Worth Outside of Monetary Value

I started to reflect after our last discussion on Thursday about the deeper effects of competitive consumption. In the way that this theory has been framed, it leads people to base their success and worth on their income and how that income then allows them to consume more than the next guy. Because people feel good knowing that they are better off than someone else, that at least they are not at rock bottom financially.
I began to think about these ideas within my own family context and I find that in some ways we are unaffected by competitive consumerism, while in others circumstances we succumb to it. Both of my parents immigrated to America in their early teens from Jamaica and Montserrat respectively. Growing up, my brothers and I were taught to spend wisely and to place more value on developing relationships with friends. We never received allowance, but it seemed that we did not suffer for want of anything, since we had such a solid family unit committed to spending time together. I like to feel that my parents’ West Indian background had something to do with that, but I can’t generalize. My parents were never the type to waste money on unnecessary objects to base their happiness on, the happiness was already there, so any external purchases would have just added to it. However, during financially trying times I could sense a slight shift in my parents’ view(s) of success. Viewing their self-worth in terms of their ability to afford certain things, or to adopt the notion that “wealth” is primarily based in monetary terms would become hard for me to deal with. Because I had been taught by them to view wealth in broader ways, I began to question whether or not it was still realistic. I’ve decided to stnad my ground and argue that regardless of circumstances, if you have built up a strong sense of worth outside of what money can and cannot buy, then you’ll be able to find happiness, no matter what life throws at you.

Corporate tricks with no treats

When I see a brand logo, I don’t often think of the corporate structure that sustains its dominance in society.  I had never connected the entangled dots in my own mind between a brand’s public image and products and mainstream economic and political structures. I had never paused to consider what a “corporation” actually is, until the narrator in “The Corporation,” asked Harvard Business School Professor, Joe Badaracco, this same question. His response, “it’s funny that I’ve taught in a business school for as long as I have without having ever been asked so pointedly what I think a corporation is,” both surprised and relieved me. I wouldn’t know how to succinctly express what a corporation is; my best guess would be: a transnational or multinational business. Watching “The Corporation,” and reading excerpts from Alternatives to Economic Globalization and news articles about the Citizens United Bill, have sparked my interest and forced me to confront understandings of corporations as persons (what?) and a corporation’s role in the attainment of the hyperglobalized ideal central to the current functioning of our modern global economy.

Beyond understanding a corporation’s basic definition, understanding the institutional and legal mechanisms that allow it to play a critical role in local/regional/national/international business and politics is important. Does the average American know that corporations are considered legal persons, and can sue countries under domestic and international law? I was shocked to learn that between 1890 and 1990, 288 of the 307 cases first brought to court under the newly passed 14^th Amendment were on behalf of corporations, as opposed to African Americans. What persuaded American judges to allow soul less, bottom-line driven economic machines to take on the legal status of “person”? With the recent passing of the Citizens United Bill in January 2010 not only are corporations elite, powerful people in American society, they have a disproportionate influence in political elections due to their unregulated and unlimited ability to support candidates, financially and otherwise. This is scary. This makes me very, very scared.

Not to mention the ream of negative externalities corporations create by being the key economic instruments that participate in hyperglobalization, as a means to increase efficiency and profit margin (among many other things). The homogenizing of global economic activity, the powerlessness of individual people and local communities to effectively challenge supra-national, elite corporations, the marginalization of the low-income (soon to be displaced?) farmer and worker, the destruction of cultural, and biological diversity: such a list should cause any individual to stop and question. One doesn’t have a choice to opt-out of economic participation in a lifetime, we rely upon it to survive, and yet this system that supplies our means for survival, also creates the means of our destruction.  In the current dominant economic (market-oriented) and political (democratic) world order, there is a straightjacket on our freedom by virtue of the decision to afford such freedom to an economic institution that is not subservient to the people, but to the bottom-line. Change is long overdue.

