing any draconian rules that are contrary to a man’s liberty over his own property.
the only reason I get twitchy about the call for “more deregulation” is that I observe, by some strange coincidence, no doubt, a strong correlation as to which regulations get loosened. Curiously, the ones that act to restrain large corporations from doing what they wish get gutted, while those which act as barriers to market entry for home-scale producers remain in place.
Here, you and I are in agreement. I believe deregulation is a good thing across the board, but the selectivity of it really hurts small businesses, making it more difficult for them to compete.
I would contend that most people can’t, and the reasons are structural, not individual.
I do disgree with it. I’d say a majority could, but choose not to. Most people waste tons and tons of money on things that are not important, have poor spending/saving habits, and a poor work ethic. I’m not guiltless here, and I’m still paying for some mistakes in the past. If I had been more wise with my money, say, 9 years ago, I’d probably own my house outright, or have a lot more money put away for retirement.
Kevin is MUCH better at illustrating points like this. He’s a spreadsheet monster. He proved pretty neatly that a single person making minimum wage can retire comfortably at 50, if they planned things properly.
Those “structural reasons” include human nature, commodification and the relationship between the two. They ain’t going away.
“essentially, you are saying you oppose distributism because you believe in the inevitable concentration of capital into a few hands,”
I can’t speak for Aaron, but most people who favor a free market do so in part because capitalism disperses capital more widely than any other system. Capitalism achieves this because it recognizes no god in the sphere of economics, and such gods always provide the basis for one form of concentration or another (I mean … can anybody with historic perspective possibly think there was LESS concentration of wealth or capital in Medieval Europe’s feudal monarchies than today’s secular republics).
Separately, many people who back capitalism would also make a moral case for it on the grounds that concentration of capital per se is not a bad thing, depending on how that concentration was achieved.
“Your lack of imagination (and of historical reference) does not constitute a disproof.”
“Historical reference” and “imagination” are all Distributists seem to have.
“what are the “Global War on Terror” and “exporting democracy” but the notion that capitalism “cannot work unless the whole world turns capitalist, and capitalism is rigidly enforced at gunpoint”
Cmon, this is tinfoil-hat territory worthy of Naomi Klein. Say what you like about the justice of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, but they were hardly about spreading capitalism (as distinct from “democracy”; as anti-capitalists are usually diligent about reminding us, the two are not the same).
Steve,
I do disagree with Belloc’s premises, mainly because his definition of ownership does not include stock-holders.
I also PREFER not owning my own business. There’s nothing for me to risk as a wage-earner. If the company I work for goes under, I find another to employ me. None of my own money or property would be lost in this case.
Security has a tangible financial benefit.
By your same standard, our current “capitalist” system fails — what are the “Global War on Terror” and “exporting democracy” but the notion that capitalism “cannot work unless the whole world turns capitalist, and capitalism is rigidly enforced at gunpoint”?
Your definition of capitalism and mine are largely divurgent. Capitalism posits that the highest performers will do the best. A capitalist nation can coexist with socialist or distributist nations, because it will be able to produce goods cheaper and more efficiently, and with fewer restrictions. The only hope for a Distributist nation amongst capitalist ones is that they a) are in a location which is 100% self-sufficient (i.e., has all the natural resources they need) and b) either cut off foreign trade or have tarriff’s so high that it negates any efficiency of any other nation that would export its goods.
Victor,
I admit, I’m pushing the metaphor a bit. Our actions in Iraq and Afghanistan aren’t only about extending our way of life around the world (yes, I remember 9/11) — but I seem to recall our President stating that we would, in fact, be attempting to export democracy around the world as one of our strategies in the GWOT.
As for historical perspective, the Banana Republics weren’t that long ago…
peace,
Aaron,
Other than noting that, whatever the virtues and vices of laissez-faire capitalism, that’s not the system we have here and now …
… I’m going to have to let you have the last word on this for now, as I don’t have the time at the moment to argue it properly.
Until next time!
peace,
I seem to recall our President stating that we would, in fact, be attempting to export democracy around the world as one of our strategies in the GWOT.
Yes, he has said that repeatedly. What he has not said (and you did) is that GWT is about either spreading capitalism (there has been very little of either in Iraq or Afghanistan) or the survival of capitalism in the US.
Indeed, GWT, like most wars, isn’t good for business as a whole (though it is obviously good for some businesses, while being absolutely catastrophic for others) because war tends to increase government power, consume capital and introduce nonmarket uncertainties.
Isn’t the GWT particularly bad for economics because of globalization? The “War Machine” used to ramp up an economy, but now, so much of what we buy (even military supplies) comes from elsewhere, the cashflow isn’t staying in, it’s going out.
At least, I felt like I read something about this recently…
In a certain sense, yes … one of the ways that war does help an economy (the paradigmatic case of the stars all aligning to produce a huge net benefit being the US during WW2) is that government-ordered mobilization for military spending can ensure full use of the national productive capacity far better than any free-market system.
But if some significant part of that military spending is purchases from foreign companies, then that benefit is obviously less.
I should add though that globalization also makes foreign-purchase effect less “less” than would have been the case in the pre-G era. To use a simple example, the US would have lost a lot more economic benefit purchasing air tankers from … oh … a Brazilian company in the 1950s than it will from, say, a French company in the 2010s, since those planes will be constructed in Alabama and the same “subcontractor” issues apply (i.e., Airbus won’t be purchasing in France everything it needs to build the planes; nor would Boeing have bought everything in the US).
I think the idea of WW2 ramping up the economy is just a cop-out that history textbooks use to avoid questions about why the depression ended when it did.
Its heresy to suggest that FDR’s reforms weren’t the right thing to do, so it must be believed that nothing at all could be done, that only an external phenomenon could finally end the depression. In reality, if WW2 could help the economy, then it follows that sending the full might of our armed forced to engage in a pitched battle of firing all their ammo into the Atlantic Ocean would have similar effects. But that wouldn’t make any sense, would it?
“I also PREFER not owning my own business.”
Aaron makes a key point. I direct interested parties to my essays on economic security under distributism, and on the important separation of ownership from control.
“In reality, if WW2 could help the economy, then it follows that sending the full might of our armed forced to engage in a pitched battle of firing all their ammo into the Atlantic Ocean would have similar effects.”
No … because one of the many ways WW2 helped the U.S. economy (more so after the war obviously) was that the actual fighting destroyed some of America’s competitors, while leaving the continental US itself absolutely intact. Another of the ways WW2 helped the U.S. economy was that other American competitors purchased many of the arms produced, going massively into debt to do so, giving the US vast cash and gold reserves and leaving other American competitors little choice but to sell off empires.
These two rather large effects don’t happen if you fire all the ammo into the Atlantic, without any actual foreign purchasing or fighting-for-keeps on foreign land.
I don’t think the disappearance of foreign competition is enough to take an ailing economy out of a recession. Especially at 1940 levels of international trade. Do you have a source for this claim?
Also, don’t forget that the war left the United States itself massively in debt as never before. So the argument that we were awash in cash seems a bit suspect. Again, if you could point me in the direction of literature supporting your interpretation, that’s something I would be interested in reading.