It's not easy being Green. But WHY insist we knit our own ties? Following on from last week's approbation of one Green Party policy, it is possibly time for me to get off my chest an issue over the policy general of said greenery luvvies that really, really, bugs me. Specifically, it is this idea that we should rely upon markets less and do more things "for ourselves". As I'll explain, …
Quite right. Insisting on making everything yourself is, at least, a bit odd but there is a lot of pleasure to be gained from home cooking, a spot of DIY etc., etc.
I don't think Greens (or hippies) are averse to markets either. There are thriving craft/farmers'/small producers' markets in my neck of the woods where even the "Swampiest" of participants is happy to (say) sell homemade soap for money which is then used to buy toothpaste made by someone else.
But here's the rub. The markets described above are emphatically not small-scale versions of the all-powerful "markets" that dominate our lives. The latter are very, very different, and not in a good way.
The Greens have interesting things to say on these matters, taking in fiat currency issues along the way. And that's a lot more interesting than homemade toothpaste.
+1
Money isn't everything, despite what TW seems to want to think.
Looking at things from a blinkered Smithian point of view might make you conclude that people doing things for themselves are"poorer" thereby, but him using this as an excuse to jump on his hobby horse and ride it around trumpetting the virtues of the Free Market whilst sneering at Greens with petty and childish comments about knitting yoghurt and organic lentils just doesn't wash.
"Money isn't everything, despite what TW seems to want to think."
But in virtually every column, TW states that doing more of what you want - if you want Facebitch and gain more time to spend doing Facebitch, one his favourite examples - then you're better off. So why do you state that TW thinks money is everything?
The point of this is not that money is everything.
We (or at least most of us) earn money spending time doing things we don't want to do. Therefore, money is just a representation of our time.
This means that, in my case, I give up 40 hours of my own time, doing something I don't want to do, in order to be able to do things I do want to do. My week's pay packet is 40 hours of my time. I then spend portions of that on other things I need, then the remainder on things I want to do.
Money is a generalised token system representing, mostly, your time (to a specific individual). Time is pretty much all we have. I, personally, would not spend that time growing veggies. I do, however, enjoy cooking, or fixing cars/motorbikes. I could pay someone else to do that (and frequently do if there is something else I would prefer to spend my time on), but the point is that I have time to do what I want to do. I have that by trading some of my time.
".....There are thriving craft/farmers'/small producers' markets..... sell homemade soap for money..... the all-powerful "markets" that dominate our lives. The latter are very, very different, and not in a good way....." So, Zog, how many of those craft marketeers were selling home-made motherboards or RAM, etched in their kitchen sinks? Any selling organic telecom fibre cabling? Or flash drives? Or even keyboards? The very products required for you to post your denial of economic reality with. Face it - that technology was produced by the "all-powerful markets", by a lot of very, very specialized working, the majority working for "eeeviiiiilllll" capitalist companies. I bet the vast majority, if not all, of those craft marketeers used products sourced from the "all powerful market" in order to produce their wares. How many of your organic farmers used factory-made tools, probably with steel from open-caste mines in China? If you really want to pretend that craft markets and DIY are the ideal then quit using all the advances of modern society and go live in a mud hut, otherwise you're just being a hypocrite.
No, I do not want society to revert to us all being hunter-gatherer-farmers just to please the hippies, nor am I interested in some form of pre-medieval bartering lifestyle. I'm quite happy to sell my specialized skills for money and have the spare time and take the technological advantages of the "all powerful market" to watch Netflix, thanks.
I'm not going to disagree with the main thrust of the argument. But I do think you're overstating it and using it to have a go at other social attitudes.
1) A big part of that increase in agricultural productivity from one person feeding two people to feeding 100 people is Promethean energy use rather than Smithsian productivity via specialisation. It can't be done without the increase in energy usage facilitated by cheap and plentiful fossil fuels. Yes, going against that specialisation is a bad idea, but the system is still broken and solutions still have to be found to create a sustainable version of late 20th century agriculture.
2) Just because there's a section of the Green, eco-aware movement that is into the stupidity of knitting yogurt into yurts doesn't mean that the Green, eco-aware movement can be dismissed totally as universally stupid. Repeating that too much begins to look like techno-utopian denialism and an attempt to smear attempts to recognise a real problem and look for real solutions to it.
Which is to say we need a Green movement that embraces technology, specialism and capitalism. But it still needs to be Green.
If I can make a cheaper and better chocolate cake using ingredients sourced at retail cost, than a huge company, is it me who is ruining the economy or the company feeding excess profits into the directors off-shore HSBC account?
If the market is working properly, individuals would never find themselves in a position to undercut the big players, that they do in many sectors of trade suggests the market is being controlled by the big players and so the only option left open to the general public, to take back control, is to do it yourself. The markets will soon readjust and the days of excess profits will be no more.
This post has been deleted by its author
Because economists (like undergrad physics) ignores friction.
Monsanto can grow grain more cheaply than I can so I buy their grain.
In February they can manage to deliver poor quality expensive imported lettuce to the supermarket.
In spring and summer they cannot deliver 4 fresh lettuce leaves in seconds direct to my kitchen cheaper than I can go and pluck them from the garden.
This post has been deleted by its author
If I can make a cheaper and better chocolate cake using ingredients sourced at retail cost, than a huge company, is it me who is ruining the economy or the company feeding excess profits into the directors off-shore HSBC account?
