The Price of a Bargain: The Quest for Cheap and the Death of Globalization

[marmar]

via AlterNet:



Palgrave Macmillan / By Gordon Laird

The Price of a Bargain: The Quest for Cheap and the Death of Globalization
Most of us know that, at some level, cheap stuff comes with a price. But what does it mean to have discounting as the defining force within the whole economy?

July 2, 2010 |


Adapted from The Price of a Bargain: The Quest for Cheap and the Death of Globalization (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)

They emerged from the darkness and gathered like pilgrims, lining up beneath floodlights in the parking lot. Well before midnight, the first shoppers had already settled into chairs and under blankets for the long, cold vigil that was being staged outside nearly every major discount outlet across America.

But only one mall would be remembered in the years to come. By 1 a.m., hundreds had gathered in front of the Wal-Mart at Long Island’s Green Acres Mall. All were there with a singular purpose. They had come for $9 DVDs and $5 Hannah Montana dolls that Wal-Mart had advertised in local flyers; others wanted the $25 microwaves and, most of all, 42-inch LCD televisions that had been marked down to $598. Everyone had a game plan for the store’s 5 a.m. opening, because when big-box stores open on the first Friday after American Thanksgiving, shopping becomes a competitive sport. Above the crowd of shoppers, in five-foot-high letters, was the promise emblazoned on nearly every Wal-Mart in the world: Satisfaction Guaranteed. As in previous years, most retailers opened for only a brief period during the early morning and offered only limited supplies of aggressively discounted products, so shoppers had come to expect lineups. This morning was different. As Naked Augustine recounted, when she arrived at Green Acres Mall at 2 a.m., the line was already two thou-sand people long. Having studied Wal-Mart’s flyer, she was keen on the Hot Wheels Barbie Jeep advertised at more than 50 percent off. As she and a friend discussed shopping strategy, there was a violent surge from behind. “It got scary out of nowhere,” says Augustine. “The crowd in the back just pushed.” Someone grabbed her pocketbook off her shoulder, ripping her coat open. Others were punched and pushed to the ground; scuffles broke out. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/books/147400/the_price_of_a_bargain%3A_the_quest_for_cheap_and_the_death_of_globalization/

[MisterP]

1. a DUer noted that cheap goods are paid for by jobs, wages, and protections

that is, the global elite tried to buy Americans off with cheaper goods (not necessarily CHEAP, since the Invisible Hand doesn't exist when it comes to profit-seeking, and lower production costs means more profits, not lower consumer prices!); now when we have unemployment, the same elites blame labor and "legacy" "costs," and only focus on money (which is only as good as what it can buy: live or mechanized labor, material goods, services, and information)

the global population surge also is tied to neoliberalism, though has its roots in the earlier developmentalism of the USSR, Nehru, and Nkrumah; it provides not only more and more desperate labor and consumption, it also helps crumble the nonhuman environment, reducing margins, increasing, permitting, and exacerbating natural and artifical shortages, and destroying the environment proper (so there's less to save and worry about). Decades of environmental, ecological, and ethological study show that the 60s-vintage chestnut "condoms are bad and redistribution will make everyone happy and content" as insane as NASA planning a trip to the stars according to the Ptolemaic model of the cosmos.

[boomerbust]

2. It would be so simple

Put 5% tarrif on all Chinese goods and increase by 5% every couple months, within a few years millions of jobs woulb be returned.

[enuegii]

3. "Naked Augustine?"

Actually, that's a pretty cool name...
I wonder if there's a Bareass Aquinas out there, too.