Useless capitalist
I'm reading a book called Tescopoly by Andrew Simms, which is very good, in that it tells me a lot of stuff I already know being an avid reader of dangerous anti-capitalist literature but tells me it in a very clear and inspiring way. As you might guess, it's about Big Supermarkets and how they are destroying communities and fucking up the environment and taking away choice by offering choice. There's nothing new here, but it's so current, and Tesco, which Simms picks out for special treatment because it's the biggest and most voracious of all the supermarket chains, is not satisfied yet. CEO Terry Leahy famously told Management Today in 2004 that because Tesco accounted for one pound out of every eight spent on food in Britain, there was still seven pounds to go after. Tesco are already in Asia and Eastern Europe; America is next. This is not a story unique to Tesco, and I'm not going to rant about them, because I'm no angel, I do some of my shopping in supermarkets (although not Tesco), and I also live in a big city where I can much more easily pick and choose where I buy my salad leaves and chicken thighs. The thing that's been bothering me as I read yet another anti-corporate tract is this: what makes a capitalist? Are we all pre-programmed to desire "growth" and "expansion", or is that just the type of entrepreneur, like Leahy (he grew up in a "prefab maisonette" in Liverpool, we're always told), who feels that he has something to prove?
I have realised that I would make a useless capitalist. I am a small businessman, in that I'm self-employed, and ticking along fine, but aside from the pleasure I get from my work, I do it in order to make enough money to live comfortably. I have no burning desire to "expand", or buy a second car, or a second house, and doubt I ever will do. I'm sure that if I owned a shop, I would be happy if I made a profit sufficient to keep trading. I may be dreaming, of course, but it seems to me that the only mark of success in business is to get bigger, buy a second shop, buy a third shop. That's how Tesco started, and all the rest. Small, "family" concerns like Innocent and Green & Blacks and Ben & Jerry all start out as little backroom operations, but these types of business become successful and the next thing you know, they're either selling out ethicially, or literally, or floating on the stock market (whatever that means). I believe Innocent have their sights set on America. Why? Don't tell me it's to bring healthy smoothies to a wider public. I don't believe it. It's to make more money. Now, I'm not a economist, which is why I'm baffled, truly baffled, by the holy grail of "growth". But does every businessman/woman or trader have to dream of taking over the world? isn't it shareholders and the City that cause all the trouble? I'm also reading Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine, which joins a lot of dots and looks at the sinister, deadly side of Milton Friedman free market economics, but the thread is the same: deregulated trade is king, all competition must be trodden into the dirt, and if they can't compete, it's their stupid fault. There is no room for the individual, ticking-over small business in this utopia. Mrs Thatcher used to go on about the small businessman, but look what her beloved free market did for such small businesses in the end. One of the reasons Tesco has the lead on out-of-town supermarkets is that it was rich enough to buy up loads of land in advance. Apparently they have enough to take 45% of the market, should they be allowed to build on all of it. How is the small trader to compete with that?
So I come back to my point: what makes a capitalist? I'm pretty sure that I don't have the gene. Is that possible? Or am I just allowing my dangerous Communist views to stifle what is a natural instinct to shop my neighbour and steal their roses? From birth now we are assaulted by images of things that we ought to own, in order to improve our lives. The pitch is almost deafening. I come from a generation that was more satisfied with less things, and was prepared to wait for them. Those born after 1975 who grew up with video and multiple TV channels and computers are less likely to know that experience. And for as long as we believe that whatever we have isn't enough, capitalism and growth will never be defeated. We must be a nation of shop-users for the shopkeepers to continue to expand. And yet it's far easier to walk out of a small shop with just what we went in for, than a huge barn of a supermarket.
I don't mean this to be a soapbox entry as such. I'm just actually fascinated by this apparently genetic need to be more successful. It even infects the BBC, where I do a lot of my work, and that's a publicly-funded body. For 6 Music to be deemed a success it must get bigger; it must get more listeners. Why must it? Why can't it just be good and get better? Green & Blacks must get bigger, and if that means selling out to Cadbury, one of the biggest chocolate manufacturers in the world (who now benefit from the prestige and eco-credentials of having G&B in its "portfolio"), so be it. Small price to pay.