But how much time do you spend doing so? I assume you enjoy baking, so it is a recreational activity for you. However, if it was not you would be spending that time working. Googling, a simple cake takes about half an hour to make, or I can go to the supermarket and spend £5, which will get me a nice enough cake, finished and ready to eat.
I can do a better job, for less money, cleaning my car at home rather than taking it to one of those hand car wash places. But it will take me a lot longer to do so. For less than £5 I can get my car washed. For £15 I can get it cleaned inside and out. Alterrnatively I can spend a couple of hours doing it myself to get it perfect. Most of the time, I would rather take the first option, and waste only 10-15mins, during which I can relax and listen to the radio, then have more than an hour of extra time to do things I enjoy.
The real problem is that the "market" is simply failing to provide adequate product.
It doesn't matter that you can find something (possibly) cheap for sale offered by someone else. It doesn't matter because it's crap and it's no substitute for the real thing. The real thing simply isn't being sold because of industrial practices and corporate corner cutting. If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself because there's NO WHERE you can buy it.
Even a good cleaning can fall in this category (sadly).
The problem with doing something for yourself even just one time is that you see just how sad the industrialized version is and how inadequate it is.
The real thing simply isn't being sold because of industrial practices and corporate corner cutting. If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself because there's NO WHERE you can buy it.
Yeah, right on! I'm working on my own CPU chip at the moment. It looks like it will take me a while, but it's going to be much better than the rubbish Intel make.
//If I can make a cheaper and better chocolate cake using ingredients sourced at retail cost ...//
If you can, then please make me one. I have money. And I'm sure others will want some too - you should set up a business making chocolate cake (using ingredients purchased more cheaply in bulk).
Or you might find that you need to charge for your time and effort and that puts the cost up a little.
Well, everywhere that "free market" reforms have happened, we have seen an enormous disparity of wealth. Specialism is all very well, of course, and has some value, but the degree of specialisation we are seeing can be a problem, I think. Effectively, if you specialise too much, then the means of production of particular good become held in very few places. Which might be efficient in the short term, but opens up a possibility of catastrophic failure.
For instance, specialising all of our food production in just a few crops is good for efficiency, until something comes along and wipes the whole years crop out.
I think you've missed the problem. It's not the markets, it's the fact we're human.
In a perfect world (Tim's world, it would seem), such risks would be accounted for and be factored in, as they are in a lot of industries. The desire for profit would be tempered by the knowledge of the risk that it would all be lost if conditions changed. Thus we would account for such loss of crops, or specialist skills, or customer demand.
In this world, we see those that take risks rewarded, so we take disproportionate risks. We don't see the ones who were not rewarded, often enough, because they aren't around to tell us about it. Thus humans fail the market, and thus the market fails it's humans.
".....We don't see the ones who were not rewarded, often enough, because they aren't around to tell us about it......" So you missed that market crash in 2008, and have not seen any of the recent and in-depth analysis on why the Greeks are screwed? Lehman Brothers ring any bells? You must lead a very sheltered life if you are so unaware.
The problem is that large scale production pushes the supplier towards evil.
They no longer care about checking whether they are using horse meat or beef, because, "we have specialist suppliers for the meat content." There's little measure of "better supplier" other than cheap and on-time - both of which are useful to the retailer/producer but not helpful to the consumer.
By going to a smaller supplier, each customer becomes more important to the supplier. That makes the customer matter and usually provides a more effective feedback loop.
Problems come when the suppliers hide the quality/source, or even fail to even bother to find out the source of what they supply. Another issue I've noticed is that specialist suppliers are getting more expensive. Division of labour is great, but when suppliers notice that consumers probably won't go anywhere else, the price creeps up.
"The problem is that large scale production pushes the supplier towards evil."
It really isn't unambiguously the case that small enterprises have a greater incentive to produce 'trusted' goods. Consider an airline with one aircraft. It may skimp on safety so every time it flies it has a 1% chance of crashing. It may be some time before that plane crashes. If a large airline with 400 aircraft took the same attitude its aircraft would be falling out of the sky constantly.
"....Remember "Innocent", of smoothie fame? Green, hip(py), small-producer friendly etc....." Fail! So-called "hippy" Innocent had a big and specialized back office, including the marketing team that drove their "we're so hippy" message. Do you really think they hand-crafted the server farm they used for their CRM and website (which I know they had because I know the engineer that used to go to London to install their non-hippy Windows servers)? All you have done us fall for their marketing.
If I buy flour, grow a sourdough using natural airborne yeasts, and bake my own bread at 40p a loaf, versus buying a similar loaf for a couple of quid (I note that there is *no* valid comparison between my home-made loaf and the similarly priced 'value' load) then I'm getting poorer?
I don't think so...
Am I better off than my parents? Yes. Than my grandparents? Without a doubt. But the argument that individuals choosing to make their own products, when they have the skills, knowledge, resources, and above all desire to do so are making society poorer? No.
Market forces are often said to find the lowest price for a good. I think this is not the case; instead they seek to find the highest price at which they can get away with. The loaf of bread for two quid sells at two quid not because it costs two quid but because that's the price point at which the reseller thinks if he goes above, he's going to have stock left on the shelves at the end of the day. If the home maker at retail prices can do it for under forty pence, and the all in price for a value loaf including stocking, distribution and all the rest of it is around forty pence, then this 'artisan' loaf could be the same - but it obviously isn't.
That's an example, of course, where the ingredients, the process, and the ability are well known - and yet, we still see bakeries on the high street and in the supermarkets.
