Quote:
Originally Posted by 8080028
as time goes on economies of scale should kick in to make the stuff we buy cheaper. I'm referring to the fact that when a product has been manufactured and sold for a while the manufacturer coups back the tooling cost, the start up cost of producing the product. The factory and machines etc having been paid for now means the cost of the product should come down. But does that ever happen? We keep paying, costs go up.
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Uuh... Wal-Mart?
Here's an experiment -- tool up from scratch for a 3-day hiking camping adventure at Wal-Mart (or just keep a running tab on the would-be cost) as though you have no camping equipment of any kind (tent, sleeping bag, mess kit, etc.) then, if it's even still possible, go price out the total cost of the exact same kit of equipment without including anything manufactured outside of your own country, e.g., no "Made in China" stickers. You're going to see something like a 500% markdown below locally sustainable margins by purchasing goods manufactured on the backs of true wage slaves in China and other highly oppressed regimes who poison their workers and communities and stretch the environmental resources beyond the breaking point in every way possible just to sell you $20 goods that should, if everyone were being treated and paid fairly and with respect to the environment, cost over $100.
The cost of goods has absolutely gone down with scale. Unfortunately in most cases so has quality as well, but it's truly amazing how much you can buy for $100 today vs. 20 years ago,
even adjusted for inflation.
The upshot, to put it into synchronistic perspective, is that the Walmartization of the global material goods industry has, among countless atrocities, provided us with the means to easily circumvent the capitalist rat race that created the situation in order to stock up very cheaply on every single thing you can imagine you might want or need should any given civil system fail you (to put it broadly).
I realized last night during a brief fit of insomnia that it may be morally correct (or whatever) to not support China in any way by buying their products, not support big-box retailers who exploit their own workers even domestically, and not support the hydrocarbon-based materials economy by buying items made with plastic... but that in a practical survival sense, the first few base levels of Maslow's heirarchy of needs (e.g., air, water, food, shelter) can be assured for a far greater percentage of the human population than ever before thanks to these merciless sociopaths that make it all possible through their blood-encrusted industrial machine, and in my own personal little life, far greater good can come from preparing to support myself and my loved ones by stocking up on their cheap goods for our own survival than could come from ceasing to support a system that is absolutely without-a-doubt destined to fail on its own due to the time-bomb nature of the unfolding of capitalism on this grand global scale. All we have to do is wait. And while we're waiting, I posited, we might as well take advantage of what our environment currently has to offer us, mobile execution vans and state-sanctioned black-market organ harvesting of peaceful spritiualists be damned.
On Edit: If you haven't seen it, please enjoy and share far and wide this wonderful and accessible award-winning presentation on the materials economy called
The Story of Stuff.