The Role of The Merchant Class In Post-Industrialized Nations
_wastrel and I have been riding the same brain wave this week. Here's a comment a posted in response to the aforementioned subject matter.
Your post interested me very much because you've touched on a subject that I've been thinking about all week: the role of the merchant class in society. My favorite show on the Travel Channel is "Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations", and in one of this week's episodes he visited Osaka and the Kiso Valley in Japan. I was very surprised to see - at least through Anthony Bourdain's eyes - Osaka, Japan is remarkably similiar to my current home of Knoxville, Tennesee, only replace their devotion to baseball with our devotion to college football. Everything else - the view from the rest of the country that we're just consumerist bumpkins (we are), our love of all things fried and beer-ish, a fondness for the basest forms of comedy (coughcountrymusiccough), and the "nation's kitchen" title, since nobody in Knoxville eats at home or cooks...we're practically sister cities. Even, the Kiso Valley looks remarkably like The Great Smoky Mountains National Forest which I can look out and see from my window right now. My point about Osaka is that it was - and is - a merchant city. As such, it was looked down upon for the very reasons you describe above (_wastrel mentioned how in East Asian religious and philosophical belief systems, people who sell things for a living are just a little bit better than maggots on the social scale), so much so that the merchant class was legally not allowed to display signs of prestige. They weren't allowed to have fancy homes or to wear flashy clothing. The only thing they could really legally spend their money on was food which shaped the destiny of the city considerably. Osaka isn't the prettiest place in Japan, it's not the hipest, it's not even the most interesting. But it is the tastiest. Anyway, I was like, "Really, the merchant class was looked down upon?" This was a novel idea to my capitialist educated ears. But then I read your post, and I started thinking about it, and I thought, "Well, of course it was. It is!" Right now, in the United States, all the school children are selling things. The public schools don't get enough funding to do all they want to do, so they have the kids sell things all year long - coupon books, magazine subscriptions, candy. This is in addition to the scouting and church organizations selling things. It is annoying as hell! Is there anything more annoying than having every single family member under the age of 18 plus all the neighborhood kids plus all the school-aged kids of your friends give you the puppy dog eyes and say, "Please, mam, help me sell enough coupon books so I can go on a field trip"? It's awful. Plus, when I was a kid, I hated selling crap. I got my parents and grandparents to buy the bare minimum to keep me out of trouble at school, and then I was like, "Yeah, everyone go on to the zoo trip without me. No, really, I don't care. Go. I have my crayons to keep me warm." So, I hate that. I hate my friends and my sister-in-law for laying the guilt trip on me when I say, "No." Naturally, the merchant class is despised! But, it's a love/hate relationship. You gotta have somebody selling something before you can buy it. You gotta have people buying things to have a healthy economy. Two jobs ago, I worked as an ad-server person. That's the person who puts up all the annoying ads - the pop-ups, the cookies, the flash animation that kills my mother-in-law's dial up connection. So, in essence, I was Satan's minion. But, as you said, you do what you gotta do. I challenge anyone to be out of work for as long as I was and not take that job. I quit because I couldn't handle dealing with the sales reps, though. They were all New Yorkers, and it was 2002, right after 9/11. They were an emotional, high-strung, nihilistic bunch who thought nothing of contacting me at 6 am in a panic because the Ziploc bag ads weren't getting enough click-throughs. Of course, after I jumped ship, I just went to another level of hell as a Human Resources assistant, wallowing in the slime-filled waters of health insurance. You're a slave to the money then you die. What I'm saying is, anyone who looks down on you for your job is a fucking hypocrite. Well, a judgemental ass anyway. Just don't take the hang-ups or the tantrums from your callers personally. They might of just had a day where their doorbell didn't stop ringing from the onslaught of dewey-eyed children selling $5 chocolate bars. ;-)
Your post interested me very much because you've touched on a subject that I've been thinking about all week: the role of the merchant class in society. My favorite show on the Travel Channel is "Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations", and in one of this week's episodes he visited Osaka and the Kiso Valley in Japan. I was very surprised to see - at least through Anthony Bourdain's eyes - Osaka, Japan is remarkably similiar to my current home of Knoxville, Tennesee, only replace their devotion to baseball with our devotion to college football. Everything else - the view from the rest of the country that we're just consumerist bumpkins (we are), our love of all things fried and beer-ish, a fondness for the basest forms of comedy (coughcountrymusiccough), and the "nation's kitchen" title, since nobody in Knoxville eats at home or cooks...we're practically sister cities. Even, the Kiso Valley looks remarkably like The Great Smoky Mountains National Forest which I can look out and see from my window right now. My point about Osaka is that it was - and is - a merchant city. As such, it was looked down upon for the very reasons you describe above (_wastrel mentioned how in East Asian religious and philosophical belief systems, people who sell things for a living are just a little bit better than maggots on the social scale), so much so that the merchant class was legally not allowed to display signs of prestige. They weren't allowed to have fancy homes or to wear flashy clothing. The only thing they could really legally spend their money on was food which shaped the destiny of the city considerably. Osaka isn't the prettiest place in Japan, it's not the hipest, it's not even the most interesting. But it is the tastiest. Anyway, I was like, "Really, the merchant class was looked down upon?" This was a novel idea to my capitialist educated ears. But then I read your post, and I started thinking about it, and I thought, "Well, of course it was. It is!" Right now, in the United States, all the school children are selling things. The public schools don't get enough funding to do all they want to do, so they have the kids sell things all year long - coupon books, magazine subscriptions, candy. This is in addition to the scouting and church organizations selling things. It is annoying as hell! Is there anything more annoying than having every single family member under the age of 18 plus all the neighborhood kids plus all the school-aged kids of your friends give you the puppy dog eyes and say, "Please, mam, help me sell enough coupon books so I can go on a field trip"? It's awful. Plus, when I was a kid, I hated selling crap. I got my parents and grandparents to buy the bare minimum to keep me out of trouble at school, and then I was like, "Yeah, everyone go on to the zoo trip without me. No, really, I don't care. Go. I have my crayons to keep me warm." So, I hate that. I hate my friends and my sister-in-law for laying the guilt trip on me when I say, "No." Naturally, the merchant class is despised! But, it's a love/hate relationship. You gotta have somebody selling something before you can buy it. You gotta have people buying things to have a healthy economy. Two jobs ago, I worked as an ad-server person. That's the person who puts up all the annoying ads - the pop-ups, the cookies, the flash animation that kills my mother-in-law's dial up connection. So, in essence, I was Satan's minion. But, as you said, you do what you gotta do. I challenge anyone to be out of work for as long as I was and not take that job. I quit because I couldn't handle dealing with the sales reps, though. They were all New Yorkers, and it was 2002, right after 9/11. They were an emotional, high-strung, nihilistic bunch who thought nothing of contacting me at 6 am in a panic because the Ziploc bag ads weren't getting enough click-throughs. Of course, after I jumped ship, I just went to another level of hell as a Human Resources assistant, wallowing in the slime-filled waters of health insurance. You're a slave to the money then you die. What I'm saying is, anyone who looks down on you for your job is a fucking hypocrite. Well, a judgemental ass anyway. Just don't take the hang-ups or the tantrums from your callers personally. They might of just had a day where their doorbell didn't stop ringing from the onslaught of dewey-eyed children selling $5 chocolate bars. ;-)