Oh by the way, you can buy Tescopoly from Tesco's. You almost have to admire them for that. But then again, profit is profit, wherever it comes from.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 8:46 AM
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Very good post. I think you've got a good point - the most unhealthy aspect of modern economic life is the destroy-all-others competitive nature of it. It's what's turning all our high streets into clones of each other - I was very, very disappointed to see a Starbucks open in my suburb recently. I can see it being the end of the nice independent cafes nearby.
For an interesting perspective on things, try reading "How To Be Free" by Tom Hodgkinson. It's an absolutely amazing book, that suggests we can by and large opt out of hardcore capitalism by being self-reliant, less competitive and less consumerist. A very inspiring read.
Perhaps there is something about the business mind compared to a vocational one. If you have a vocation such as yours Andrew, your drive is to do your best and enjoy what you do, if you have a business mind you are driven by the bottom line and expansion. Different mind sets!
As an aside on Tesco's,I work for a very large communications company and our biggest competitive threat is not Vodafone or Carphone Warehouse or Virgin, it's Tesco's!! Their 'point of presence' at the tills where you can pick up leaflets on pet insurance to broadband is very very powerful.
AnonoNick
With regards to companies starting small and chasing expansion, is this not because they're mostly effectively in hock to their investors/shareholders?
I recall some bigwig from Innocent on Radio 4 the other morning, recounting how he'd had to work hard to shop around for starting capital, and how the recently proposed corporation tax reforms might have meant that those first investors might have passed on the deal under those terms etc... He didn't get quite as far as suggesting that Brown and Darling want us all to have scurvy, but I digress.
You get the investors on board, of course, by guaranteeing them returns under some binding terms or other. Often this involves a controlling interest, boardroom positions, shareholder votes and vetos and whatnot.
This is a lesson I count myself lucky to have observed when I found myself in the middle of the dot-com 'bubble / boom ', before the milennium. Companies abandoning whatever germ of a sensible strategy they formed around, because now they'd said yes to umpteen million quid of someone else's money, and now had to try and dig enough revenue from the ether to live up to the terms.
Trying to run a small business myself now, it's an avowed first principle for me, shun external investment. I find myself shouting at "Dragons' Den" quite a lot...
In essence this ties in with recent rugby posting. That bullish concept of not just getting one in the back of the net, but obsessing to fill the trophy cabinet too.
I don't have competitive streak, and couldn't be a Trump, Sugar or Tesco type.... I wouldn't want to, and have no chance of appearing on the Sunday Times rich list.
That doesn't mean I don't get just as fired up these 'bulls and bears'
It's just a different set of notes that get me giddy.
Discover a new track album, artist or long lost nugget and I'm off like a rocket (hence the blog). And the consolation is - these over achievers, wouldn't know a great band, classic album or top tune if they tripped over it on their way to the bank.
What is the appeal of Tesco? I've always found it rather bleak and downmarket. Perhaps it's because there are so many of them, people have little choice but to go there, which is of course wrong.
I much prefer Waitrose.
You've got me worried here Andrew - I've read this three times now and I still can't find anything to disagree with.
A couple of additional points. I've always been interested in the psychology of the people who set up and run these businesses. It's like the lottery winners who say, after winning £50 million, 'it won't change me - I'm still going into work tomorrow'. Well why?
The senior management/owners of these businesses never need to work again - they have enough money to live in a more than comfortable manner for the rest of their lives. And yet they work harder and longer hours than anyone else. No doubt that's why they reached the top in the first place. But what's the point in reaching the top if you can't appreciate the view?
Slightly irritatingly, Peter York put his finger on the reason in last week's Observer. I quote:
"Really successful people are the ones who really want it. They often have very medium-grade talent, or very narrow talent. They're not the best looking, or the wittiest, or the cleverest. And as a consequence, they have fewer distractions."
In some ways it's capitalism's finest joke - those who reap the most rewards don't have the wit to appreciate them; the rest of us know exactly what we would do with such riches but simply aren't made of the right stuff to get our hands on them.
