Writing in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, Joe Rago notes the updated version of Veblen's concept of conspicuous consumption--"conspicuous virtue":
Conspicuous consumption stays with us today. But increasingly, it seems to me, many consumers are not seeking an outright demonstration of wealth. Instead, they consume to demonstrate their innate goodness. They spend not to suggest the deepness of their pockets but the deepness of their hearts. We inhabit, to update Veblen, an age of conspicuous virtue.
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A trip to the supermarket is instructive. For some time, everyday food has groaned with every sort of moral sentiment: all-natural, sustainable, cage-free, free-range, organic, organic, organic. Foods like these are more than mere sustenance: They commodify values, making them real -- material -- in the world. They are virtuous goods. To consume a virtuous good is to make a statement. It is not only to do right, whatever that might mean, but to announce that you are doing so.
Thus we encounter the extreme specialization of virtuous consumption. Upscale boutique grocers like Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe's base their identities (and marketing strategies) on giving people a way to eat so that each of us may demonstrate where we rank in the virtue standings. The "holistic thinking" of Whole Foods Market, for instance, could not be fully expressed in a "vision statement," so the store is governed by a posted "declaration of interdependence" as well. Trader Joe's actually makes a point of advertising that it does not kill baby seals in the procurement of seafood.
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To be sure, Veblen's notion of "superfluity" is bound up in this evolution of shopping. No one would go to Wal-Mart in search of conspicuous virtue. Only the reasonably affluent can afford to align their products with their beliefs.
Take Toyota's hybrid auto, the Prius. Studies consistently show that fuel savings do not justify the price premium of a gasoline-electric power train. People who can afford the gesture continue to buy the Prius anyway, largely because it certifies personal enlightenment in the matter of global warming. The original design was adorned with cues to distinguish it from a normal car, such as a tapered rear end and skirts over the back wheels. Even without these particular elements, the Prius remains distinctive (or bulbous) enough for everyone to recognize.
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Culturally, it addresses a continuing fussiness, even conflictedness, about materialism in America. Conspicuous virtue offers to those with guilty consciences a way to feel OK about consumerism. A fine scotch is vulgar. A "fair trade" scotch is righteous.
Yet we also have here a tidy illustration of a robust market economy at work. If consumers desire the specialized production of goods as evidence of moral strength -- hell, they'll get it. But there may not be any deeper meaning than that.
Whole Paycheck, of course, is another story.
So, this is another case of a clever thesis that upon closer inspection isn't as well supported as the author might think. But, it probably makes the author feel intellectually superior to the Prius buyers and Whole Foods shoppers, because it confirms his view that they are a bunch of self-righteous tree-huggers who want everyone to know they are.
I mean the primary reason people buy pricey cars has nothing to do with utility. Many people buy a prius for the same reason people would buy a corvette. They just like the car and have positive emotional associations.
Whatever that might mean? The assumption is that actually buying this stuff makes no difference in the real world and is only meant to salve the conscience. It would be a valid criticism if it were true and maybe for some products it is true (fair trade scotch? new to me) but this guy doesn't argue that, just starts there. It is merely sneering.
And the sneering means getting to sneer at everyone. When liberals allege there is a problem and propose a government solution, talk up how the market can do it better. When liberals try to use a market, snigger and call them dumb. When Al Gore drives a limousine, criticize him for not driving a prius. But in case that lets prius drivers feel good, better call them all stupid for driving priuses.
It is just the market in action ... people concerned with values beyond their own material interests have long perceived marginal utility in benefits to others ... will pay more for "made in USA" goods, pay more for cakes or household goods from a church or school instead of Walmart, greeting cards from Unicef. And the benefit is not "feeling good" about yourself, it is benefit to American employees, the church, the school and poor people elsewhere. If you want to argue that the benefits are bogus or ill thought out, that is one thing, a kind of debate that should go on. If fair trade coffee makes life worse for people or the Prius pollutes, people should know.
But this "conspicuous virtue" crap specifically short circuits that kind of debate. If it is meant as a "virtuous " purchase, it is meaningless from the start. Can't address problems through government, says the WSJ. Can't address them by buying or using your market power, sniggers the WSJ. What's left? Shut up and buy, I guess.
I suppose one could make the argument that if you buy fair trade coffee, or organic coffee, that there is an implicit argument that regular Folger's or Maxwell House isn't, and is somehow worse, but I don't think that anyone ever suggests that Folger's would be vulgar. Afterall, many goods at Whole Foods are not organic or free trade either.
The Fair Trade movement has some very serious issues when one considers long-run effect on economic incentives. However, in some circles, it has become a virtually unquestionable that Fair Trade is "better" than non-Fair Trade. The fact that Fair Trade is more expensive is taken as evidence of this.
Is this significantly different from conspicuous consumption? Luxury cars and designer clothing are often no "better" than the alternatives. It is an article of faith in some circles that certain luxury cars and designer clothing are "better" than the alternatives. The fact that luxury cars and designer clothing are more expensive is taken as evidence of this.
My beef is when lefties (in a satanic conspiracy with ADM) force me into conspicuous consumption that I can ill afford. The gas I am forced to buy at the pump is 10% ethanol now. In this country a gallon of ethanol needs more energy to produce than does a gallon of gasoline. It also costs me more and gives poorer mileage performance than ordinary gasoline. So to assuage the consciences of idiot lefties I am forced to pollute the environment and spend more for every mile I drive.
The argument about the Prius is specious. The point of the current controversy about Global Warming is precisely due to the notion that Carbon emissions have externalities - a cost/benefit calculation pitting the Prius against a normal car should take those externalities into account if it wants to address 'conspicuous virtue'.
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I never thought of a fine scotch to be vulgar. I haven't seen or heard anything in the media to suggest that or even imply that.
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That's the magic of snobbery!
I like Whole Foods, but I wouldn't call them cheap.
A perfectly fair thing to say. I don't actually know much about it, but I can imagine all sorts of complex effects. That's not what the WSJ piece was about.
I just don't believe that last statement. Liberal coffee buyers may be easily convinced of things, but they are not opaque. The point of fair trade stuff is it's supposed to be better for the original suppliers and the argument can be made at that level.
