Planned Obsolescence, Corporate “Rationing,” and Household Prosperity

Dear Reader.  As you may know, trivium makes a living as an economic historian, that is, someone who attempts to understand why and how material wealth has been created over the course of history:  why some are rich, and others are poor, in other words.  The idea, for trivium, is to understand this, so that we can focus our efforts on maximizing the wealth of the many, rather than (as is now, and has historically been the case), maximizing the wealth of the few who are already rich.   

So spread the word:  I have an idea which if adopted by economists, would focus the efforts of economists and politicians on increasing the wealth of the household, rather than on the wealth of the self-serving ‘me‘ (ala Alan Greenspan, Ron Paul, and Ayn Rand), or the wealth of nations (ala Adam Smith, and classic economic theory).  If you create an economy which maximizes the wealth of the ‘rational individual’ (read:  the one with billions to invest), you end up creating an economy in which massive inequality of wealth seems natural and logical.

But, just as humans began by continually fighting, and by organizing themselves into hierarchies, and by having all sorts of brutal religious and political rituals, and by creating states based on exploitation and violence, but have slowly, in some places, created democratic states in which more people have more access to peace, equality, freedom from fear, freedom from oppression, etc., and have even begun to see this as a fundamental human right…

…so we can now begin to see freedom from economic oppression as a fundamental human right.

This means, that we need to turn our attention towards understanding how economics can serve the needs of the many, not merely the needs of the few, or the elite, or ‘the country’ in general (which de facto means the economic and political elite, since, a) these are usually interrelated, and b) the few hold the lion’s share of the capital in any given country).

My crucial insight on this plain has been the fact that the household is the basic unit, which in a given country, has its income set by the powers that be (employers), so that the household will be able to buy what are considered the ‘necessiites of life.’  In turn, the average household income tends to determine the prices of things:  the average household’s expense sheet will of necessity look like this: 

Was ’80s and ’90s U.S. suburbia the happiest place in world history?

I think it was.  Having lived extensively in Europe, the U.S. and Canada, hopping back and forth since the early 90s, I can say that U.S. suburbia really smokes the competition.  Canada was not far behind, perhaps Australia wasn’t so bad either, but it always strikes me as being pretty far from everywhere and thus essentially a bit duller.

Let’s look at the possible competitors for ‘happiest place in history.’  Basically, it’s obvious that there is no competition between pre-WWII and post-WWII societies, since before the war in most societies the vast majority of people were miserably poor.  Even if it was happy to be a rich, or middle class, person in this or that country prior to WWII, postwar developments in medicine, (dare I say it) technology, and just general wealth and happiness have made rich and middle-class peoples’ lives much better since then.

So we can indeed restrict ourselves to post WWII, and to the post WWII west, since almost everywhere else was poor, miserable, communist, or some combo.  Japan was ok materially after the 1950s, but doesn’t strike one as being a super happy society.  Too much stricture, too much crowding, not enough space, too much patriarchy, relations between the sexes are strained, women are restricted, men are forced to play tough guy serious roles to prove machismo, not to mention workaholism.  So Japan is out too.  Which leaves us basically post-1945 U.S., Canada, western Europe, and we’re writing out Aus as a probable runner up.

How angry should you be at the economic system? Is economic discrimination as outrageous as racism?

Last night I Watched DS9 episode “Far Beyond the Stars,” and was impressed by its grappling with the politics of being a black writer in early 1950s New York.  In the end, Sisko, as Bennie the black science fiction writer, has a breakdown, after seeing a black friend killed by the police for breaking into a car, and then being beaten himself to within an inch of his life, for daring to express outrage at the police brutality.  Later, he is fired from his job for daring to write a science fiction story about a black space captain in the future, and so this all comes together to provoke his mental breakdown, during which he repats:  ”I am a human being!”  The implication that his ideas deserve just as much recognition as anyone else’s:  his story was good, so who cares if it is about black men in positions of authority?  Why do whites need to fear this, or suppress the idea?

The episode was filmed in the late 90s, and since that time the arrival of Obama has made the issues feel much less ‘present-day’ poignant, though of course anyone with humanity can still sympathize in the historical context.  While in the late 90s, the notion of a black man in charge was still a futuristic dream, less so than in the 50s of course by  a longshot, but it was still unfulfilled… today, that sort of poignancy can never be as acute, thanks to Obama.  One of the epic healing salves of the entire American and indeed western culture was his election.  And yet it is striking, one of course has to sympathize with the notion of being discriminated against, being fired, being beaten up, having your friends die, simply b/c you are not the same color as the in-group.  In a paroxyism of rage, anger, and helplessness, which was still mitigated against by his stories which dared to dream of a better future, Bennie collapses on the office floor, and is carried out in an ambulance.

