The Clusterfuck Nation Chronicle
Commentary on the Flux of Events
Edward Luttwak's fine book Turbo Capitalism (HarperCollins 1999) includes a discussion of the diminishing returns in the current arrangement of deregulated hyper-competitive free markets. The main consequence in America, he says, is the tremendous anomie and loneliness produced by the destruction of families (rich, poor middle, everyone) and of the rich web of community relations that no longer exists. "Americans," he says, "are emotional destitutes, as poor in their familiy connections as Afghans or Sudanese are in money." The replacement, he says, for family and community -- destroyed by such things as national chain retail, commercialized elder care, constant geographical relocation, and overwork -- are junk religion, drugs and alcohol, overeating, and consumerism, the last of which he defines as constantly buying oneself presents.
Luttwak's take on this kind of compensatory shopping is interesting:
"It is always very nice to receive presents, but the presents in question are not gifts. They are not given by others. Americans instead buy presents for themselves, in shops and department stores, mass-mailed catelogs and direct mail and telephone solicitations, by calling in to order objects displayed on television, and lately on-line through the internet on a colossal multi-trillion-dollar scale. One shopper interviewed by the Wall Street Journal had bought thirteen Christmas presents: two for her boyfriend, eleven for herself. 'I deserve them all,' was her comment. . . . Much of what Americans buy nowadays amounts to baroque elaborations in which the original functional purposes are submerged by excesses, fripperies, frills, or simply overdesign. . . .Any puritanical outrage at other people's enjoyment of fancy goods is really beside the point: the peculiar preferences of American buyers have enormous economic consequences, because they cripple the US export of consumer goods. Buyers around the world who are not in need of boosting their morale refuse to buy 'gift' versions of the objects they seek. Most notably, the US automobile industry nowadays produces very few unadorned vehicles meant to provide a means of transportation. . . . Great fun is had by all, but foreign car buyers reject the results for reasons of fuel economy, plain economy, environmental economy, or just plain good taste. The result is manifest in US trade figures. Instead of contributing to a favorable trade balance, the automobile industry, by far the largest of all US manufacturing industries, is so weak an exporter that the sector accounts for the single biggest item in persistent US trade deficits."