If I wanted to make my own smartphone, well, I probably have the skills to put the raw parts together, but I certainly couldn't even begin to design the components, nor construct them: that requires billion dollar plant. So building my own phone isn't going to be practical, and won't affect the market thereof - but I might put the parts together in a new and exciting way, and create my own market.
There will never be enough people doing their own thing to affect a bulk market; encouraging people so to do is no sin.
Though most of the Green policies are not things with which I would agree, I don't have a problem with this one.
How much are you valuing your own time at to reach your 40p a loaf costing? I'm pretty sure your answer is: nothing, because I'm happy to do it for free. Which is precisely what Tim said, you're rich enough to be able to afford to do it for fun. If you were like my gran, who baked her own family bread every day because she couldn't afford to buy it from the shop (and delicious it was, too), you might adopt a different attitude.
Only if there isn't something else you'd rather be doing with your time? Value isn't just (or even mostly) about money.
I enjoy making bread (all that kneading is very thereputic), but I value time spent with my five month old son far more than I would value that time making bread at the moment. Paying someone else to make a loaf of bread is excellent value for me, even if it's more than if I'd made it myself.
It's all tradeoffs. My wife enjoys making jam sometimes. But oddly enough she too values her time a little differently now we have a lot less of it free (in both senses).
This is the classic economists' answer: what is the value of your time?
If I was not working otherwise, I was not earning. The value of the time is zero.
To value 'free time' is a category error: all you can say for such a value is that you might prefer to do one free time activity than another during it. I like baking, I like paragliding, I like building cars and meeting friends and eating out. These are not mutually exclusive activities, and oddly enough I price none of them.
I think where Greens and free marketers fundametally part ways is in their general attitude towards mass consumption and consumerism (benefits vs costs). Everything else is in the details
The Greens say that flying vegetables around the world out of season is bad for the planet/humans as is the overproduction of plastic packaging, factory farming and other modern day ills. There is evidence supporting this.
Free marketeers will tell you that when/if the market values cleaner air, organic vegetables, recycled packaging, meat without prions, and chickens with fresh air then people will pay for it via higher prices, taxes or more regulations (i.e., higher taxes).
In fact, both are right and this is how things often work out.
In the above examples, we have seen changes in meat and egg production and consumption habits, increased recycling in developed countries and an expansion of the organic food market. Free market choices or Stalinist dictates? You decide,
Occasionally, it goes cock-eyed, particularly with energy and climate policy.
IMHO, the solution is to always apply a market test to "Green solutions" and then let the electorate and markets decide. Of course, we will also need more objective arbiters and unbiased researchers for this effort, which based on some media reports, seem to be a scarce resource.
Kneading bread is actually very theraputic especially after a day of coding.
you can take out your frustrations on the dough and later eat it. Win-win.
It does not take a lot of time to bake bread if you are organised. Yes it is ineffiecient if you are only going to bake one loaf and that's it.
I made three cakes and two loaves of bread this morning. While things were baking I did the ironing and some housework. Now I can sit down and watch the Rugby with a cup of tea and a slice (or two) of homemade Chocolate Cake. Perfect.
The other cakes will be going into the Office tomorrow and slices sold in aid of Red-Nose Day.
Which is exactly what I (and more importantly, Tim) said, being 'rich' means having free time to do whatever you choose, a luxury many of our ancestors didn't have. However, you then go on to say your loaf 'cost' you only 40p, which is your mistake. I also enjoy the IT work that I do (otherwise I wouldn't do it), but it would be a mistake for me to do it for nothing or claim it's therefore without value.
[A propos of nothing at all, the missus is baking some bread rolls for lunch and I'm making soup from fresh ingredients, but I won't sell you a bowl for 20p.]
@Chris Miller
"Rich" meaning having free time, in modern times, tends to apply to those who are wage slaves.
We know that people in many hunter-gatherer societies only have to spend a couple of hours a day obtaining food and servicing their basic needs of procuring tools, accommodation and security. It was not until humans developed agriculture that most of us have had to work for much of our waking hours. Free time for many of us in the developed world is now quite limited after the time spent at work, travelling and sleeping. On the other hand we have a greater life expectancy and toothpaste.
I think the number usually quoted is 3-4 hours per day*, but, of course, this is 365 days a year, which isn't that far from a 35-hour week with a few weeks holiday. If their needs were similarly modest, I think many people could achieve a similar standard of living with just a part time job. Our problem is that we tend to get sucked into wanting more and more and working harder and harder to get it.
*Leaving plenty of 'free time', what there was/is to do with it is an entire 'nother question.
Good point Chris. Have an Upvote, although I don't think many El Reg readers work 35 hours a week or less, and few don't commute, unless they work from home. Working from home was great for me when I was self-employed - It allowed me to work a 60+ hour week ;-)
I'm retired now, and have learnt a truth that you may hear from other retirees "Im so busy, I don't know how I ever had time for work".
"I think many people could achieve a similar standard of living with just a part time job"
But the downside of extreme labour specialisation is the masses condemned to unskilled work because the process requires nothing better, with pay driven too low to make life comfortable on part time hours. Their cheap labour undeniably makes me richer but it's not quite so clear it works well for them, that's not something economists tend to worry about.
"....We know that people in many hunter-gatherer societies only have to spend a couple of hours a day obtaining food and servicing their basic needs of procuring tools, accommodation and security...." And how many of those hunter-gatherer societies had what we consider modern essentials, such as surgeons and X-Ray scanners, let alone non-essentials such as Netflix, Xboxes or art museums? Sure, if you want to go live in a mud hut and have a life expectancy of thirty then go ahead, but please do not pretend it will give you a lifestyle of equal quality or length.