Yes, wholly different. First of all, it needs to be conspicuous. Priuses are conspicuous true, but fair trade stuff is not. Nobody but you knows what coffee you drink in the morning and how organic your broccoli is. Here in LA, nobody is particularly giving Priuses a second glance either.
Secondly, as free market economists have investigated at length, branding serves a range of functions. Sometimes the more expensive thing is different. Conspicuous consumption refers to the part we are judged on by others, but that may not be the whole content of a brand. I don't drink, so I don't know, but it is the case that those 40-year-old single malt bottles contain identical stuff to the cheap bottles? Consider bicycles. You can get a bicycle for $150, or $50 at a Salvation Army store, or you can lay out $2,000 or any amount more. Rich guy takes up bicycling as exercise and buys the $2,000 model ... "only the best for me." Silly perhaps. Another guy who has bicycled for years and goes thousands and thousands of miles a year, up and down mountains, also buys the $2,000 model because the lightness and strength of the frame make a big difference to him. In the case of organics, fair trade and enviro stuff, the benefit being bought accrues to all, but it is claimed to be a concrete benefit.
Take the Prius. Aside from the reduced cost of gas at its current price, there are others things being purchased. The typical Prius buyer believes the cost of gas at the US pump does not account for certain consequences of gas use and doesn't want to impose those costs on others. There are arguments about the effect of some people reducing their gas use on overall usage in the market, but that is the claim. Second, the Prius buyer is making a market statement about car demand. For decades, US car makers fought mileage regulation with the claim that Americans don't want low mileage cars. The Prius buyer sought to change that perception with a purchase and to a degree has succeeded. Third, and this is conspicuous but not an irrational exercise in "virtue," the Prius is a political advertisement like a yard sign or a campaign button. The content of the ad is "there is a fellow citizen who believes our fossil fuel consumption is a problem."
It is an interesting implication of the WSJ piece and the responses to it that something like buying a Prius can only be justified in personal cash benefit. If I spend $3,000 extra on a Prius and save $5,000, I'm smart. If I take $1,000 of my savings and give it to charity, I'm a point of light, and if I give the other $1,000 to the RNC, I'm a part of a pioneer or whatever the term is. But if I spend $3,000 extra on my Prius, save only $1,500 but help alter the car industry and fund better car designs, help alter the politics of climate change, help reduce air pollution and avoid some hard to calculate amount of damage to the climate, I'm a nut job to the tune of the whole $1,500 it cost me. That is not accurate. I may be calculating wrong, but my goals are concrete. None of this is about sin or redemption and the WSJ piece claims it is all about sin and redemption.
I was going to go off on a rant, but you said it better than I could have.
Montie,
What are the "very serious issues" with Fair Trade. I honestly haven't heard the complaints. However, did it occur to you that people buying products which they believe are better for the environment might actually be beneficial to the environment, even if those products themselves don't benefit the environment. As itshissong said, it is buying POWER, and buying something popularly imagined to be environmentally sound may cause other product makers to produce things in more environmentally sound ways. In short, a certain amount of "greenwashing" by companies fasely claiming to be environmental may be a necessary cost of getting the market to consider the environmental costs of the products they produce.
Who is claiming that a Prius pollutes less or uses less gas because of some self-identified mystical property? It's a machine designed that way, hardly a religious talisman.
"I don't eat meat on Fridays because God says so" is not exactly on the same scientific level.
I didn't notice this at first, but no one has commented on the irony of a poster calling themselves "logic Nazi" stating that it's okay to buy a Prius because it's cool. Not that I'm arguing with him or anything...but it's still funny.
Ah, the advantages of posting under a nonsense name.
Incidentally, I am not a vegan out of compassion for animals, or a reaction to the greed of capitalists, or a fellow-feeling with the counterculture, or any such crap. I voluntarily gave up animal food because I was persuaded that it would significantly lower my risk of suffering from the hormone-dependent breast cancer that killed Mom. If that's a virtue, it's the virtue of selfishness (nods to Ayn Rand).
And at the risk of sounding belligerent, to all of you sanctimonious meat-eaters who now feel like you have to say something snide to defend your religion of flesh-consuming, I could not possibly care less what garbage you stuff into your mouths so long as you keep it to yourself and don't make it my problem.
Reg.
I dare avouch it, sir: what, fifty followers?
Is it not well? What should you need of more?
Yea, or so many, sith that both charge and danger
Speak 'gainst so great a number? How in one house
Should many people, under two commands,
Hold amity? 'Tis hard; almost impossible.
Gon.
Why might not you, my lord, receive attendance
From those that she calls servants, or from mine?
Reg.
Why not, my lord? If then they chanc'd to slack you,
We could control them. If you will come to me,--
For now I spy a danger,--I entreat you
To bring but five-and-twenty: to no more
Will I give place or notice.
Lear.
I gave you all,--
Reg.
And in good time you gave it.
Lear.
Made you my guardians, my depositaries;
But kept a reservation to be follow'd
With such a number. What, must I come to you
With five-and-twenty, Regan? said you so?
Reg.
And speak't again my lord; no more with me.
Lear.
Those wicked creatures yet do look well-favour'd
When others are more wicked; not being the worst
Stands in some rank of praise.--
[To Goneril.] I'll go with thee:
Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty,
And thou art twice her love.
Gon.
Hear, me, my lord:
What need you five-and-twenty, ten, or five,
To follow in a house where twice so many
Have a command to tend you?
Reg.
What need one?
Lear.
O, reason not the need: our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous:
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man's life is cheap as beast's: thou art a lady;
If only to go warm were gorgeous,
Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st
Which scarcely keeps thee warm.
I think Lear had the better of this one.
According to Consumer Reports, the Prius should save $400 over the Corolla after 5 years, after calculating in the $1500 tax credit. And it wasn't a fair comparison in my mind - the Prius is about half way between the Corolla and Camry in size. That's not a bad deal.
details here
The Civic hybrid also came out ahead - although I don't think it compares performance-wise to the regular civic. The civic hybrid is one of the slowest accelerating cars out there, while the non hybrid is pretty peppy.
The other hybrids came out behind.
Re Priuses — I don't think they're ugly on purpose, but they don't look like any other car, and that's part of their appeal. Honda's hybrids don't seem to have done nearly as well, at least around here, and surely part of the reason is that a hybrid Civic looks like, well, a non-hybrid Civic.