Secondly - and without wishing to reduce this to my usual anti-car rant - the rise of Tesco et al has been intrinsically linked to personal car ownership. Their power and wealth is based on out of town shopping centres and to use these you need a car. Charge everyone £20 to park in supermarket car parks or - better still - when the planning application goes through say fine you can build your supermarket but you can't build a car park. Then a trip down the high street to visit a few local independent shops might seem a lot more attractive.
There's a one-way system in Leytonstone that leads straight past all the independents, where it's difficult to park - and right into the gaping maw of Tesco's car park. Killed off a bakers shop and a long-established fishmonger. Nice planning, waltham forest.
Could it be genetic? The drive to own more and achieve more could have been an important factor in mankind's evolution. Are high achievers healthier, stronger, more attractive to potential partners? Just a thought.
Andrew, I'm not sure about Ben & Gerry's, but I think you'd have to be pretty naive to think Green & Blacks and Innocent started as little family concerns that then sold out. The "selling out" part will have been factored in from the start. The Innocent guys (the one you heard no R4 was Richard Reed btw - he was a few years ahead of me at school and my dad taught him French) all had pretty good, well paid jobs that they jacked in for Innocent. They saw a gap in the market and went for it. I imagine the same is true of Green & Blacks (and to claim they are ethical is pushing it a bit. Their chocolate may be nice, but only one of their many products is Fair Trade and their owner is a nob!).
Planet Mondo, do you think being successful and high achieving automotically makes you an uncultured, tasteless arsehole? Seem like it from your last sentence. At what salary do you automatically lose the ability to know a great band? £50k, £100k, £250k?
You seem to display a contempt for success which is quite prevalent these days. Almost a kind of inverse snobbery. The media is partly responsible for it. Think "business" and you think Alan Sugar and Donald Trump - both arseholes who make good telly, but are they really that representative of business people as a whole? I suspect most of their contestants on "The Apprentice" wouldn't last very long in the real world of businessl, but they do make good telly. Even the "Dragon's Den" seems to have changed since the first series. They're more mean than they used to be, probably again because it makes good telly.
Andrew, you are of course right that there are many problems with capitalism, and I agree that Tesco and Starbucks seem to represent those problems very well. But what's the alternative? There will always be a desire to achieve, to earn that bit more, to have a bigger house, eat nicer food, be able to afford more CDs etc etc. Alternatively we could all hand over our wordly possesions, wear matching jumpsuits and live in a big commune. I know which world I'd rather live in, warts and all.
Tristan, you make an important point - although not perhaps in the way you intended - by your use of words like 'success' and 'achieve'.
Why are these always linked to money these days? Can you not be successful and achieve in your life without a fat bank balance? What about being a success as a parent? Or achieving an Open University desgree that you've done entirely for your personal development?
Think about it - if someone was described to you as 'a very successful man' what would you take that to mean? A nice person? A happy person? Or someone who has made a lot of money?
At the risk of sounding like a desperate hippy I think there's more to having a successful life than making money.
As Andrew pointed out about 6 Music, you can be a successful radio station by the quality of your programmes not simply the number of listeners you have.
It's not success itself that I have a problem with; it's the narrow definition that links it to your bank balance.
And if you really think the only alternative to the free market is living in a commune then the standard of political debate in this country is even worse than I thought.
"And yet it's far easier to walk out of a small shop with just what we went in for, than a huge barn of a supermarket."
I don't know if I'm alone in this but the polar opposite is true for me - I despise shopping in supermarkets but can't deny their convenience. So every trip I make to one is like a military mission - in, collect, pay, out, with no deviation from the set plan (shopping list). It's when I go to an authentic bakers, or butchers or cheese shop or whatever that I seem to come out with way more than I went in for. And the stuff I buy there usually gives me pleasure, so I'm still being driven by the need/desire to be a consumer, just in a different way.
Life's confusing, no?