"If I was not working otherwise, I was not earning. The value of the time is zero."
Bullshit.
If I am not working, I'm doing something I WANT to do, as opposed to NEED to do.
ergo my free time is far more valuable to me than the 9 to 5 grind.
I use public transport to get to work as I get a half hour to read (something I do for fun) that I wouldn't get on the 20 minute drive to work.
@Neil Barnes
Time is a scarce resource, so its value is never zero. In order to spend your time on one thing (and isn't it interesting that we can 'spend', 'save' and 'buy' time?) you have to give up another thing. There's a cost to using time. There's no revealed monetary value because there's no transaction, but that's the only reason.
In fact, we do put monetary value on our free time all the time. A simple example is when people choose to hire cleaners. I hear the objection that you might simply not like cleaning - but that is, in fact, the point: you value the time spent not cleaning higher than the cost of the cleaner.
I wonder how many parents here decided to look after their own children rather than send them to a nursery and go to work? That's what the article's getting at.
".....If I was not working otherwise, I was not earning. The value of the time is zero......" No, you were "not working" that amount of time because the modern and specialized market meant you did not have to dig a well to get water, collect firewood for heating, nor hunt down and kill a cow for your Sunday roast. You didn't even have to grow the wheat to make your flour nor build your oven, you were given time back because you simply went to the shops and bought the raw produce and tools pre-produced for you. the time was "free" because whatever specialized skill or service you provide earned you the money to buy the products and services you require to survive plus have the excess to bake your own bread and go paragliding. The specialized market gave you back the time, ie it made you richer in time, even if you thought of it as "free time".
It is not about what you "want" to do in your free time (baking bread is 100% fine), it is about being told that we "must" do things like this.
It's a matter of choice. I do not like being told that I should go back to hunting and gathering.
Specialization is the thing that allows us to have the free time in which we have the opportunity to bake our own bread (or whatever) if that is what we wish to do.
If I wish to have my own little herb garden it is BECAUSE I am free of having to worry about spending time gathering food / constructing shelter / making clothes / etc.
A lot of the modern "green" ideas seem increasingly anti-civilization.
An interesting article Tim, you might have overdone this bit though:-
By splitting up tasks so that different people do different parts of them, each person can become better at that specific task. We can thus get more production for the same amount of labour. And as living standards are going to depend on what we can get from human labour (as Paul Krugman has said, productivity isn't everything but in the long run it's pretty much everything) then increasing the efficiency with which we turn labour into products will raise living standards.
As far as I can see, many larger businesses have effectively simplified jobs by making them more limited. This applies particularly in service industries, which are apparently where most of us will be working - Each "skill" is being de-skilled such that it can be easily and cheaply taught, such that the worker is easy to replace. I suspect that this is deliberate as each worker becomes the supplier of a fungible service - Eighteenth century industrialists understood this, so this is not new - Although it might seem novel to people growing up after WWII, before the deregulation revolution of the 1980s.
This, and a deliberate increase in structural un(der)employment may be a significant mechanism that will have the affect of making many people in the developed world worse off, with less free time.
@ Tim99
By simplifying tasks to the point of almost anyone being able to do it allows greater employment in more areas. Instead of requiring lots of expensive training which excludes anyone not already capable of X,Y or Z it allows people to quickly get to speed with a task and specialise. Instead of the poor being excluded due to the expense of training them, they are included as training is no longer such a barrier.
A greater workforce means more production is possible. But that relies on other factors
".....As far as I can see, many larger businesses have effectively simplified jobs by making them more limited. This applies particularly in service industries, which are apparently where most of us will be working - Each "skill" is being de-skilled such that it can be easily and cheaply taught, such that the worker is easy to replace......" Yes and no. Companies do not want to have irreplaceable staff members as that is a risk - if an irreplaceable staff member leaves or falls under a bus then your company suffers. But to pretend this is universal deskilling is false - the reality is identification of unique roles and processes usually means more staff are trained in specialized skills to ensure there is no skill gap. It also makeshift easier to hire people - if I know I need to replace a forklift truck driver with a level 2 certificate and you already have a forklift truck driving level 2 qualification then you are already specialized and trained to do the job I need doing. If you work in a job where the training and skills requirement is very low (barista, waitress, etc) then you are easily replaceable, true. But some jobs (especially in IT, the legal field, medicine, etc) require specific and specialized skills and there is always demand. And which is why we encourage our kids to study at school and gain certain "valued" skills/knowledge, so that they can then have the benefit of excess-to-survival cash and "spare time". And you do not need to be a rocket scientist with an IQ of 200 to gain "spare time", there are many career paths that are attainable with average intelligence and a good bit of effort, such as nursing, being a paralegal, or just a baker, many of which are highly process-orientated so that employers can replace staff.