The problem with Fair Trade is that it can easily be counterproductive. The Fair Trade movement complains that the market prices of commodities are often "too low." Therefore, they artificially raise the price of a commodity. While higher prices can benefit a producer in the short run, in the long run, it encourages existing producer to produce more and new producers to enter. What happens to this additional supply? I have never seen a clear answer from the Fair Trade movement.
Don't forget that they pay their workers near minimum wage (unlike the big chain groceries, which are at least largely if not entirely unionized).
I love Trader Joe's. I can get great food for a low price--and so can poor people.
If people just wanted a personal positive emotional reaction, then frankly, shut up about it. But it's not about that at all. It's about either being confirmed in that conspicuous virtue, or using that conspicuous virtue as a club to beat the "uneducated" over the head.
Andrew Orkun:
I partially agree with your point. The reason some people buy these goods is because they have thought about the issue and concluded that buying the virtuous good really is morally superior. However, living in Berkeley, I can tell you there are also plenty of people who buy these goods because it brings a certain sort of social status. For instance many people who won't shop at big chain stores like walmart have never thought through why or even if these stores are really harmful but just know that good progressives don't shop their and choose to follow the crowd. Sure they may honestly say they believe big chain stores are bad but if the people in their community decided it was good to support walmart their attitude would change as well.
Now their is nothing wrong with choosing your products because of image or social status. This is what we all do when we buy cars or purchase clothes. However, if you are deciding what to buy based only on what is considered good by your friends or what is currently popular among progressives you don't deserve any more moral credit than the guy who buys a Porsche because his friends think it's cool. Of course you don't deserve to be sneered at anymore unless you give others a holier than thou attitude about your supposed virtue. It is this holier than thou attitude that some people who are just doing what is currently popular in their circles that this article is reacting to.
I myself would call myself a liberal and believe in buying virtuous products when I think they are really justified (benefit per cost). However, I have to say that I'm totally disgusted by the way some liberals seem to be more interested in burnishing their progressive credentials than really helping people. To give a truly extreme example I remember when they had the live8 concert in england and they interviewed someone (not a celebrity) who claimed they thought the cause of solving hunger in Africa was so important they had flown to england from the states to participate. I mean give me a break, if you really cared about hunger that much, rather than feeling good about yourself and hearing some music, you would have donated the cost of your plane ticket. More commonly I'm disgusted by the way so many liberals who claim to be so concerned about the plight of the world's poor would rather just feel good about themselves by always supporting US unions than asking the tough questions about whether the protectionist trade policies the unions demand harm the truly poor overseas.
This is no special antagonism to liberals. It's the same reason I dislike Christians who are more concerned about going to church on Sunday and looking like they follow all the little rules than showing compassion. It's also the same reason that we sneer at the person who only donates to charity when others can see but laud the person who donates anonymously. Though since I personally care greatly about the plight of the poor and less fortunate I find people giving the pretense of caring but who would rather just feel good about themselves than really consider the tough questions particularly annoying.
Most religious talismans are similarly built according to exacting specifications, and therefore have very well-defined physical properties. It's the magical goodness that's claimed to follow from those properties, however, that makes people want to spend extra money to own them. Likewise with the Prius.
As for how you can tell what people's motivations are for purchasing these virtue goods, well it is tough in any individual case. However, if you see what virtue goods people choose to purchase vary like fashions without any change in the objective reasons to believe the products does good that gives you a clue. You can also get clues if people don't seem to make reasonable trade offs between these supposed virtue goods and other ways to do good, i.e., spending thousands of dollars to go to live8 rather than just donating the money to charity. There are a hundred other little signs too. Basically the same way you figure out if the guy at his parole hearing is earnestly motivated by a desire to atone or motivated by a desire to get out of jail.
I don't understand this complaint. The Fair Trade price is not a government-enforced floor on prices, which would have this sort of effect. It is a price that buyers promise to pay in exchange for FT certification, and it involves long-term contracts. I suppose there are some risks here, but you have to go a long way to show that the process is counterproductive. Most producers like it when demand increases.
Exactly. When the WSJ starts running articles about how people who buy expensive luxury goods are idiot show-offs, I'll pay attention to Rago's two-bit psychology.
However, if you are deciding what to buy based only on what is considered good by your friends or what is currently popular among progressives you don't deserve any more moral credit than the guy who buys a Porsche because his friends think it's cool.
Of course, your friends might be right about what's "good." In any case why is someone who, say, spends extra for a Prius in the belief that it is more virtuous than another car not entitled to moral credit, even if he learned it from his friends rather than by careful calculation?
Of course you don't deserve to be sneered at anymore unless you give others a holier than thou attitude about your supposed virtue. It is this holier than thou attitude that some people who are just doing what is currently popular in their circles that this article is reacting to.
Is this attitude similar to the attitude of the SUV owner who never gets off paved roads but brags about how his vehicle can climb Mt. Everest or something? Sneer at jerks if you want, but remember that they come in all shapes and colors, and buy all kinds of cars.
The problem with the WSJ article is Rago's wild generalizations about all Prius buyers, organic food eaters, etc.
And none are built according to scientific/engineering standards like... a car.
It's the magical goodness that's claimed to follow from those properties, however, that makes people want to spend extra money to own them. Likewise with the Prius.
Yes, I'm sure people want a Prius for its "magical goodness" rather than its lower pollution and better fuel economy. Can you point to a single individual for whom this is true?
Byomtov, I would not be so dismissive of this concern. A farmer who thinks he has the chance to sell at Fair Trade prices will have incentive to produce more. The problem is that all farmers (and would-be farmers) will have the same incentive. Now, with long term contracts, that problem might be mitigated somewhat. For example, Fair Trade could say to the farmer: we will only buy X from you, and we won't buy from any new farmers. However, I don't know if the Fair Trade movement actually does this.
Regarding your last sentence, I doubt that Fair Trade increases the overall quantity demanded. Instead, it just shifts it around.
While the book is primarily about racial politics, as the the title suggests, one of the important things Steele mentions is the change in cultural morality that occurred as a result of the civil rights movement. When people rejected the racism of their forefathers, many also rejected the entire moral system; if that system allowed racism, then the whole thing must be bad.