I would disagree that it's got anything to do with genetics - in fact any suggestion of a biological determinism leads down the path which says everything that's wrong with the world is the fault of individuals and nothing to do with their social background (ie the Make Poverty History campaign is a waste of time because the developing world poor don't have the genetic abilities - an obviously false statement). I think the drive to capitalism comes from a constant exposure to it, from the earliest days of school onward. Think about the testing and exams you are constantly expected to take as a school pupil, this creates the competitive ethos between people, so instead of seeing others as part of the same society, we see them as rivals and competition. Think about the scramble for jobs and university places - you have to beat others to get there. Yet we accept this as standard, and continue it for the rest of our lives (which is understandable, what other way of survival is currently available?) Capitalists are not a different 'species' from the rest of us, merely that they have either had material advantages (money, family connections) which have enabled them to succeed, or they have come from backgrounds which prize competition heavily and thus competition is a defining characteristic.
I think it's also important to stress that the idea that those at the top got there because they worked harder than the rest of us is nonsense - if this were true a group of Taiwanese factory children would be ruling the world.
I hate all supermarkets and mall-shopping per se. your car always gets bashed by some tart with a snotty kid or 3 in tow.
I don't need a choice of 20 sorts of jam - I make my own (plum). Costcutter radio is quite good though.
Most people are just too fat and lazy to take the harder path and go to the bakers, the butchers and the grocers or dare I say it - have an allotment - they want it all on a plate in front of them. drive in, load up.
Supermarkets have and always will offer the under-one-roof-lazy-path. These days they just dress it up as 'lifetstyle'.
"This isnt just any beans on toast... this is beans on toast pre-buttered, pre-toasted, just pop it in the microwave and get on with what you were doing"
I think it's also important to stress that the idea that those at the top got there because they worked harder than the rest of us is nonsense - if this were true a group of Taiwanese factory children would be ruling the world.
I quite agree. As a society, we seem to value a lot of the wrong things. If it was down to me, people who clean toilets all day would earn £100k a year, and advertising executives would live on a pittance. :)
As Tom Hodgkinson points out in the book I mentioned earlier, modern society's biggest flaw is it's inability to do much for itself, which forces us to buy goods and services from large companies. If people suddenly got a lot more self-sufficient, Tesco would panic bigtime.
Steve M, you are Tesco's worst nightmare! Good for you. All the better to use the supermarket rather than be used, but it's bloody difficult. Especially if they've lured you there in a car, when an extra item isn't even going to put strain on your actual arms once you're at your boot. Long may you precision-shop in the supermarket. That hits them where it hurts, as we all know they flog fruit and veg at the front of the store to lure you into their world (hey, it's just like a market!) so that you'll buy the ready meals and jars of stuff that are "value added" because a factory has made them out of ... fruit and veg.
I think I'd quite like the jumpsuits world, Tristan: less choice, less new ranges of clothes in clothes shops, less mobile phones, less train companies, less competition, less TV channels spewing out shit etc. Do we really need 25 different brands of pesto? Wouldn't one, state-owned pesto company be enough. Or, we could make our own, as we'd have more time to do so with less TV channels and less new things to choose to buy! (Now I'm scaring myself.)
Hey, less of the "tart", James. No social or sexual stereotyping here. I didn't fight the Political Correctness Wars of the 1980s for nothing!
the woman that bashed my car was actually bottle blonded, overly pneumatic, with gaudy make-up, cheap clothes - she looked like a tart, and I called her that to her face. She apologised for bashing my car and i apologised for calling her a 'silly tart' afterwards. She could have been an actress i guess, but more likely she was actually a real tart.
I was very angry at the time and still am when i think about it. Sorry for contaminating the blog.
These huge car parks they make just aren't huge enough!
Andrew, if you fancy a bit of prequel reading to Tescopoly, try Trolley Wars by Judith Bevan which covers the whole supermarket story from the first Sainsburys corner shop to the current out of town sheds.
I'm always in a quandry about supermarkets. They're just so damn convenient, yet at the same time wrong for all the reasons espoused above. I refuse to shop in Asda or Tesco as I find the noise of the first and the starkness of the latter too much of a sensory assault. I do like Sainsburys but feel much happier having doggedly stuck to buying decent quality meat from a local butcher twice a week rather than dealing with unknown quality and all that supermarket packaging. Next step is taking the plunge and moving on to a good greengrocer or market stall for fruit and veg.
