The Anticonsumer
I've been thinking a lot lately about labor and wealth. I think America's working poor have them in about the right ratio. Perhaps we're even better off than we deserve to be. So it's not for our own sakes that we oppose the greedy machinations of the super-wealthy. It's not from us that they steal. It's not our own share that we fight to have them stripped of. It's the share that we, as a society, steal from the developing world.
My laptop cost $300. There's no way I could build a laptop for a $300 investment of my own labor. Nor could I create a bicycle, a pair of pants, or indeed, anything but the simplest of tools for less than their going price.
There's an efficiency advantage to mass production, of course. By specializing, we increase our collective wealth at the price of becoming dependent on one another. But even that does not fully account for the low prices of imported goods.
No - this is the true cost of the kind of lifestyle the working poor dream of and the wealthy take for granted.
Let me no longer dream...
My laptop cost $300. There's no way I could build a laptop for a $300 investment of my own labor. Nor could I create a bicycle, a pair of pants, or indeed, anything but the simplest of tools for less than their going price.
There's an efficiency advantage to mass production, of course. By specializing, we increase our collective wealth at the price of becoming dependent on one another. But even that does not fully account for the low prices of imported goods.
No - this is the true cost of the kind of lifestyle the working poor dream of and the wealthy take for granted.
Let me no longer dream...