There's a brand of sub-economic thinking that I think lies behind these posters. It's thinking of jobs (jobs as scientists in this case; but other jobs in others) as fiefs. If you're the Thane of Cawdor, you're entitled to the rents, and no one else; if you're also Thane of Glamis, you get the rents of Glamis and no one else. Presumably the King would like to have a good fighter in those positions, but more importantly he wants someone loyal (through family ties or otherwise), and the central concept is that whether you earned the fief through good service or not -- it is an award of the King's favor; it might go to anyone of any ability; but he chose you. There are only so many little plots of ground in the kingdom, and one more for someone else is one less for you. And if your family isn't getting these favors while his new in-laws are, they're "favored" over you, and if you felt entitled, you may just be angry. ("False, fleeting, perjur'd Clarence" may've been so motivated in his plots against Edward IV.) Naturally, then, in our world of political "tribes" -- you want your tribe to get its share, and you'll clamor and rebel 'til it gets it.
Since jobs, contracts, wealth, and talent are not like that -- abilities are not evenly distributed, and neither are the habits and attitudes that put those abilities to work; and a contract to perform services is not an entitlement of royal favor -- the campaign is as absurd as Dalrymple paints it, though it flatters resentment.
Unfortunately, in the midst of striking down one kind of sub-economic thinking, he falls into another himself:
In any case, we all know that commercial advertising is not intended as an enquiry after truth: it is in general trying to make us want what we do not need, an endeavor which makes the economic world go round. If consumers suddenly decided that they would buy only what they needed, they would do more damage to the economy than whole skyscrapers full of bankers misappropriating shareholders’ funds!Cute, maybe, but poorly thought out. Firstly he doesn't say what he means by "need" -- an important qualification. "Need" for what purpose? To live another minute, or something more? Maybe he knows what kind of good life we "need" things for, but he ought to have specified or provided a link. (Normally someone who tells me I don't "need" something wants to justify taking it from me...Dalrymple, at least, isn't thinking that way, though I wish he'd watch that kind of language.) Assuming he has something in mind -- bare survival to an average age of 35, say -- I have two answers for him.
The first is from King Lear:
O, reason not the need! Our basest beggarsA perceptive thought from a man Dalrymple often recognizes as unsurpassed in his understanding of human nature. Humans as they are do not limit themselves to "need," and do not need anyone's advertising to persuade them to strive for much more.
Are in the poorest thing superfluous.
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man’s life’s as cheap as beast’s. Thou art a lady.
If only to go warm were gorgeous,
Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear’st,
Which scarcely keeps thee warm....
My second response is indirectly from Jean-Baptiste Say -- who in turn formulated it in response to an earlier brand of subeconomic thinking. (Into which Dalrymple seems to be falling.) The economic world does not go 'round because we're overproducing stuff that advertising tricks us into wanting (so that our failure to want it would be a terrible harm, and we're only one great moment of enlightenment from collapse); but by people's efforts to get what they want. If we decided, all together, to acquire only what we "needed," we'd decide at the same time to produce only what we "needed" -- and at the end of the adjustment (which might be quite a shock, I grant) the economy would tick along just fine.
Doubtless it would be an economy of extreme poverty, and probably support only smaller populations - maybe built around some kind of subsistence farming, or maybe less than that - but in the world he hypothesizes, so what? No one would mind. It would fit the "needs" of that society. Rousseau might've approved, and we'd have no worries about who practices science...which, presumably, we would not "need" at all.
I think Dalrymple's reply would be that he's talking about things man doesn't need at all, in the sense that if you took them away, the man would get along just as well as before. Take spray-can shaving cream, for example. It's fine to shave with; it's not necessary for shaving, though. Lots of other things will do just as well, including plain soap if you work up a good lather and use hot water.
ReplyDeleteCome to think of it, you can get by without shaving at all, certain Army regulations notwithstanding.
If a man bought just what he needs in this sense, it would undo several major industries.
By the way, what do you mean by "sub economic thinking"? That it's a subordinate discipline to economics? Or that it's a poor sort of economics? Or something else?
ReplyDeleteBut I wouldn't get along "just as well" without spray-can shaving cream. I would lose the extra time (and have to take the extra trouble) it takes to "work up a good lather."
ReplyDeleteMind you, I know a sailor who likes to make shaving a lengthy morning ritual, with a straight-edge razor and old-fashioned shaving soap. Good for him if that gives him pleasure. But I consider shaving at all a kind of chore, to be got out of the way as fast as possible, and if I give up that item -- I lose something. A small something, but something.
Be nice and clean - shave ev'ry day, and you'll always look keen.
"Sub-economic thinking" is a term I just made up so I probably should've said...it's the kind (or rather the several kinds) of thinking on economic matters that people fall into, or revert to, when they ignore basic economics. Such as Luddite thinking about technology, or the idea that economic recessions result from "general overproduction."
ReplyDeleteNah, you wouldn't lose extra time. It saves time to use soap. That's why I gave up on shaving cream in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI used to enjoy a good, close shave. It's a kind of special pleasure. But now I get that pleasure from shaving my head, so I can let the beard be.
So you mean you think it's a kind of economic thinking that doesn't rise to the level of true economics, then. Which means that, if people disagree with you about fundamentals of economic theory, you'll insist that they aren't thinking correctly until they can convince you that they understand the problem well enough to discuss it.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like an honorable pastime to me: on the order of taking hold of a bridge and refusing to let anyone pass unless they can beat you.
As for the shaving cream song, it's interesting that all these songs about soap and shaving and cleanliness generally sound similar.
ReplyDeleteA medieval baron probably didn't really NEED his neighbor's land all that much, but that didn't keep him from wanting it and doing what he had to do in order to get it.