The "old" morality, which was concerned primarily with individual internal issues -- honor, orthodoxy, truth, etc. -- was replaced with a social morality that focused on external social issues and, most importantly, public disassociation from the old evils. Thus, in terms of race, it's important to engage in actions that show to others that you are not racist -- such as affirmative action, etc. It doesn't matter whether the act actually helps or hurts. Hence Ebonics and liberal opposition to school vouchers.
The upshot of this is that external symbolic morality has replaced internal morality. This requires ostentatious acts that have visible symbolic meaning that can be appreciated by others and for which that actual benefit is immaterial. That's why the excesses of Gore do not bother liberal ecofundamentalists -- his actual profligacy is immaterial in light of his symbolic acts. To those of us who maintain "old style" moral thinking, it's hypocrisy. To those who have accepted new liberal morality, it's perfectly logical.
Thus, we have a market in these meaningless symbolic acts that provide moral cover with a minimum of actual sacrifice and a complete disregard for actual consequence.
The classic example are the complex recycling laws so common in upscale liberal communities. In spite of the fact that these programs are expensive, useless, and cause more pollution than they cure, they are maintained as social sacraments in these communities -- and the most counterproductive parts are the parts most espoused.
This came home to me when I moved from the ultra-liberal Montgomery County, Maryland to conservative North Georgia. Montgomery County has extensive confusing and complex laws about recycling (and indeed, the uber-liberal enclaves such as Tacoma Park have even outlawed backyard grills). In contrast, my county here in Georgia recycles exactly those things that make money and provide service -- cans for money and grinding trash wood mulch. In Montgomery County, I had to buy special bags for tree limbs, pack them in a certain way, and pay a tax for their disposal. In North Georgia, I take a load of wood to the dump, drop it off to be ground up for the next guy, and pick up a load of mulch.
billo
I've never heard that the Prius pollutes less. Is that true? I'd have thought that pollution levels are more a function of catalytic converter quality than fuel consumption. Perhaps not--but in any event, I've certainly never heard of the Prius being advertised as more non-polluting. I have heard it advertised as having lower fuel consumption, which turns out to be pretty much a wash in economic terms, with the greater initial cost at least canceling out the gasoline savings for most drivers.
But the real attraction of lower fuel consumption for most Prius buyers is not economic, but rather the magical goodness that supposedly flows from it: "living a more sustainable lifestyle", "saving the planet", and so on.
Your post describes absolutely nothing new about the world; this is intrinsic to humanity. Why did the Romans use crucifixion? Why did the Egyptians build the pyramids?
Yes.
From Wikipedia (and all that entails):
But the real attraction of lower fuel consumption for most Prius buyers is not economic, but rather the magical goodness that supposedly flows from it: "living a more sustainable lifestyle", "saving the planet", and so on.
"Polluting less" and "using less gas" are concrete, realistic actions that give meaning to vague phrases like "sustainable lifestyle" and "save the planet." You can't name someone who wants a Prius because of its "magical goodness," can you?
I understand why they do it, but I always get a kick out of the WSJ going all populist.
Isn't your question addressed by the 7:13 post:
which suggests that the distint appearance of the car plays a part in its desirability?
Yes, and "wearing a talisman" and "following certain dietary rules" are concrete, realistic actions that give meaning to vague phrases like "improving one's luck" and "incurring the pleasure of the deity". In both cases, the significance of the vague phrases, and their causal relationship with said concrete actions, are essentially a matter of religious faith. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course....
Certainly, but appearance does not have a mystical relationship to the car like a rabbi's blessing does to kosher food, say.
Dan Simon: In both cases, the significance of the vague phrases, and their causal relationship with said concrete actions, are essentially a matter of religious faith.
It is a matter of religious faith that a lower-polluting, less-gas-hungry car pollutes less and uses less gas? You're joking, no?
Be careful with the soybeans if you are concerned about hormone dependent breast cancer.
Not sure of the details but if I recall correctly soybeans are a rich source of phyto-estrogens and they can potentially stimulate estrogen sensitive cancer cells.
No, of course not--nor is it a matter of religious faith that a talisman or dietary stricture has its particular physical properties. The religious faith lies in the claim that those physical properties are inherently desirable because they further certain religiously defined goals, such as "living a sustainable lifestyle" and "saving the planet" (or "having good luck" and "incurring the pleasure of the deity").
Why else, after all, would so many drivers pay a net premium merely to drive a car that pollutes less and uses less gas?
The additional production is sold on the open market. This additional supply is a downward pressure on prices since it increases supply. The participants in the Fair Trade program have locked in prices, but those not in the program are left to the normal fluctuations of the market.
However, the producers who are not in the FT program have more inventive to lower production costs. Those in the program may have a difficult time competing with them when they are no longer under FT contracts.
I guess I'm missing your point, Dan Simon. I apologize for being so obtuse. What is it about "living a sustainable lifestyle" that is a "religously defined goal"? In my personal economic life I wish to "live a sustainable lifestyle," so I set a realistic budget and live within my means. The lifestyle I choose is one that is sustainable by my income. I have always thought of this as common sense - what is it that makes that what you call a "religously defined goal"? How is my setting such a goal and making such choices at a personal economic level less "religously defined" than doing the same thing on a larger scale by buying a hybrid vehicle?
We only consider price and status because both marketers and commenters present them, to the exclusion of other thought. Other rational and emotional considerations (admiring a producer's history, for instance, or dealing with a trusted agent, feeling good about a family tradition, personal hope for a new technology, keeping a hometown business going, or giving a stick in the eye to our supposed enemies or friends, as one has every right to do with one's purchases) are now supposed to be either unconscious or dictated.
An acquaintance showed us her children's new winter coats, made in Thailand. I wondered aloud what the Thais imagine winter to be. She responded that she had little choice in the purchase; she had to go for the "quality." I was happy to hear this endorsement of Thai workmanship. Then she corrected herself: she'd meant to say "value" (meaning "price"). She'd forgotten the distinction. So have we all.
I drive a Studebaker. I heartily recommend them. The more you learn about the firm and its products, the more you'll want one. Their greatest virtue, of course, is that time cannot stale their infinite variety: they don't make them anymore. Of course, that is your problem. I've got mine.
No, not at all. Gore has a large house, it's true, but he is currently converting it to a much more energy effiicient house, even including the use of solar panels. When complete, his house will actually be selling power back to the utility company. That garbage about him being a hypocrite was trash written and repeated by Fox news and others in an attempt to discredit him. That we did not fall for that baloney is proof that we can still think with our brains and recognize propaganda when we see it.