baby steps

This class has really opened my eyes to the staggering number of deep-rooted societal problems that remain unsolved today. I am almost ashamed to admit how sheltered my life has been so far; growing up, I rarely encountered any of the issues that we discussed in class. I spent my childhood in Hong Kong, and although I attended an American international middle and high school, the only students in my class were Asian and white. I cannot remember interacting with or even seeing any blacks, Latinos, etc. Because Asians were of course in the majority, I never encountered discrimination. Instead, the Chinese of Hong Kong discriminated against the darker Asians, mostly Filipinos and Indonesians who worked as live-in domestic help for the majority of Hong Kong families. As a child, I believed, as most of my classmates did, that our maids were undereducated and had ended up as domestic workers because of laziness or a lack of ambition. Further, because these workers had taken over the role of the homemaker, the majority of my classmates had parents that both worked in the paid labor force. This was necessary and expected because of the highly capitalist society and the soaring competitive consumerism that characterized Hong Kong. Because of this, I had never thought of development as anything other than growth, something my mainstream economics classes only reinforced. Despite the fact that my mother and father had both grown up in poverty, they had both found success in the capitalist society by attending graduate school and becoming professionals. Most of my classmates’ parents, who had also grown up in less ideal circumstances, had similarly taken advantage of the opportunities Hong Kong’s growing market provided. My parents always extolled the virtues of hard work; it was unquestionable that I would go to college, perhaps graduate school, and enter the workforce whether I was male or female. I was not taught any other form of success.

At Wellesley, I have been surprised at the ease with which I have been able to meet and interact with people of different socioeconomic and racial backgrounds. Although it is not something that I am consciously aware of, I cannot help but notice that many of my friends here are on some form of financial aid; when we go to restaurants, they look at the menu ahead of time to make sure the prices are within range, don’t have time to go to events because of work study jobs, and won’t hail taxis when it’s raining. Responsible spending or even stinginess is something I am really not used to seeing; I am sometimes disgusted by the amount of (their parents’) money my old classmates will shell out just to maintain their dignity or social status. I have realized that due to highly paid professionals and bankers and an extremely underpaid working class back home, income inequality is so severe that I would never meet anyone whose background was not almost, on paper, the same as mine. This class also made me think, for the first time, of the minimum wage law Hong Kong finally passed this July. When I was interning at the stock exchange this summer, I heard this mentioned many times, but only recently went online to check if it had, in fact, been passed. Minimum wage has long been resisted in the name of keeping labor markets free. Although this law is highly limited and does not cover the vast number of live-in domestic workers, it is a huge and heartening step in Hong Kong’s wealthy, capitalist society and prevailing attitude towards the poor and something I may not have realized the significance of if I had not taken this class.

Anti-Classism

Our talks about integrating classes and making equal opportunities were, for me, the hardest places to find concrete examples. So often, class is tied to race, gender, sexuality, or any other category of people who are devalued, and often fixing those issues is also overcoming class divisions. This might be the cause of my ignorance towards inter-class issues, but it’s made me realize where my own prejudices are the strongest. Some of my prejudices might be based on statistics: for example, there are problems that are more prevalent in lower-income households, such as domestic abuse and drug abuse. However, much of my prejudices are probably based on my early childhood safety education. Many people are told not only to stay away from strangers, but to avoid eye contact, don’t walk too closely to someone dressed shabbily, keep your hand on your wallet – a strong sense of xenophobia that I thought I had avoided.

These attitudes manifest themselves frequently. When I walk down the street, I do avoid eye contact. When someone asks me for money, oftentimes I do my best not to even acknowledge their existence, by walking faster or looking away. I don’t think this is a problem with just me – the existence of gated communities is just another example of how people try to build walls to physically separate ourselves from lower classes. I’ve heard people say that asking for money on the phone, or door-to-door, or in person can make you feel like less of a person, because most people you approach will try to deny you exist as a person, by looking away or slamming the door. Although in this economic recession, there is a lot of talk about the poor people trying to find jobs, I don’t think that these barriers have been lowered at all, for many arguments that overlap with other social movements. Children are raised to value and respect people of every category except class, and this is a huge failure on the part of our society. I recall in particular the incident last year when Professor Gates accused a police officer of racism, and many comments were along the lines that “even a Harvard man can be racially profiled”. Why is the word “even” necessary?

Power Dynamics in an Anti-Classist Society?

There is nothing better, in my opinion, than having one course’s discussion align with the teachings of another.  Allowing students an opportunity to apply supplemental knowledge to current lessons not only adds depth to their basic understanding of facts, but also offers them the chance to cultivate an educated opinion interdepartmentally.  Curriculum overlap, though oftentimes interpreted as mere redundancy, is undoubtedly a highlight of my Wellesley education.  In taking a Sociology course on power and this Economics course this semester, I find myself relating each class to the other on a daily basis.  Our study of Carl Marx’s Communist Manifesto particularly exemplifies one such positive intersection.