ReplyDeleteA bureaucrat in the Soviet Union might well not have NEEDED to get promoted to the next higher level position, given that he already had his dacha and automobile and access to the special stores, but he wanted that promotion, and if the price of that was sending a few thousand more dissidents and random innocent people to Siberia, well, that's what he would do.
The idea that there is something uniquely evil about consumer products as a motivating factor seems more than a little sketchy.
Remember he's talking about the advertising department of L'Oreal cosmetics, which is very much in the business of producing things no one needs. Even if, to take Joe's point, you thought you had some minutely-quantifiable benefit from buying their specific scents instead of others, you could get the same scents generically -- no one but you knows what the bottle looks like out of which they came, after all.
ReplyDeleteSo it isn't that the consumer products are evil, just that there's a kind of game by which they convince us they are important when they are not. And without this game, he says, what would become of the consumer economy?
That's a far cry from suggesting the game is evil. Without evil, what would become of us? Only good things, presumably. But bad things follow from the end of this game, at least for everyone whose livelihood is connected with the production of unnecessary trivialities.
I think advertising probably has more effect on changing the *mix* of consumer purchases than the absolute level thereof. Consider for example England circa 1750-1850. I doubt that advertising was much of a factor, yet among the aristocracy there were often notorious levels of what we could legitimately call Consumer Spending...expensive horses, clothes for the London season, trips abroad, gambling, jewelry, etc--to the point of putting large mortgages on the estates and ultimately destroying the family wealth.
ReplyDeleteIn the case of L'Oreal, I suspect the effect of their advertising is less to increase the overall level of luxury spending than to grab share from other forms of such spending...jewelry, expensive dresses, etc. (Of course, that's assuming the advertising *works*, something not always easy to determine)
...the overall level of luxury spending...
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting argument, and one that is susceptible to empirical study. Do you know of any?
I know that for a long time hard liquor companies were forbidden from buying billboard advertisements (at least here, but I think nationally), on the theory that it would increase hard liquor consumption, especially among the poor (who should buy fewer luxuries, if the goal is to reduce their dependence on welfare programs). But I don't know if the initiative reduced liquor consumption, let alone if it reduced luxury consumption.
Not aware of any such story, but that doesn't mean it's not out there somewhere, of course.
ReplyDeleteIt seems pretty difficult to actually define "luxury spending" precisely. For example, I have a BMW convertible, which I bought used. I could have gotten something cheaper but functional, OTOH, I could have gotten the new version of the car and paid more. Luxury spending, or not?
Thinking out loud, perhaps consumer advertising of the L'Oreal type represents both a response to, and a further instigator of, the anonymizing of witnesses to status. The English lady in 1820 had to worry about what Mrs Grundy, in the next manor house over, would think of her new dress; the modern American woman has a much larger potential "audience" and hence may rely on media...whether advertising or editorial coverage...to tell her what will be perceived as high status.
Meant to say "any such STUDY"
ReplyDeleteWell, apparently what will be perceived as "high status" is declaring to your friends and family that Science Needs Women.
ReplyDeleteSo you mean you think it's a kind of economic thinking that doesn't rise to the level of true economics, then. Which means that, if people disagree with you about fundamentals of economic theory, you'll insist that they aren't thinking correctly until they can convince you that they understand the problem well enough to discuss it.
ReplyDeleteCut off the last fifteen words or so. If I disagree with someone, obviously I will maintain that he "isn't thinking correctly." That's what disagreement means!
But that doesn't mean I declare him "unable to have a discussion with."
I use "sub-economic" for the more primitive kinds of economic fallacies, such as the Luddite idea that "technology means unemployment," or the bullionist/mercantilist idea that "wealth means money."
I think the "Madison Avenue Mind Control Lasers" falls into that category -- pure sneering snobbery expressed as an economic idea. Hands off my Barbasol, socialists!
What I think you're doing is less having a discussion, than having a meta-discussion: 'Let us discuss whether your ideas are good enough to discuss.' :)
ReplyDeleteIn any case, I'm not all that impressed with current economic theories. Now there are two ways to address a problem where a current theory seems to fail us in some important way: go forward, and go back. It strikes the chords of the American heart to say that we should "Go forward!" But forward where?
The advantage of dropping back is that you have a chance to examine the foundations of the theories, and see just what assumptions were built into them. If you drop back far enough, you find a stable footing from which to criticize the framework that wasn't adequate to your problem. It's hard to criticize a system from inside it; and it isn't always obvious where to go from there. Sometimes dropping back is just the way to find the cracks in the foundations.
Engineered hijacking of STEM and US military upper echelons, for a more perfect human Utopia.
ReplyDeleteCurrent economic theories are for dum dums. A barter economy based upon bottle caps as metal based currency, would work better.
No, not really. Even a thoughtless sneer might be worth a few moments' discussion.
ReplyDeleteThe advantage of dropping back is that you have a chance to examine the foundations of the theories, and see just what assumptions were built into them. If you drop back far enough, you find a stable footing from which to criticize the framework that wasn't adequate to your problem. It's hard to criticize a system from inside it; and it isn't always obvious where to go from there. Sometimes dropping back is just the way to find the cracks in the foundations.
I'm fine with that idea, and in fact I hope that in the coming century we'll advance our understanding of human nature enough to do just that...to create a far more rigorous study of economics.
The problem is, what I see more often is "dropping back" not to build a better study, but "dropping back" in order to abandon any serious study of economics, and return to whatever old fallacies the person likes, be they the "exploitation theory of interest" or the "luddite theory of employment."
Aldous Huxley famously said - "It is impossible to live without a metaphysic. The choice that is given us is not between some kind of metaphysic and no metaphysic; it is always between a good metaphysic and a bad metaphysic." If you're going to talk public policy, I think that goes just as much for economic theory.