...sounds great in theory, but as most of these thing tend to go, only in theory. I appreciate how much more efficient it would be overall to leave every task to a specialist in a world where everyone has unlimited money to spend. As it happens though I have significantly less than unlimited money to spend, and as such I'm absolutely, definitely NOT POORER for doing my own minor plumbing repair when needed instead of calling an expensive-as-hell specialist I can ill afford to pay for unless I absolutely have to. You see, even though that job is definitely not something I would ever choose to do, there's absolutely nothing else I can think of that I could do in that given time-frame that would allow me to earn at least the amount of money I would need to offset relying on a specialist instead; there is no way in hell I can spend that time in some "more productive" way - and no, I don't fancy becoming a plumber myself even though they definitely make more than I as an IT worker can hope to around here. But hey, don't let that stop you - I'm looking forward to the incisive retort about how I should learn to make buggy whips if that pays better or how I should relocate halfway around the globe if I could earn better pay there, all without any shred of consideration for any other real-world concerns about other things that kinda are a big deal outside of that market-is-king soap bubble...
there's absolutely nothing else I can think of that I could do in that given time-frame that would allow me to earn at least the amount of money I would need to offset relying on a specialist instead
Yes, it gets even worse once you have to hand over half of anything you could produce in that time to the state via taxes, which amazingly enough, are also zero if you handle the minor repair yourself.
Time taken to replace a shower pump? About 30 minutes (it's in a confined space and I have big hands). Cost for calling out a plumber.... roughly £50. The price of the pump is much the same regardless of who fits it. I now need to find 30 minutes of work that pays me £170 per hour. Having looked at things like odesk or freelancer, it would seem I'd need to work more than 8 hours to produce that level of post tax income on a casual basis. It's significantly higher than my day job pays me per hour too.
Yup. That's the problem with paying the market for anything. It has to be paid in after tax wages. So at the very least you need to account for the tax consquences of how you make money. If you are going to split these kinds of hairs you can't just ingore some in favor of others.
> As it happens though I have significantly less than unlimited money to spend, and as such I'm absolutely, definitely NOT POORER for doing my own minor plumbing repair when needed instead of calling an expensive-as-hell specialist I can ill afford to pay for unless I absolutely have to.
Sounds like you are in the same boat as me !
But I don't think what you are saying contradicts what Tim wrote. I too do plumbing - partly because good plumbers cost a lot, partly because there are few I'd let anywhere near any of my plumbing, and partly because I enjoy doing it to a point.
That is fine for you and me - we both know how to do plumbing things. Possibly because (in my case) I learned by watching dad, and eventually tackling some myself. I've also had to buy few tools because Dad bought or made* most of the tools needed.
But we are unusual in that respect. The vast majority don't have the tools or skills - so the "cost" to them of doing it themselves would be the time taken to learn how to do it, and the real cost of buying the tools.
Another aspect of Tim's standpoint is an article I read some years ago - the basic premise was "no-one knows how to make a pencil". Sounds ridiculous at first glance, everyone knows how to make a pencil don't they ? But do they really ? Can they fell a tree and work the wood, mine the materials for the "lead" and actually make it (I assume grind, blend, extrude, and 'cook'), make the glue for the wood, make the paint, make the rubber, and make the little metal bit that holds the rubber ? So no, I doubt if there is anyone alive who genuinely knows how to make a pencil - lots of specialists who know how to do various stages, but no one person who can do everything.
* There's another of those anomalies.Dad made a lot of tools (or as mum calls it, making things to make things) - because he enjoyed doing it. In economics terms it made little sense - unless you include (as I think Tim does) "personal enjoyment" as a value.
The food industry is in point of fact trying to murder us for profit. If I make my own soup, chances are it will not have enough salt in it to give me a stroke. And my soup will be in a 'serving' suitable for me, not a Heinz serving*, determined by a nutritionist**. If more people made their own soup, due to health concerns, the food industry might do something about it, because that's how markets work. The market might work around any laws the government might enact, but people not buying stuff gives the market a problem.
* A serving is normally half a can. If I relied on Heinz servings, I'd currently be wasting away.
** Nutritionist: someone who might have some skills in cooking and recipe design, who also has an MBA.
Then there's the nutritionists who work for places like hospitals and tell you how you should eat when you get home... but it's a case of "do as I say, not as I do" as they're all usually very overweight and it's not from eating hospital food or following their own advice.
Which.. seems to be the way of many groups of people. If we go back to the Greens, how many actually practice what they preach?
".....If more people made their own soup, due to health concerns, the food industry might do something about it, because that's how markets work....." Go down to your local supermarket a and actually look at the soup section - see the varieties labelled "healthy", "low sodium" and "low fat"? Now go to the chillers - see the "just like home-made" varieties in their plastic pots? Then go to the organic section and look for the organic soup. It is already happening.
"Because commentards know how to fix computers ourselves we are poorer as a result. We should take them into PC World who would sell us another one and we would be richer.
Is that right?"
You know how to fix your computer. Good for you. But lots of people don't - if everyone decided to fix their own computer, then they'd all have to first learn to fix their computer. Most people find that it's a better use of their limited resources in terms of time and money to send it to PCWorld. That's Tim's point.
Let me make this clear - Tim's point is not that doing anything for yourself outside your working hours makes you poorer. Fix your own computer. Bake your own bread. Fill your boots. But that's not what the article is about.
It doesn't matter if I fix my computer or bake my bread in my own spare time whether I'm good at it or not, it's my own spare time. The only problem is when it isn't my own spare time and I'm forced to fix computers at work (bad use of resources - I'm a programmer) or bake bread to survive (but by that point society has probably collapsed anyway).
So is Tim saying that the economy is worse off because I didn't go down to the pub or to the cinema and spend money in my own spare time? Or the economy is worse off because we should all be obliged to buy bread? If it's the first one it's forced consumerism which is not a free market economy, if it's the second one then that's false too because the market has provided the basic ingredients for people who want to bake their own bread so there is profit in it somewhere.