In the Sociology of Power, we focused our Marxist discussion on the struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Marx argues that the bourgeoisie have no right to the dominant position: they are not the majority, they exploit their workers, they should be overthrown.  One of the main questions we dissect in the course is whether it is necessary and natural, in society, for one person or group to rise into a leadership or dominant position.  Even in a classless utopia, would it be inevitable that a people seek to separate themselves from the greater majority and grant themselves different privileges?   This idea is something we address in ECON 243 as we navigate the political economy of gender, class, and race.  In the case of the Communist Manifesto and our in-class discussion on anti-classist movements, we explore the possibility of a classless society without the existence of a rich-over-poor polarity.  The established hierarchy is not fair and can be slowly eradicated with the help of equal opportunity measures, policies that value the devalued, and integrative initiatives.

However, given my Sociology course syllabus, I wonder how our current society could be restructured in a way that was equal IF power leadership is a pre-requisite for success in implementing change.  Identifying a leader in working towards an egalitarian community contradicts the original intention. Even if leaders are regulated or members of a once subordinate class, does the fact that they are given a higher rank threaten classlessness?

Ask your doctor about…

My friend Allegra and I were hanging out the other day, talking about classes and stuff, while she reviewed for a different Econ class – 101, I believe. So we’re sitting there chatting, her only half paying attention, when she scoffs at her paper. It’s one of the questions from a corrected p-set, she tells me. It’s about black markets and whether or not a black market would be created if the supply of blue jeans was severely restricted or banned altogether. Allegra had replied that no, a black market wouldn’t have been created because there are substitutes and everybody would just wear sweats – pants is pants is pants, in her mind. Her grader marked it incorrect, of course, because jeans are a niche market.

Whether or not you agree with Allegra’s answer, it got me thinking about advertising. We’re fairly well-aware of the enormous role it plays in our lives, but in some cases we’re almost helpless against it. I mean, for utilitarian purposes, all pants are created equal. But would ‘Hey, Madeline’ condone switching out skinny jeans for corduroy bell-bottoms under your favorite tunic shirt? And for our purposes, where would advertising fit in to a solidarity economy?

In my mind, there would absolutely have to be regulation of some sectors of advertising. Take, for example, ads for medications. We are constantly inundated with them – on TV, in magazines, in the paper, on the internet, and even in pop culture. And we have them for every undesirable situation imaginable. Want to have sex longer? Have some Viagra. Want to ‘control your period’? Try birth control! Sleep assistant, habit kicker, bone densifier, cancer combatant – they’re all out there to solve your problems! (Just made up some words there, but you get the idea.) My mom’s a nurse back home, and she said you wouldn’t believe the amount of money people spend on their meds because they’ve been trained on all the brand names, and these brand names feel entitled to charge more, because they can. There are people in my state (Vermont) who will drive up to Canada to fill prescriptions because advertising up there is severely limited and as a result, the meds are cheaper. Wouldn’t it go a long way towards public health if we could lower the costs of medications?

But in some cases, aren’t creating niche markets okay? We wouldn’t want to destroy the fair-trade market, which relies on advertising (usually right on the packaging) to help us differentiate between it and the five other brands of coffee bean in the supermarket. On the other hand, the astronomical cost of ads often prevents us from even knowing about a better, more sustainable alternative that comes from a business without the means to purchase a fighting chance in the national or global markets. But where do we draw the line between good niche markets and bad? As it is, advertising is regulated within each industry anyways, but which ones do we want to place restrictions on for the benefit of the common good? In some cases, preventing a business from becoming too global and corporate is a good thing, but maybe if we did away with corporate advertising altogether, it would eliminate the problem.

I don’t think it’s a very realistic possibility, but it’s an interesting thing to consider. I do think something to that effect, though, would go a long way in decentralizing aspects of production, which would give us a claim to more accountability and a way of regulating other parts of businesses that need fixing. It’s a lot easier to call an industry out on its faults when its center of production is in your backyard. Not that I’m against a global market – but if businesses exist within a community, and every community holds itself responsible for enforcing good business practices, then it promotes a sort of global trust network between communities. And it all ties back into the idea of socially-responsible business practices and the like, which has been a continual theme in our class.

Whew, that was a lot of ground to cover. Thanks for bearing with me?

Increasing burdens of women

Women in the United States have come a long way since the feminist movement depicted in Iron Jawed Angels. Nowadays, girls dare to dream of being a lawyer, brain surgeon, investment banker, or even president of the United States. However, from my experiences growing up, it seems that these dreams have only added to the burdens of my mother.

