[Leica] OT ! a naked exposure

[buzz.hausner at verizon.net (Buzz Hausner)]

Whew!  I'm sure glad you cleared that up.

        Buzz Hausner

-----Original Message-----
From: lug-bounces+buzz.hausner=verizon.net@leica-users.org
[mailto:lug-bounces+buzz.hausner=verizon.net@leica-users.org] On Behalf
Of hlritter@mindspring.com
Sent: Saturday, January 08, 2005 4:48 PM
To: lug@leica-users.org
Subject: RE: [Leica] OT ! a naked exposure

This is a good point, though there are two ways to look at it. The
superficial rationalization is that economies of scale and low wages
allow goods to be sold at prices significantly lower than what
"mom-and-pop", or non-chain, non-discount stores have to charge. If the
function of a retail store is to enable consumers to purchase goods,
then so what if one-off retailers are pushed out of business by big-box
stores? The point is to buy goods at the most economical price. Why
should I pay more for a head of lettuce just to help keep a neighborhood
grocery in business when I can save 20% by shopping at Sam's Club? I
don't work 50 hours a week in order to have enough money to pay
inefficient operations more than efficient ones for the same goods! The
same applies to factory farms vs. family farms: What is my interest in
paying hard-earned money to help to "preserve a uniquely American way of
life, reminiscent of a more innocent era, embodying rural and earthy
family values", ya!
 da yada yada. Times change! Societies evolve! They said the same thing
about the demise of buggy makers and blacksmiths. Just get a grip on the
facts of history and deal with it!

I have to agree that all of the above is true, and I sympathize with it,
but there's more to it.

The more nuanced (and at the same time, perhaps paradoxically na??ve)
realization is that some big-box discounters are not merely a passive
conduit for goods and that bloodthirsty, take-no-prisoners personnel
policies ignore the obligations of the successful and powerful in a
complex symbiotic economy. Centralized chains that move huge amounts of
goods can contract with the cheapest suppliers (e.g., China Inc., Nike,
and all the others that make products that sell for huge multiples of
the cost of materials and labor) for goods that largely replace
domestically-produced equivalents. They are market-makers for goods,
swinging a weight that can alter corporate policies (provoking offshore
moves, for example) in the relentless quest for "shareholder value"
(translation: corporate profit), as if that entity trumps all other
considerations. This is Greg's "vicious circle of cheap imports and
low-paying jobs".

As for symbiosis and the obligation of the powerful: In a natural
society, there is an inevitable stratification of talent and ability
among individuals. If the vigor of an economy and the profitability of
business result from a broad demand that is an emergent property of an
extensively differentiated and specialized society in general, and
depend on the existence of a mutually dependent system of economic and
living interactions--and they do--then the existence and needs of lower
strata must be accepted along with the opportunities for consumption and
economic transaction afforded by the existence of relatively affluent
consumers. In other words, a natural society that produces the
opportunity to profit from selling to those who are able also produces
those who are less able, and in some case unable. You can't have a
natural population that consists of nothing but highly productive
individuals. (This is not only natural and inevitable, but good. Society
needs everything fr!
 om ditchdiggers to garbage collectors to roofers to electricians to
teachers to nurses to doctors to scientists--with seekers after public
office in there somewhere. Few who are innately capable of becoming
solid-state physicists end up pushing brooms for lack of the right
opportunities--though that lack CAN make the difference between
self-sufficiency and dependency.) Part of the obligation of the
productive is public support for people of good intention who just can't
make it. Support should take, ultimately, the affording of the means for
advancement, but for some people, at some times, welfare support is just
necessary. The problem with the idea that everyone should be held solely
responsible for his own course in life, sink or swim, it's up to you and
too bad if you can't float, is that no one is required to do everything
for himself. This is not the raw frontier where each person accomplishes
every task, meets every need, for himself. We are differentiated and
special!
 ized. This happens only in a diversified population, a society, and an
 inevitable part of any society is the presence of the less able. It is
immoral to expect to benefit from the spending of the able without
acknowledging the needs of the less able. In the same sense, the
corporate entities that reap huge profits from massive sales of cheap
goods in low-overhead stores, taking advantage, legitimately, of the
spending power of society, have an obligation to acknowledge the needs
of that society beyond consumers' need for cheap lettuce. When they
contract for foreign goods, pay starvation wages, and do the other
things that Wal-Mart does to maximize "shareholder value", they are
failing this obligation. Shareholder value comes about only in a
differentiated society, in which the needs of society for decent pay for
everyone are a corporate obligation. All economic power comes from the
public, and decency is owed back to the public that makes profits
possible--a decency beyond selling lettuce as cheaply as possible.


It may well be that in a purely laissez-faire capitalism, the interests
of the owners of the company do trump all other considerations, but my
position is that we left that kind of society behind after Dickensian
times. This admittedly socialist-left stance sits in cognitive
dissonance with my libertarian feelings, and I am still trying to
understand what I really think. It is an emblem of my naivete that I
think there is a solution out there somewhere, an acceptable balance of
legislation with laissez-faire. 

--howard