"The classic example are the complex recycling laws so common in upscale liberal communities. In spite of the fact that these programs are expensive, useless, and cause more pollution than they cure, they are maintained as social sacraments in these communities -- and the most counterproductive parts are the parts most espoused."
It so happens that one of my best friends is the new director of recycling in Montgomery County. Perhaps the laws are complicated -- I don't know, i don't live there -- but I specifically asked her whether the County makes a profit, or it is really the loss that conservatives claim. She was quite adamant that recycling is a net profit for the county, and it relies upon the revenues for funding of many projects. She said that the citizens are actually pretty good about understanding the laws and regs governing, and that's one of the reasons it works so well for them.
So again -- perhaps you should do a little research before you start repeating all the Fox News commentators. They are wrong.
Yup, just one of the guys, he is.
I recall a story one of my friends told be about ten years ago. She was having lunch with the daughter of Judge Robert Bork, the uber-conservative judge. They were at a Chinese restaurant, and my friend sometimes likes to order a tofu dish. She suggested this to the daughter, who replied, Oh NO! I'm just not into that whole liberal lifestyle!
So there you have it. Tofu is liberal, too liberal for a conservative to eat. Will the WSJ start writting about these people?
It meets the SULEV standards ... and beats it according to hybridcars.com: "Emissions – 89 percent fewer smog-forming emissions than the average new car, exceeding the standards for a Super Ultra Low Emission Vehicle (SULEV)" Impressive considering that new cars are pretty clean these days.
Where is any of that "magical goodness"? It's actual goodness, or we're wrong and it's not actual goodness. If you want to look for magical thinking, have a look at the idea that our economic decisions have no consequences beyond the money we make or the pleasure we experience from them.
Love it. Economic analysis. No idea if it's right, but it constitutes an actual criticism of fair trade product marketing.
There is a concept of sustainable that involves more than your personal domestic budget. The idea is that there is a level of consumption of certain goods and production of certain pollutants that can't be sustained. You can argue that this concept of sustainability is ill-thought out or ill-calculated, but you seem to be arguing that because it involves costs and benefits that do not apply to the consumer making the decision that it is not a calculation at all, merely "magical thinking." That is just wrong.
If I arrive at the dinner table, family of four, and there are eight chicken drumsticks, nicely broiled, on a plate and I'm hungry so I eat all eight of them, my wife and children complain. What about us, they ask? Your answer to them would seem to be that I get more benefit from eating eight, than from eating fewer than eight, so what are they complaining about? I'm maximising my economic result there. If I arrive at the table, take my two legs and leave six for the rest of them, you would accuse me of magical thinking, seeking only to feel good about myself by indulging in a bogus, patronising quasi-religious "pretend to feed my family" ritual. Garbage. I'm leaving some food on the plate for my family.
Now if you want to point out to my that I could help with the cooking or bring home more food or that I'm not leaving the food for them, just scraping the other six legs into the garbage while my family stays hungry, then those are arguments, I'd respect. Like the point the guy above made about fair trade. It is a discussion worth having. But claiming it is pre-rational behavior because I don't simply eat all the chicken I can in an economically optimal swallow is nonsense.
The argument for sustainable living is driven by the non-renewable nature of the resources we are using, the damage done by their use, the disproportionate use of those resources by the richest countries and the disproportionate capacity that the richest countries have, through research, investment and modified behavior, to address those issues.
Go ahead and argue that people who advocate sustainable living are wrong about all that, but you can leave off with claiming they are brainless fluffballs, which is pretty much how your comments come across.
This is exactly 100% wrong. I happen to think Gore is getting a bum rap on this -- whole new arguments against the value of carbon offsets seem to have been generated solely to attack Gore's electric bill -- but that is beside the point. If he were profligate to a gross degree, I'd still be cheering the guy on because he has been successful in convincing large numbers of Americans that they should pay attention to the potential dangers of climate change. McCain couldn't convince them. Hansen couldn't convince them. Lieberman couldn't. Blair couldn't. Whole departments of climate scientists couldn't. The combined nations of the rest of earth couldn't. Gore finally seems to have gotten them to. That so outweighs his electric bill in a completely concrete way that it isn't funny. It is not that, as you claim, his actual profligacy is outweighed by his symbolic acts. It is that his (alleged) actual profligacy is outweighed by his actual successful, dividend-yielding politics. Cold, hard, this-plane-of-existence politics.
It is a certain old-style morality, and I don't know if it is yours, that attributes more value to sin and redemption and hypocrisy than to the actual consequences of our actions.
I think back to old Jesse Jackson. I don't know much about him and how personally admirable he is, but I know he spent his career advocating that young people not have children out of wedlock and was then found to have been siring some himself. Not an impressive performance. But the questions that came to my mind were: (a) Does his personal bad behavior mean he was wrong when he recommended teens not have kids out of wedlock? (b) If he actually had a beneficial effect on the level of teen pregnancy, should he be praised for having done a good thing? If you had to pick, would you rather have a well-behaved Jesse Jackson who didn't give advice or a badly behaved Jesse Jackson who improved the lives of hundreds of thousands?
Ask me how I would rank an Al Gore who quietly drove to the supermarket in his Prius against an Al Gore who flies around in a private jet and changes the balance of world politics in favor of the survival of humanity and the choice is pretty easy. And involves no illogical bowing to symbols.
This is also true when it comes to organic foods. It is not a sustainable life style. We already know what a world looks like that depends on organic food to sustain itself. Look at history. It is very dirty and life reducing.
The article does not call for government regulation of your choices unlike many of the consumers of the enviromentally preferred life style who support all kind of government intervention into my life. Most of us understand the need for seperartion of church and state when it comes to the traditional religions. How do we protect ourselves from the nontraditional religions?
Yes, of course, thank you for pointing that out. The effect is suspected but not proven, and in individuals without hormone-dependent cancer, thought to have a protective effect. Were I to get a suspicious lump I would naturally immediately give up soy as well as certain other foods shown to have an effect on estrogen. In any case, the potential bad effects of a diet of typical hormone-and-fat-packed flesh, eggs, and dairy are better documented.