My mother is employed full-time at the same organization as my father. They would carpool to and fro work everyday, thereby working the same number of hours. The only difference is, after work, my father would relax while my mother was expected to take care of all domestic affairs after her long day. Of course, my sister and I, being your typical ego-centric children, would never imagine how tired my mother must be.

Is it fair that women nowadays are expected to contribute to the family bread bowl while keeping the house clean, feeding the children, and look good doing all this? Certainly I’m not expressing that this is the case in all families, as I know my grandfather loves cooking and has always cooked dinner for his family. But the standards of a successful woman are much higher today than it was half a century ago. I suppose that the phrase “with great power comes great responsibility” holds, but it really just is not fair to hold the woman accountable for all domestic affairs as she holds her own in the labor force. If a house is messy or unmaintained, the wife is almost always blamed before the husband. Even with the changing realities of society, traditional views hold fast, putting more burden than ever before on the working women of America. For those unable to afford domestic help, it is difficult to be a working mother whilst maintaining a functional household. But even the powerful woman that hires a full-time nanny is not freed from her domestic burdens, for she is constantly blamed for not spending enough time and energy with the children.

In the end, we can only hope that men can change some of their pre-existing mindsets because it seems that right now, the majority of them still look to their wives for everything to fall into place at home.

Blog 2: Transformative processes

I’ve found it interesting to compare and contrast the various transformative processes the past couple of classes. While I knew there were some distinct aspects of  ‘progressive’ processes I saw problems with, I wasn’t able to put words to what bothered me about them. But now, for instance, it’s very apparent that integrative processes, such as multicultural and diversity, can take the ‘blame’ off of our social institutions and instead put the transformative emphasis on individuals to submit themselves to compose a greater, more richer ‘whole’. On the other hand, anti-racism and affirmative action (equal opportunity) will work toward addressing the flaws in the institutions and try to create top-down change. Functionally these processes bring about very different outcomes. I would even say that multiculturalism and diversity will do more to keep the status quo, functionally. Of course, I do not want to oversimplify and say that all these processes are not progressive or we should throw any of them out. In fact, that kind of thinking will tend to create more problems.

With all the emphasis on equal opportunity laws in our society and prevalence of discourse surrounding freedom of individuals, anti-discrimination, Founding Fathers myth and everything else, I feel we are too quick to conflate the ideals of what the country should be with what it actually is. I am curious about this aspect of ‘equal opportunity’ in action that can take blame away from our institutions, which are often constructed as perfect, unbiased, free from discrimination (construction of democracy, public education as meritocracy/equal access equalizer, and free market come to mind).

Income and Substitution effect

What really struck me in this section of the class was the communist theory regarding the income and substitution effect. I have studied this effect in all of my intro econ courses, and we have just been taught to accept that as wages increase you are going to work more due to the income effect. We were never really taught what would happen if your wages decreased. According to the labor supply graph it says that theoretically when your wages drop, you will be less willing to work for that little and would rather have more leisure time. When put into effect, this would not happen. If lower class, blue collared workers were to have their wages decreased, it is only rational to think that these workers would actually work even harder to make up for the difference. This theory only works for those who have the means to work less and do something else on the side, for example start their own business venture. It was just interesting to see something that I’ve just taken as a fact (that the supply for labor is upward sloping) actually be questioned and backed up with solid and rational evidence that it could actually be the complete opposite of mainstream economics (that the supply for labor is actually downward sloping parallel to the demand curve).

feminism and comparable worth theory

After reading the excerpt of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique I was struck by how little it resonated with me. Although I knew that a major criticism of the early feminist movement was that it catered to middle and upper class white women, I did not expect that Friedan’s work would completely leave out other points of view. For one, there was the assumption that the husband earned a family wage and thus the husband would not have to work. There were many other assumptions as well such as that women had the means to go to college, that they could go to psychologists, be able to support several children, and that a repairman being late was their biggest concern. It’s great to see how far feminism has come in terms of understanding the intersectionality of identities.

In some areas of economics, the incorporation of externalities into models to take into account the impact of production on the environment for example has been used to determine the socially optimal equilibrium. I wonder if a similar method could be used to restructure the economy to value “feminine” work and apply the theory of comparable worth especially since such a high level of confidence is placed in the marketplace. For instance in a memo written before he was appointed to the Supreme Court, John Roberts wrote “It [comparable worth theory] mandates nothing less than central planning of the economy by judges. Under the theory judges, not the marketplace, decide how much a particular job is worth, and restructure wage systems to reflect their determination.”