how greed became a virtue
Oct. 13th, 2005 01:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sophiaserpentiaAccording to the "unseen hand" theory of market operation, the quest for profit in a competitive free market will magically lead to the development and production of the best products possible. Consumers will reject inferior products in favor of better ones as they come on the market. Once a need is identified, an entrepreneur will develop a product to fill that need, and this way, the market itself will see to all the needs of the population.
As i pointed out in a previous post, the only truly "free market" we have is the one for widgets, and in recent years there has certainly been an explosion of new and exciting widgets. Cell phones that take pictures and let you surf the internet, portable music players that can hold your entire CD collection, and so on.
The big problem is that our participation in most markets is not fully voluntary. Most of us cannot stop buying food or selling labor. In other markets the choice not to participate could create considerable hardship or reduction in quality of life -- housing, clothing, heating, medicine, and so on. Other products are physically or psychologically addictive; these have historically been very profitable (and have even played an important role in the growth of empires).
A mindset has developed where people are pushed into being "good consumers;" there is a lot of pressure in the media to consider consumption a civic duty, on a par with voting and paying taxes. It is as if producers have come to think of consumption as something they are owed.
It is said that this could be countered by asserting one's independence and will -- and that is true, to an extent. (In the past i have asserted that developing the will and freeing it from archontic/memetic fetters is the original purpose and use of esoterica.) My concern is that people do not seem to have an equal ability to assert their independent will, and for even those who can, there is a lot of pressure against it.
There's the use of memetic programming -- advertisements designed to "colonize" the brain and implant emotional investments in certain kinds of products. This is a modern version of the memeplex i've called Viceroy.
Our educational system appears designed to discourage independence in thought and deed when it comes to the market; children are not taught to research before they buy, to budget their money, to see through advertisement scams. Producers circle around schools and colleges like sharks because young people are fresh meat, more apt to be taken advantage of.
On top of this is the mechanism i've mentioned in previous posts: the fact that those who come to the market with an existing disadvantage find that disadvantage amplified. Those whose access to the market is limited, or who operate with limited information, will find themselves taken advantage of. For example, it has been well documented that the poor pay more for things; those who sell primarily to the poor charge more because they can. Markets in poor areas of town charge more; poor people without cars are much less able to take advantage of price competition. The poor are charged higher interest rates and are even encouraged to express gratitude for having the opportunity to show they aren't a "credit risk."
The profit motive also encourages dishonesty. In the last few years the American public has been subjected to a plethora of greed-driven scams, some of which affected whole sectors of the population. The stock market crash of 2001 could well be the largest scam in history; New York A.G. Eliot Spitzer (my hero!) is still rooting out the corporate culture of unethical practices in the insurance and stock brokerage industries. Enron engineered an energy crisis in California in 2002 before it crashed. Don't forget Ford and Firestone; Vioxx; war profiteering in Iraq by Halliburton and MCI/WorldCom; and on and on and on.
In the absence of effective laws and enforcement promoting and preserving market competition against oligarchy, monopoly, and monopsony, and in the absence of a culture promoting and preserving individuality and will, the market will inevitably devolve into an oligarchical collective, where rich merchants and industrialists warp the political and cultural landscape via influence peddling and advertising to suit their greed.
So an economic system that trusts the profit motive cannot possibly be just. In the absence of true freedom, the market amplifies social stratification and turns those at a disadvantage into prey.
As i pointed out in a previous post, the only truly "free market" we have is the one for widgets, and in recent years there has certainly been an explosion of new and exciting widgets. Cell phones that take pictures and let you surf the internet, portable music players that can hold your entire CD collection, and so on.
The big problem is that our participation in most markets is not fully voluntary. Most of us cannot stop buying food or selling labor. In other markets the choice not to participate could create considerable hardship or reduction in quality of life -- housing, clothing, heating, medicine, and so on. Other products are physically or psychologically addictive; these have historically been very profitable (and have even played an important role in the growth of empires).
A mindset has developed where people are pushed into being "good consumers;" there is a lot of pressure in the media to consider consumption a civic duty, on a par with voting and paying taxes. It is as if producers have come to think of consumption as something they are owed.
It is said that this could be countered by asserting one's independence and will -- and that is true, to an extent. (In the past i have asserted that developing the will and freeing it from archontic/memetic fetters is the original purpose and use of esoterica.) My concern is that people do not seem to have an equal ability to assert their independent will, and for even those who can, there is a lot of pressure against it.
There's the use of memetic programming -- advertisements designed to "colonize" the brain and implant emotional investments in certain kinds of products. This is a modern version of the memeplex i've called Viceroy.
Our educational system appears designed to discourage independence in thought and deed when it comes to the market; children are not taught to research before they buy, to budget their money, to see through advertisement scams. Producers circle around schools and colleges like sharks because young people are fresh meat, more apt to be taken advantage of.
On top of this is the mechanism i've mentioned in previous posts: the fact that those who come to the market with an existing disadvantage find that disadvantage amplified. Those whose access to the market is limited, or who operate with limited information, will find themselves taken advantage of. For example, it has been well documented that the poor pay more for things; those who sell primarily to the poor charge more because they can. Markets in poor areas of town charge more; poor people without cars are much less able to take advantage of price competition. The poor are charged higher interest rates and are even encouraged to express gratitude for having the opportunity to show they aren't a "credit risk."
The profit motive also encourages dishonesty. In the last few years the American public has been subjected to a plethora of greed-driven scams, some of which affected whole sectors of the population. The stock market crash of 2001 could well be the largest scam in history; New York A.G. Eliot Spitzer (my hero!) is still rooting out the corporate culture of unethical practices in the insurance and stock brokerage industries. Enron engineered an energy crisis in California in 2002 before it crashed. Don't forget Ford and Firestone; Vioxx; war profiteering in Iraq by Halliburton and MCI/WorldCom; and on and on and on.
In the absence of effective laws and enforcement promoting and preserving market competition against oligarchy, monopoly, and monopsony, and in the absence of a culture promoting and preserving individuality and will, the market will inevitably devolve into an oligarchical collective, where rich merchants and industrialists warp the political and cultural landscape via influence peddling and advertising to suit their greed.
So an economic system that trusts the profit motive cannot possibly be just. In the absence of true freedom, the market amplifies social stratification and turns those at a disadvantage into prey.
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no subject
Date: 2005-10-13 05:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-13 05:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-13 08:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-14 12:58 am (UTC)The cell phone market seems very similar to the toothbrush market: there is a constant push of artificial innovation in order to encourage consumers to replace ("upgrade") their existing models. Every few months there's a brand new revolutionary design for a toothbrush, one that aspires to solve your every dental hygine need, only to be replaced by the next fancier model. In the disposable razor department, it has led to a virtual arms war of which manufacturer can cram more blades into a single razor.
While it seems like there's constant innovation and competition, the primary innovation seems to be finding more ways to market a product that will cause more people to buy it who never needed it in the first place.