It struck me, that since this was filmed in about 1998, the race issue has been more healed than perhaps ever before, but that the economic issues underlying the episode have if anything gotten much worse.   Management and administration has everywhere not only gotten stronger, but implemented a policy of systematically squeezing, downsizing, piling on work, reducing salaries, reducing benefits, making every job part-time and short-duration which used to be stable and full time and long term.

And it struck me, that all of us are Sisko/Bennie.

We are all daily subject to indignities, to discrimination, to hierarchical control, dehumanization, prejudice, and institutionalized brutality.  And it is called your job.

What is the goal of economics?

This is a good question to ask, if only because one can go through many years of economic, financial, and business education, and not hear anyone actually ask this question.  You will hear professors and colleagues go on about the subject of economics, which is usually defined as the movement of goods, and the accumulation of wealth, but usually, you will find that these people are quite keen to avoid any value judgments.  The reason for this, of course, is that they tend to subscribe to some version of the neoliberal, laissez faire, and/or Ron Paulian notion that the goal of economics is to enrich me.  Or enrich the big people, or, enrich a few, or enrich the energetic, lucky, entrepreneurial, and/or crafty.  When pressed, most of them will then justify this science of acquisition with the ‘trickle down’ notion; which unfortunately for those of us who like to be idealistic, does have enough of a historical basis, more than any criticism can really cut down, so that these people can go on smugly creating a science of accumulation for the few.

The real goal of economics, of course, is the enrichment of everyone.  Just like the ultimate goal of medicine is the ultimate immortality of everyone; the ultimate goal of psychology is the creation of perfect sanity for everyone, and the ultimate goal of political science is the creation of a state which creates the conditions for the maximum enjoyment of life, for everyone.  Obviously, some of the social sciences, such as political science, are a bit problematic, since people will have conflicting goals and needs, and wants, but most of the sciences, and humanities, the subjects taught in a university, have goals which are definable as maximizing human happiness.

Let’s put the goal of economics in historical context.  In a hunter-gatherer society, there was little property to be had.  Economists have made the mistake, following political scientists, of thinking that ‘primitive’ societies did not have any unequal distribution of wealth.  Anthropologists have in the past 30 years or so proven quite strongly that almost every human society is hierarchical, and there are pecking orders, just as in almost all bird and mammal groups.  So, there was always an Alpha male, and Alpha female, etc, and even if there wasn’t much property, they got the best stuff:  they got the most food, which kept them strong, sleek, good-looking, and Alpha, and they of course got the most and best mates in the case of men, or the most select mates, in the case of females.  And what little property they had, the chief got the best.  So, the problem with Rousseau’s theory, etc., is that it grossly misread the nature of primitive human society, as it evolved over tens of thousands of years, and millions before homo sapiens.

Have American standards of living gone into irreversible decline?

There is much hoopla at the moment about the decline of the American middle class.  I know all about it, since I have been close, but not quite managed to grab one of those hallowed academic jobs which would make my life finally comfortable after years of deprivation.   The numbers in the faculty are getting worse by the year; when I began graduate school in the late 90s, about 75 percent of all teaching was still done by full-time faculty, with benefits, but by the time I was a serious contender on the job market, in 2008, this had shifted to 75 percent part-timers.  Now, only 20 percent of teaching at U.S. colleges and universities is done by full-time faculty.  The profession has literally disintegrated out from under me.  We were told by our professors:  hey, the baby boomers are about to retire, so now’s a great time to be on the job market!  As it turned out, the MBA-efficiency people had figured out that they could downsize everything, and pay everyone virtually nothing, for the same work.  Great idea, right!  Except that the U.S. professoriate has been gutted; there are many geniuses with Harvard PhDs now waiting years to get a tenure-track job, if ever.

The real issue here is the disentegration of the American middle class.  It is now far harder to become a professor, something like 4-5x harder, than 20 years ago; so that the Chronicle of Higher Ed is running ads saying “Don’t to go graduate school.”  And the example of the professoriate is typical of a number of other former ‘professions.’  Most of the writing, editing, architecture, creative design, journalism, etc., fields, in which there used to be an ok number of permanent jobs with benefits available, have been similarly gutted.  Same with teaching high school or even elementary school.  Often the only places hiring are inner-city schools where there is no teaching to be done, but one has to be more of a warden than a teacher, and one is literally in danger of one’s life!  Hardly a middle-class lifestyle.  How many business people go into work fearing that their colleagues may pull out a gun… teachers have to put up with way too much stress, especially urban teachers.  And elementary schools on ‘lockdown’ all the time, because the stupid arse NRA has so much leverage, and has convinced half the populace that they will be safer when packing a pistol?  What is that, the wild west?  In England, almost no one has guns, and somehow, they don’t shoot each other.  In the wild west, everyone had guns, and they all shot each other.  The logic there is pretty plain.