The negative health effects of being a stressed-out worry-wart, liberal/environmental community kamikaze artist (or a stressed-out, type-A-plus, ulcer-as-a-badge-of-honor capitalist consumption engineer) are even better documented, though. :) When people draw parallels between a behavior and religion, it's not usually a compliment to either the behavior or the religion. Fanaticism doesn't become anyone.
Well, I'm glad that I'm not the only dipsomaniac here who likes to get her wine for less than the price of bottled water. Ghirardelli's chocolate at $3.49/lb isn't bad, either.
As for the Prius and cost savings: why assume that Prius buyers are irrational simply because the money doesn't work out for the average driver? The increased cost of a hybrid is not balanced out by the savings in gasoline for the average driver,, not for every conceivable driver (much in the way that ethanol results in net energy loss for every driver). For a person who drives 20,000 or 30,000 miles every year, a Prius would be an economically rational choice. Would it not follow logically that Prius owners have evaluated their driving habits before purchasing a hybrid?
This is not true. The energy payback time on solar cells currently using full life-cycle analysis is one to four years depending on technology and location. The gram CO2 equivalent greenhouse gas generated per kilowatt-hour is 20 to 40 depending on technology used, compared with 900 for coal and 400 for gas. If CO2 capture works, coal and gas can get down to the 200 range, so solar would still have an advantage. See
Alsema-DeWild-Fthenakis
and
Fthenakis-Kim
If you show that you are willing to pay more for a car, the car manufacturers will raise the price of the car, since they've just discovered a group of customers with low price-sensitivity.
If you buy a car and then give $1000 to an unrelated charity, the charity will not raise the price of the car.
That may be part of the reason, but the Camry hybrid is doing very well - and it looks like a Camry.
I think a bigger factor is that Toyota offers a more better hybrid system, and put together better overall packages for the people that are interested in Hybrids. Honda came out with two hybrids - a Accord 6 cylinder hybrid, which got very good mileage for it's performance, but not very good mileage in the mind of a "greenie". And a Civic hybrid - which is both smaller and pokier than the Prius, but gets about the same mileage.
The other hybrids that come to mind are all SUVs - and a lot of "greenies" have a visceral reaction to those.
But only in the mind of the believer is the rabbit's foot different from others, while a Prius has distinct advantages over other cars in terms of fuel economy and pollution.
The religious faith lies in the claim that those physical properties are inherently desirable because they further certain religiously defined goals, such as "living a sustainable lifestyle" and "saving the planet" (or "having good luck" and "incurring the pleasure of the deity").
There is no point in arguing about simplistic bumper-sticker slogans, but you are reducing any rational preference with which you apparently disagree to a religious belief. Have you considered that perhaps Prius owners don't want to consume fossil fuels as quickly as they would driving other vehicles? Where is the religion in such a choice?
Those who associate a Prius with "living a sustainable lifestyle" therefore have a notion of "sustainable" that's not synonymous with "economically sensible" (and, I would argue, more akin to some kind of neo-pagan religious ideal).
If someone spends more on a Kobe steak than a McDonald's hamburger, is it because they have a "neo-pagan religious ideal" of beef or because they want to eat a better meal? Most preferences, no matter how insensible you find them, do not have a religious component.
I have tried to track this down and I can't find anything academic to back it up. The only thing I could find that comes close is a report by a private consulting guy (CNW Research) which purports calculate complete "dust-to-dust" energy cost figures for nearly all cars and light trucks sold.
This 450-page report made some headlines because, among other things, it concluded that hybrids like the prius use more energy per mile on a life-cycle basis than hummers and other big SUVs. There are some problems with it. Just at the level of plausibility, it calculates an energy cost per mile of about $3.00 for a prius (making it effectively a 1 mpg car taking all the life costs into account.) Since the fuel cost per mile is like 15 cents or something, that means that non-fuel energy costs are 95%. More general industry studies indicate that the non-fuel portion of the lifetime energy cost of a car is on the order of 15%, maybe up to 30%. When you look then at the assumptions CNW makes in its calculations, it becomes clear why the figures are like this. He treats it pretty much as a short-lived, lightly-used, nearly experimental car. For example, he assumes that a prius will have an average life of 12 years versus a life of 22 years for an SUV. This is explains by saying as a leading edge or experimental model with not-widely-shared technology, it will not be supported for as long and will become prohibitive to maintain. During those 12 short years, he claims, it will be driven many fewer miles per year because it will usually be a family's secondary vehicle. (I may have misread that part, but I was trying to skim 450 pages.) Most egregiously, he divides the design and development costs among the priuses currently sold, not viewing any of it as a loss leader the carmakers are using to create the market and prove the design. The D&D cost he attributes to each prius is $29,000, which is more than the sales price! Mind you, this is not Toyota subsidizing manufacturing per vehicle, i.e. spending $40,000 to make a car it sells for $30,000 and taking the loss for its own reasons, this is the fixed design and development costs to invent the car in the first place.
This is nonsense. There have been, I don't know, 200,000 priuses sold. It is crazy to say as part of a life-cycle analysis that those 200,000 buyers are responsible for making Toyota put all that effort into inventing the the thing in the first place. The next prius buyer causes zero of that cost, so it simply isn't meaningful at a marginal level. Do we credit later when 10 million of them have sold? Prius users spend $500 or $600 a year on fuel. If we get credit for the decline in our share of D&D costs as more of them sell, our contribution to GHGs could be negative each year! It is right to do life-cycle analysis of purportedly environmental technologies and actions, but this wasn't it.
This is not a very sophisticated view of price theory and economics. When kiwi fruit were first brought to the US, people were willing to pay a lot more for the tasty little buggers than, say, red delicious apples. Did the kiwi importers, having found a supply of low-price-sensitive saps, raise the price? No! They charged a lot at first but imported a lot more and then learned to grow them here. Today kiwi fruit sit around in low price heaps to be scooped up by anyone who wants. Like kiwi fruit, hybrid cars have proved saleable and they're making more. (Indeed, the long-term price curve evolution for another product, oil, is the only problem for environmentalists demanding less of the stuff, something no one has mentioned here.)
And when pigs have wings, they will fly. But until then, we deal with what is. The *fact* is that Gore's lifestyle is what it is, and it is a profligate one. And we can all ignore the tin mine, eh?