"So is Tim saying that the economy is worse off because I didn't go down to the pub or to the cinema and spend money in my own spare time?"
No, not at all. The argument is coming from entirely the other end of things. If people who specialise in making bread make the bread then I will be able to consume more bread. I will thus be better off from the division and specialisation of labour. And the same goes for everything else, too.
Sucks to be someone who specialises in baking bread, they don't exactly have the salary to spend it on buying in services but it's nice to be at the top of the heap and buy lots of different kinds of bread.
Unfortunately the poorest are generally the least specialised, so they can't buy everything, or they may do a specalised job which isn't very well rewarded (like baking bread). They may have no other resort other than to bake bread themselves so they can make it till the end of the month.
In an economic downturn people often can't get a specalised job, because it's not on offer. They may have to make do with a lower paid non-specalised job, so they will want to cut back on buying-in specalised services too.
Try and tell these people that they should specalise when they're unable to and buy as many services in as they can when they simply don't have the money.
@ Dan 55
"Sucks to be someone who specialises in baking bread, they don't exactly have the salary to spend it on buying in services but it's nice to be at the top of the heap and buy lots of different kinds of bread."
Their salary is higher than if they didnt do it. And due to their specialisation (commitment of time) to baking bread they can produce much more than people doing it individually for themselves. As a result there is more food available and much cheaper meaning their salary (which is still higher than if they didnt do it) can pay for heating, lighting and food! And because their specialisation produces more and for a lower price it helps the others on low salary to afford food!
"Unfortunately the poorest are generally the least specialised, so they can't buy everything, or they may do a specalised job which isn't very well rewarded (like baking bread)."
Very well rewarded compared to what? We cant pay everyone the same regardless of their job because it doesnt work, so someone will be paid less than others as a guarantee. Why is the baseline suddenly to buy everything? Is a TV, IPhone and whatever not enough?
"In an economic downturn people often can't get a specalised job, because it's not on offer. They may have to make do with a lower paid non-specalised job, so they will want to cut back on buying-in specalised services too."
Unfortunately this is more of a government policy problem. In a crash there are often calls to raise tax's to sustain the monolith and the people who lose out are the lower skilled workers as increased costs make them unsupportable. Of course they need supporting so the welfare state prices them out of a job requiring higher tax to pay these people for being out of a job. That is a massive trap of the welfare state.
"Try and tell these people that they should specalise when they're unable to and buy as many services in as they can when they simply don't have the money."
Specialisation is dedicating to a task. Instead of people being a jack of all trades, they can be a master of one knowing that the void in their skills can be filled by another worker. It doesnt matter how complicated or simple the task is, that dedication allows for better development of skills in each area and larger scale production. Which leads to greater availability and lower prices.
"...then increasing the efficiency with which we turn labour into products will raise living standards."
A large assumption there. Want me to point it out to you? That only occurs if the benefit from that increased efficiency is shared equally among those contributing to that gain. But since the world now has 1% of the population claiming 50% of its wealth, it's pretty evident such benefit is not being equally distributed.
And thus, you've glossed over the greatest failing of modern capitalism.
"A large assumption there. Want me to point it out to you? That only occurs if the benefit from that increased efficiency is shared equally among those contributing to that gain. But since the world now has 1% of the population claiming 50% of its wealth, it's pretty evident such benefit is not being equally distributed.
And thus, you've glossed over the greatest failing of modern capitalism."
It doesn't 'only occur' if there is an equal distribution - that's just simple maths.
Aside from that, it's naive to think any system will produce an equal distribution of wealth or income (note, they are not the same thing). It's a flaw of capitalism for sure, but one shared with every possible alternative.
In which Thomas Thwaites attempts to build from scratch a toaster he could buy in Argos for £3.99 (economics of scale, durr)
However, it is not so simple to discuss whether a 40p home made loaf is only worth it if you value your time at zero.
The first issue is whether you have an alternative, more valuable to you, use for your surplus time. If not then making a loaf for 40p is equivalent to paying yourself the difference between its cost and a commercial price. Value has been created.
It might be below the minimum wage, but you get your loaf of bread, in circumstances in which you otherwise might not be able to afford to eat. (in extremis or "at the margin" if you prefer).
This article reminds me of a discussion here in 2013 in which it was attempted to argue that giving stuff away was bad for the economy. My extended reply to that FWIW
In RE, Adam Smith's pin factory:
[from my book, The Root of All Evil, available on Noise Trade as an e-book]
Adam Smith, in his Wealth of Nations, illustrating how the division of labor results in greater productivity, famously used the example of a pin maker. He described how a solitary pin maker might make but one and no more than twenty pins in a day. That man would have to draw out the wire, straighten it, point it, prepare and set the head, whiten the pin and place it in its paper. He would also (though Smith does not mention it) have to procure materials, find customers and sell to them, deliver the goods and keep accounts. All this speaks of broad (if not deep) knowledge of all aspects of pin making.
Smith goes on to describe how if each of these tasks were assigned to a different individual, a group of maybe ten might make 4,800 pins in a day — far more than if those ten were solitary pin makers. Unfortunately, each of these ‘assembly line’ workers would not need to (and probably would not) have all the knowledge required to make and sell pins. They might well be more productive, but they would be lesser men. Despite being more productive, they could be paid less. Henry Ford liked this idea a lot.
In later days, technology replaced these men with pin making machinery that might produce as many as 100,000 pins in a day. But then, no one would know how to make pins. That’s considered acceptable, even though the men are all out of work, except for the guy who throws the switch and the one who occasionally must come in to work on the machine, since we can have all the pins we want.