So, the main point being, that many avenues into the middle class which were once mainstays of the populace, are now closed.  Being a professor is not possible, being a teacher is not possible.  Being an office person is about the only career path left.  And yet downsizing has made this much much more stressful than ever before.  Now, to keep a job, you have to literally work 70 hour weeks?  And get ulcers and the like?  Doing what?  Often, incredibly meaningless, tedious work, for no reasonable purpose.  

Is occupy wall street rooted in an ‘evasion of personal responsibility’?

I can thank a facebook amigo of mine for the observation that the Occupy protests, and workers’ complaints in general, tend to be ‘completely misdirected and deflecting personal responsibility.’

This line of argument runs that, it is each person’s responsibility to better his or her situation, not by ‘complaining,’ but by ‘doing.’  I.e., work hard, and/or if the situation is stinky, leave and find another situation.  By ‘voting with your feet,’ workers will teach bosses that they cannot get away with certain abuses, and over time the worst of these will disappear.

This line of argument, it will be noted, has become most common amongst those citizens of the U.S. who:

a)  Are the unwitting beneficiaries of a unique confluence of economic factors which made it extremely easy for American citizens to earn a decent middle-class living during the 63 years between 1945 and 2008, but which will perhaps never again favour US citizens so much (these conditions included a very developed US, and a very poor India, China, Africa, and Russia, and a socialist Europe. – which made the US by default an economic powerhouse, with a unique ability to command and produce resources – like the Dutch and English in earlier centuries, who had advanced economies and few competitors but which then lost this advantage and melded into relative mediocrity.)

b) Are ahead of the IQ, education, and starting social network curve, and thus can always find a better-than-average-paying job with relatively little effort and/or luck.

c) Have ‘paid their dues’ buy buying into the system – working long hours, sacrificing many dreams and goals outside of work life, sacrificing many quality of life issues, but receiving in return a better-than-average remuneration, which gives them a decent amount of capital and ‘stuff’ to protect.  Thus both ‘survivors bias’ (meaning they are already good at/accustomed to working within the system), and also ‘sour grapes’ bias – i.e., the very real element of jealousy for those who haven’t had to make such sacrificies, inspired even by the thought that anyone might have their cake without having to make the same sacrifices– play heavily into their opinions.

d) And/or, have been influenced by a highly professionalized corps of demagogues, who in the US are overwhelmingly funded and maintained by the economic elite, whose primary purpose is to find ways to sell the agenda of the economic elite to the masses, by appealing to and systematically inflaming their commonest fears of ‘the other.’  This strategy has over the past 20 years worked incredibly well, and created an army of Limbaugh-zombies, who are highly suspicious of science and logic, and who, hypnotized by Rush’s admittedly skillful demagoguery, will now systematically vote against their own best interest, and that of the global community, virtually in lock step with the agenda of the corporate elite… gee, how did that happen?  Isn’t it strange that the will of a large block of the working classes should correspond almost exactly with the agenda of the ultra-rich?  Gosh… some coincidence, eh?

A bit of reflection will reveal that this line of argument, however, is based on the following fallacious assumptions:

1- The economy is inevitably ‘darwinist.’  It assumes that the system is essentially as fair as it will ever get, because the economy is naturally a ‘survival of the fittest’ type system.  Libertarians like to assume that ‘nature’ inevitably requires people to struggle against one another for a piece of a very limited pie.

The problem with this is, that as I have argued elsewhere, there are many, many laws in place which make everyones’ lives so much better than they would be in a darwinist situation, and many of these have been won by long-term struggling and protest, and also by legislation.  For example, it is illegal to own your own rocket launcher.  The reasons for this should be obvious, but true libertarians suggest that we should all own them, if we wish.

And what if all labour laws were uniform, and fair?

We’ve had a post about the “UN as a stepping stone to world government.”  I’ve noted that the American right seems quite paranoid about the notion of a ‘world government’ (and the UN)… and if the American right is paranoid about something, one can bet that this reflects the paranoias of the corporate elite… since, need I spell this out… the American right is basically the world’s best mouthpiece for global capitalism, i.e., the interests of the main global corporations.  (Like microsoft, who took over skype, forced you to accept multiple downloads per day, and then when you go to contact skype customer service, are directed to the microsoft website, which has ‘support options’ for about 16 different ‘products’, none of which is skype!!!)

Well, one reason why the American right (and thus the global corporate elite) is paranoid about any notion of world government is that it represents the possibility of having uniform global labour laws.  Now, friends, global corporations thrive, and make most of their dough, on exploiting legal loopholes which arise between different countries.  It’s interesting, because while feudalism thrived on having many local legislations, capitalism is seen as having broken down this feudal mentality.  But now we see that the global companies are actually happy with the current fragmented world system, insofar as it gives them major tax shelters, and also, employment loopholes.

Thus, when unions in the developed world got too strong, they moved to the third world, where they can exploit the workers much more handily, for much less dinero paid.

Some day, however, it is more or less inevitable that we will come up with some global labour laws – kind of like global bills of rights.  This is simply too logical, too scientific, for it not to happen;