You have to understand what "profit" means to these kinds of county officials. Of course they make a "profit" on recycling — not because of the money they make on the commodities, but on the fee and tax structure that bleeds the citizens to support it. And it's a hefty profit. But it's not on the recycling per se — or else the county is ripping off it's citizens when it takes those taxes and fees that supposedly pay for the recycling projects.
Take a look at the Montgomery County Budget. In 2005, the county spent about $20 million on recycling. In contrast, it brought in a rousing $1.2 million from recycled materials. The rest is made up in fees and taxes. Only in a liberal county is that considered a profit.
See: this budget
That's rather my point. It's a liberal community, and it's acting in a manner that I described. The citizens of Tacoma Park are very supportive of making it a "nuclear free zone," and of banning outdoor grilling, as well. That doesn't make it any less stupid.
Dude, unlike you, I lived in Montgomery County for 12 years. I paid those fees. I bought the specially taxed bags. If you were to bother to read what I wrote, you will note that I was speaking from personal experience, not quoting "Fox News." Get your slogans right. The perspective is different when you are opening your veins to support these boondoggles than when you are a politician that lapping up the blood.
Andre Okun:
Exactly. That's the fundamental of social morality. It's what you say, not what you do. Thus you have Gore acting the way he does, you have Barbara Streisand sending out missives from her estate telling the little people not to do laundry, you have John Kerry's wife telling kids to run around naked. And none of it is hypocritical in terms of that morality because what is *said* and *advocated* is more important that what is *done."
Exactly not. Why are we suddenly judging Gore's electric bill? Is it because, while we are tightening our belts, he is not tightening his? No, not at all. We are suddenly passionately concerned with the moral implications of Gore's electric bill because we, (well, you and Sen. Inhofe, not me) want a reason to disregard everything Al Gore says. Inhofe is just trying to win a debate by making an ad hominem attack. Are you interested in who does Barbra's laundry? No! You are solely interested in discrediting a preachy celebrity whose scolding you disapprove of. Are you the least concerned with Theresa Heinz Kerry's views, whatever they are, on child-rearing? Let me take a wild guess here and suggest that prior to her husband's successful primary run in '04, you were not putting a lot of time into studying her family worldview.
It is not social morality at all. It is attributing moral importance to the foreseeable consequences of actions. It is exactly the opposite of "what you say, not what you do." If you want a vision of hypocrisy, look at Inhofe pretending to be mad at Gore's square footage when he is not mad about that at all. He is mad about losing the debate about climate change.
The argument always is "it's completely fair to hold so-and-so accountable by the standards they themselves champion." Well who is holding whom accountable, for what and why? Is it fair for the US Senate to try to hold Al Gore accountable for his electric bill, under oath mind you? That's not their job! Their job is to run the country and, in this case, save the planet. The attacks are empty political garbage.
Seriously, to be accused of social morality by people who become experts in sex harassment law just to champion Paula Jones, electric bills just to harass Al Gore, the excesses of rich people's housing only to attack John Edwards and the like is just infuriating.
The best thing about Gore is that he is providing a nice level set in the environmental conservation arena. Bono does it in the charitable giving arena. Once my standard of living is similar to theirs, then I'll know it's time to start worrying about the environment and giving money for the prevention of AIDS in Africa. Until then all I hear is "blah blah blah blah."
If the tree humpers want to convince me to join their cause, they'll need to be sure that every participant in their cause has a quality of life no higher than mine.
Ultimately it's not what you give that conveys your message, it's what you keep.
So essentially your value system is based on greed, right? All you care about is having more than everyone else. Thankfully there are people on this planet that aren't like you.
You know that Gore is right and you can't stand that. So instead of altering your lifestyle (why should I do anything to help someone else you ask...all i care about is me me me) or attempting to refute him on his merits, you resort to ad hominem attacks. it would be comical if it weren't true.
You do realize, don't you, that you are making my point? Your passionate argument that their personal morality is irrelevant in light of their advocacy is exactly the point I'm making.
billo
Let me correct myself. I missed a line item. The above should read:
blockquote>Take a look at the Montgomery County Budget. In 2005, the county spent about $60 million on recycling. In contrast, it brought in a rousing $1.2 million from recycled materials. The rest is made up in fees and taxes. Only in a liberal county is that considered a profit.
Well, at least on this point we can agree. It's sort of like when George Bush says he supports the troops, and then let's them go in to battle without proper armor, or properly tend to their wounds afterwards. Or when Dick Cheney complains about leaks to the press, and it turns out that he is one of the biggest leakers to the press. Or when George Bush lectures teenagers about absintence before marriage, but won't answer whether he was a virgin and solely monogamous to Laura Bush. Or when Ted Haggard screams from the pulpit that homosexuality is a sin and all sorts of morality, and then we find out that he is having sex with a male prostitute while married to a woman. Or when Tom DeLay rails on about corruption in gov't, and it turns out he is more corrupt himself. Or when Newt Gingrich talks about morality and how we have to impeach Clinton and at the same time is carrying on with a mistress. Or when Gingrinch decides he needs to defend marriage, even though he's been married several times.
Need I go on? Or are you going to argue that hypocracy is limited to liberals?
Can you clarify? Do you mean Gore will be producing more kilowatt hours of electricity than he consumes on an annual basis? Will Gore actually receive a net positive cash flow from the power company? If this is the case, then how does he do it? This could free all of us from the power companies and eliminate the need for large power plants.
Average Number of Commingled Tons (Including Residue) Processed per Day: 93
Tons of Commingled Material (Less Residue) Processed and Sent to Market: 22,038
Accrued Revenue from Sale of Commingled Material: $3,146,213
Average Revenue per Ton Sent to Market: $143
MES Operating Expenses: $2,341,801
Capital Improvement Expenses: $136,373
Number of Visitors (via Tours) to the Recycling Center: 4,275
Number of Employees at the Recycling Center: 38
Notice that revenue exceeds operating expenses. Where Mr. Oliver gets his figure that annual expenses are $60 million just for recycling, he doesn't say. I would suspect that he is confusing total costs of all refuse removal, which includes leaf removal, all trash removal and so on.
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story? section=nation_world&id=5072659
(remove the space after the ? in the above address. This system doesn't accept strings that long.)
With all due respect, that is not the point you were making nor the point I was making.