In today’s world, such productive technology is reversing the trend and moving us back in the direction of the solitary artisan. Only twenty-five years ago, if one wanted a full color publication with photographs, he would need a writer, a photographer, a typesetter, a graphic designer, a color separator, a stripper, a plate maker, a printer and a binder, at a minimum. (This doesn’t include paper and ink merchants or distribution and delivery people, either.) All along the process, these nine people would be fully capable of identifying errors made by others previously. It served as a check to ensure quality workmanship. Such an operation is an art, a craft and a science.
Now, however, a solitary designer can call up stock photography on the internet, place it in the article he’s written in his page-layout document on his computer, impose and output color separations, then send it all off by e-mail to a computer-to-plate automated printing press. One artisan can easily produce what was once the work of nine. Nine people can produce nine times as much. That artisan is responsible for knowing the full process. Why, inside of a few short hours, he can produce 45,000 full color, bound books —of the wrong thing! And many of the specialist craftsmen have become graphic artists, responsible for their own projects, thus driving their pay down as their number increase.
++++++++++++++++++
Additionally, one might think from TW's article that centralized power generation and the concomitant distribution lines is the way to go — after all, there's an example where a few can generate for the many and free the many up for more useful and/or profitable work. Really? I can think of a couple of things wrong with that: 1) a centralized power plant, say a nuclear station like my local Seabrook, makes a fine target, 2) should all or part of the system go down, everyone involved is down and 3) distributed power generation, such as having solar panels on everyone's roof will prevent problems 1 and 2, while increasing the wealth of the owner. (Yes, I know they're inefficient, but they are getting better and cheaper. At the current state of the art, I could wipe out my entire electric bill. [Truth in Advertising: last time I looked (a few years ago), such a system would cost me $17,000, which at my current usage and assuming (hilariously) that there will be no rate increases, would take 15 years to pay off, leaving me with perhaps 5—10 years of free electricity, given the life span of the unit. I probably will not be in this house then.])
Lastly, a quote from my haftorah:
Q: Who is rich?
A: He who rejoices in what he has.
If the time required to make my own toothpaste meant I had less overtime at the pin factory, or less time doing something I considered more enjoyable like Facebitch, then it makes me poorer. But if it displaced time spent zoning out to reruns and infomercial on late night TV, at the very least I'm richer by $3 or whatever a tube of toothpaste would cost me.
I tend to compare more with doing things for myself that offer a bit more savings. For instance, while I'm far from as handy as others I can do simple plumbing or car repairs myself. If it takes me four hours to fix something a plumber or auto mechanic might take an hour to do, I'm saving let's say $75.
Obviously giving up four hours of work for that would be a terrible idea, as I'd make much more than $75, but if I were on minimum wage it would make sense to take time off work to do my own repairs (though not as much sense as doing it in my spare time!) What's the value of four hours of my spare time? That's hard to put a figure on, but I derive some personal satisfaction from accomplishing these things on my own (some, I'll admit, due to the fact I'm saving $75)
Doing my own repairs certainly isn't efficient for the economy as a whole, as I'm much more valuable doing what I'm best at, rather than doing something others are best at and I have to struggle a bit to accomplish and may fail attempting. As I'm unwilling to sell the market all of my waking hours, the value of my time to the overall economy beyond the 40 hours a week I choose to sell to it is far less. If I post to the Reg, the value of my time to the economy is zero, but it has value to me or I wouldn't do it.
One can't underestimate the value of personal satisfaction you get from doing something for yourself. I would get no satisfaction out of making my own toothpaste, but others get no satisfaction from fixing a leaky faucet and are happy to pay a plumber to do it for them. Sometimes things people simply enjoy doing turn into careers, like those who had a hobby making beer and now run craft breweries.
Let us assume that I earn 'x' amount of money. If I'm a good little consumer, I'll use that 'x' to purchase goods and services (putting some aside first either to pay my taxes or in savings to pay for all the bits and pieces like a pension and health care that I'd have to pay for if I werent a member of society that believes in tax).
Now that's fine - I have 'x' and spend 'x'. The only problem of course (because that's life) is that I only have 'x' and can only purchase goods and services up to the value of 'x'. If however, I choose to spend my spare time, the time I have after spending time earning 'x', doing my own plumbing, car maintenance, cider making or whatever, then what actually happens is that I dont actually spend all of 'x' and I'm at liberty to spend what's left over buying goods and services that I couldnt afford to buy if I'd not done stuff myself. I can go buy iPads, posh clothes, or whatever. Alternatively I could save the residue and that money becomes available for others to invest on my behalf.
Either way, the market hasnt lost at all, has it?
I think the fundamental problem with Tim's argument is that he sees "the market" as perfect when in real life it isn't. Much as it would be lovely to ignore the fact that, for example, "Big Agriculture" fills our meat with steroids and antibiotics, and kills our pollinators with neonicotinoids, in the real world we can't. That's my problem with free market fundamentalists - the clarion call to just deregulate and let the market sort it out is wilfully blind to the human failings of greed etc. which distort the perfect market through monopoly abuse, cartels, unsafe products that we don't know about and all the other underhand goings on that businesses use for competitive advantage.
This post has been deleted by its author
People simply do not make rational choices in terms of 'the market'. The market exists not to provide goods at the lowest possible price but the highest price at which the marketeer can get away with... i.e. the point at which increasing the price would reduce the profit.
Proof? People buy on intangibles; on perceived values; on brand image; on status: why do I prefer a Breguet watch (which I can't afford) to a ticka-ticka-Timex? They both do the same thing (and a five pound electronic movement will probably do it *better* than a mechanical watch).
The job of the marketeer is not to sell widgets but to persuade people that they need a different widget with a higher profit component.
...The concerns about climate change seem entirely rational assuming that it is actually happening. But I really cannot understand what it is that they've all got against markets, the trade in them, that makes that division and specialisation possible and thus enriches us all....
1 - What is currently being done to address Climate Change is entirely irrational, and failing, and, if (anthropic) Climate Change were real, would result in the collapse of society in short order. Luckily, it's just a scam, and so the only problem is that we will lose a lot of money.
2 - The WHOLE raison d'etre of the Green community IS to close down international trade, all technology, and make us all MUCH poorer. That is the actual aim - and it is stated often enough. They want a world with fewer people, living a peasant existence, closer to nature. Think 1450.
Their belief is that we have advanced too far, are putting too much pressure on the world, and must retreat back to a simpler time. THAT'S what they have against markets, factories, communication , all the paraphernalia of a modern existence. I can't see how you can have studied Green documentation without becoming aware of that fact...
Methinks I see a strawman in your characterisation of greens here.
Sure, there's some association (or at least a perception of one) between a certain kind of greenies and an irrational hatred of big companies and globalisation. But that's successors to hippie rebels and champagne socialists jumping on today's bandwagons, and doesn't mean any incompatibility between green and pro-market views on the whole.
I happen to have both strongly green and strongly pro-market views (and put my money where my mouth is), and deplore the fact that our government is neither, and that our media present the issues in such a muddled manner.
DIY is also dependent on price. If the price of a job is too much then you will do it yourself but if the price is low enough you will hire someone who can spend their time dedicated to a particular task. People will do some things themselves through enjoyment but beyond that often comes down to the price.
Unfortunately the price is bumped up through tax which is something the greens would use to punish people for existing in this country. The desire for people to do more themselves isnt just a greenie dream, it is an outcome of making everyone poorer and costing people much more to live. This obviously has knock on effects of people being much poorer and income equality through dragging everyone down to the common denominator.
This missed the point totally.... Making something may take more time, money and effort than simply buying it. But that doesn't make you poorer if you richness is measured in how you spend your time, money and effort. I spend a lot of my time hand carving wooden utensils and tools. I could go and buy them. But I would not have the "riches" of the enjoyment of mastering a craft. That mastery has taken me more time and more money and far more effort than a trip to Tesco. But I am richer in that I lead a more fulfilled life.
Exactly. Tim completeley miises the fact that self sufficiency is it's own reward. He misses it because this reward completely defies any sort of monetary quantification while it is easy to count the costs involved in doing things for yourself. My wife, daughter and I are trying to grow all of our own veggies in our 40 ft. wide suburban back yard. Did we spend thousands ( over a couple of years) to save hundreds (every year)? Yes. Is that foolish? Considering that my wife really doesn't want to work outside the home, I hate mowing the lawn and that we feel that letting even a modest back yard be nothing more than a dog toilet is a waste in a world with an ever-growing population, no. A side benefit is the return of bumblebees. The downside is that we also have voles now, but that gives the dog something to do.
He also says that the attitude of doing so "pisses him off". He hates the idea of it. He hates it because he cannot really fathom that richness is beyond money. He seems to know that other people are going to say that richness is beyond the material but I don't think he really sees it himself. There are so many contradictions in the original article that you can't he's explicit - fucking or not...
I did read the article. TW may have made some token acknowledgment regarding non-monetary rewards but denies the validity of that idea throughout the entire article, especially the second and seventeenth paragraphs. If he spends more virtual ink poo-pooing the concept than not, he missed the point.
Specialisation makes the same labour produce more products and services. Technologists and industrialists that find ways to increase this efficiency gain from specialisation benefit by becoming richer - but they do not share this benefit with the workers. The workers, who do not own the means of production (like that Intel chip factory mentioned above), work the same amount for the same pay, but are more productive. This results in a larger amount of wealth in the market, which results in inflation. Hence the workers become poorer from specialisation despite their efforts generating more wealth.
We see this in the increasing wealth disparity in the world.
@conan
By your reasoning we cannot afford cars. Nor mobile phones nor computers. However we do which means that more efficiency and producing more products (and better) must have a trickle down effect where the worker gains access to items they could not afford. By producing more and having the means of trade to sell the product/service there is more wealth generated, which improves the prosperity of the people. Also pensions rely on the market which is boosted through the same means and anyone who owns investments has this same prosperity growth.
Being able to produce more units makes the units cheaper and plentiful cheap units get bought up and used in unintended and innovative ways. And the more used the more workers required thereby employing more people. More people using their time to specialise adds more wealth to the people.
Another thing is that an accountant can't tell the difference on his books between an beef steak and a horse in Rumania.
If you grow your own, you understand more.
Okay, so Tim, your standard model doesn't value time, can't capture trust, doesn't allow for improvement in goods or services over time. That is like the phlogiston theory of chemistry, which I don't use any more.
Please talk to a green economist and get a decent model, for all of our sakes.
This comment took 15 minutes, at my standard internal rate of €8.50 (minimum wage in DE). Please enter an upvote as an €1 token recognition of any value to you (virtual egofunding). Or a downvote, if you feel I wasted more than €1 of your time.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