Your first post in this thread said, "Thus, we have a market in these meaningless symbolic acts that provide moral cover with a minimum of actual sacrifice and a complete disregard for actual consequence." On the basis of this, you said, a few paragraphs down, that this is why we ecoliberals judge Al Gore as good. So it appears you brought Al Gore up as an example because you claim we judge him not because of the consequences of his actions but because he made certain meaningless symbolic gestures with little personal sacrifice and in complete disregard of actual consequences.
Then, when I list the actual consequences of his actions, which are immense, you tell me I've made your point. The only thing to conclude is that you regard advocacy as neither a meaningful act nor capable of producing actual consequences. That's awfully funny to find out on a blog full of articulate thoughtful and mostly full time advocates. Al Gore's advocacy counts.
Does his personal morality count? Yes. If he buys a warehouse, insures it, burns it down and files a bogus insurance claim, he should go to prison for arson and fraud. When that happens, you let me know. I will reassess my judgment of his character. In the meantime, you claim that a dispositive judgment may be made of the moral character of a congressman, senator, VP and widely known public policy advocate based solely on his behavior as a utility customer and that it is liberal moral opacity to judge his character based by balancing his behavior in all these realms rather than focusing solely on the utility bills.
You never come out and say it, but some other people on this board do. The next step in the argument is "I don't have to pay attention to anything Al Gore says until his house is smaller than mine." Well, no, you do. Plenty of people with smaller houses, smaller cars and smaller public personae have make the climate change case perfectly well and been ignored. Al Gore, partly by putting in those carbon heavy travel miles, has made the case and it needs to be discussed. The case is strong, unfortunately, and backed by plenty of science and evidence and should be answered at that level. You may, assessing this hard-working public servant and family man solely by kWh, decide that he is an amoral snake, a puzzling judgment but up to you, but that is no basis for judging the case he is making, nor a basis to judge the well-considered actions of countless others who are making the decisions, like buying priuses or changing light bulbs, that you mock Gore for not making.
So let's judge his personal morality. He finally won his seat in front of a senate committee and got to tell us what we all need to do. Is he asking us to make a sacrifice that he is not willing to make?
His first claim is that he lives and works carbon neutral, which is done mostly by buying carbon offsets. Indeed, since Gore _is_ carbon neutral when you add in the carbon offsets, Sen. Inhofe had specifically to instruct Gore that in answering the questions about his personal behavior, he wasn't allowed to mention carbon offsets. They are, we learn from the anti-Gore brigade, bogus. They're not a real sacrifice because they only cost money. I don't expect that argument will carry much weight on a serious, economics minded blog like this one. If Gore spends money on carbon offsets that costs him a precisely measurable amount. When we libs try to tax a billionaire a couple extra million because it won't affect the size of his yacht, we get instructed in how that's not the point. Ok, well, if Gore pays for offsets, he has sacrificed that much. You may argue that the offsets don't work the way they should, but that is a different argument. That means Gore is a lousy environmentalist who has miscalculated the results of his actions, not a hypocrite unwilling to pay the price he wants others to pay.
Even assuming that his offsets are faulty, what is it that Gore wants us to do. Does he go around saying poor people should use fewer light bulbs? No. Does he go around criticizing SUV drivers? No. Irritating prius drivers like me do that, not Gore. Does he say we need to live in hovels on organic food? No. He says we should implement policies. This is not a surprise because that's the business he's been in all along. He listed 10 of them before Congress the other day. In not one case did he advocate a policy that wouldn't apply to himself. Carbon tax? He'd pay it like the rest of us. Tax pollution? The costs would be passed on to all of us, including him. Develop Electronet? That would cost up front taxes, and his taxes are higher than yours or mine, cause he's richer. Raise CAFE standards? If he buys big cars and the fear prices result, he'd pay them. Earmark tax money for low-income assistance? He'd be paying the tax and wouldn't get a dime. No personality morality problem there.
So perhaps your problem with him is that, if all these policies are implemented, they will impinge on other, poorer people more than on rich people like Gore. True enough. That is the American way and it is true of all public policies that inflict much of a cost at all. Of course, on this blog, some argue that means there should be few public policies at all, but even they admit there are _some_ necessary public policies. If Gore's policies are not necessary, then he's wrong on the merits (which is not a matter of personal morality), but if they are, then the costs will be distributed same as any other policy, and the rich will still be better off. Of Gore and all the people who criticize him, he is the one who would impose the maximum cost on the wealthy, so if some can criticize him for that from a personal morality point, it's not them.
Still, if the offsets don't count and his policies recommendations don't matter for personal morality and different rules should apply to him than to other rich people, then maybe you're right and Gore should adjust his arrangements to use less carbon and live the life he recommends for us all. So, we find out, that is what he is doing. To me, that seems like a symbolic gesture, but it wouldn't it have the merit of clearing him in the eyes of those of you for whom personal consistency is pre-requisite for policy advocacy? No such luck! "And when pigs have wings, they will fly," you retort. The implication of this it won't happen and can't happen. Does this mean he can't succeed in installing solar panels? Or does it mean that material profligacy is a kind of original sin and when Gore in 2010 makes a policy recommendation we can ignore him because of his 1999 electric bill. He showed his moral turpitude once by living the high life and we know all we need to know about him from now on?
It can't be any of that, because that wasn't your point. You don't criticize Sam Walton's extended family for the size of their homes. They're just rich and enjoying their money. (And they are allowed ... this is America and it's up to them what to do with it.) And we _definitely_ wouldn't be having this conversation if he'd turned into a well-paid lobbyist or sat on the boards of 50 companies, banking big fees between rounds of golf.
The problem with Gore is not what he does "despite his advocacy," it is his advocacy, not his personal morality, that he is being attacked for and it is not social morality or magical thinking or "external symbolic morality" to defend his very concrete advocacy on its very concrete merits.
Gore is using a misinterpretation of limited data to try to gain personal power and control peoples' lives. That he doesn't follow his own preaching indicates he doesn't actually believe it himself. He lost his chance to be president of the world's superpower, so he wants to gain even more power by changing lifestyles worldwide.
That he wants to take away my freedoms based on junk science is what I can't stand.
So what you're saying is that Al Gore actually really does not believe there is a climate crisis, but has chosen to pretend there is one as his best chance of taking control of earth? You believe that?