What I really want is a Booths to open nearby. The one in Keswick is just about the best supermarket I've ever been to, and the company has a very nice ethos too.
James, you mean she was actually a woman who sold her body for money? If so, surely she's a victim of the capitalist society and should be helpled, not shouted at. Not that women are victims. I never said that. Of course, she could be empowering herself through prostitution, and exploiting the men who are sad enough to want to have sex with her, thus reversing the power balance of the patriarchal society. God, it's hard being so 1980s.
Andrew, let's meet half way. After all, I agree that in some areas (supermarkets being one of them) excessive competition seems to be having some undesired effects.
The half way I'd like to meet at is France (and probably the rest of continental Europe?). There they have big supermarkets which are huge and sell everything you could ever need (up to and including cars with some of the bigger hypermarkets). But people only really tend to go to those every couple of weeks or so to do a big shop. That's why you'll still see a boulangerie in even the smallest villages (along with a tabac and pharmacy - the French love their drugs!). Weekly markets seem to thrive, and you'll see far more boucher over there than butchers over here. They seem to have the balance about right.
Another interesting thing about supermarkets in the UK compared to France is that they're so class based here. We have so many, and they fit into our class heirarchy very well:
Upper class: M&S food
Upper middle: Waitrose
Middle: Sainsburies
Lower middle/working: Tesco
Working and below: Asda, Morrisons, Netto, etc.
Sure, there are some differences in food quality between them, but if all you needed to do was stock up on tins most people would still choose the supermarket that was most for "people like us". Currently I'm at about Sainsburies level, though I lived in the posh bit of Surbiton for a while so felt a bit more Waitrose and occasionally lorded it up by popping into M&S. I know it's stupid, but it's true.
In France a supermarket is a supermarket is a supermarket, and the quality of food is pretty good in all of them. You don't need half a dozen in each town for each market segment to use.
So, in conclusion, we need a revolution. Get rid of the royals (Guillotine's a bit old fashioned. Shot against a wall would do) and the aristocracy and within a couple of centuries we'll have a more equal society (as far as supermarkets go).
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Tristan I didn't mean all high flyers have low taste, but typically - and I've worked an a financial enviroment for years. 90% of the aggressive, competetive brokers and bankers don't switch off or care about little else except money- it's a 24 hour obession, and anything outside of this - gigs or live events are corporate do's and a chance to talk shop. My point is they get a buzz from bank balances and bonuses that I don't.
Fair enough, but I wonder if that's more to do with people in the finance world than high achievers in general. I mean, is there much to get excited about in the finance world other than money?
I work with rapidly growing SMEs regularly, helping them establish links with university research groups. A lot of these people are definitely high achievers, though their salaries are probably lower than your average hedge fund manager. These people are genuinely excited about what they do. They are really interesting people who are enthusiastic about the growth of their next gen games development company, fuel cells technology, wildlife charity etc.
My job is to introduce them to university researchers who have the expertise to help them. These people are themselves high achievers in their field (though not paid as such!). They collaborate with others, but also compete with peers for that next big research grant.
I think the world would be a much duller place without people like that. Artists can make the world interesting, but you need more than that. You need the innovators, scientists and, yes, the business men who aren't content with doing exactly the same thing, day in, day out, for the rest of their lives.
That last point is also probably why those who have made their millions aren't content with lying back on a beach sipping pina coladas for the rest of their lives. They'd just get bored!
I agree Tristan - the continental approach seems to be optimal (based on experience living in Switzerland and spending a lot of time in Spain) - the supermarkets are by and large pretty functional and used for basics - they're not competing for the same market as the artisans which therefore continue to thrive. Which I guess is Andrew's point - why do the supermarkets feel the need to squash activities which aren't even really competition?
A friend of mine who fancies himself as a bit of a gourmand was in a restaurant once and asked the waitress where they sourced a particular blue cheese he'd enjoyed. "Is it bought locally" he asked. "Yes, the Morrisons round the corner", replied the waitress. My friend staunchly refused to buy any. I suspect that's because he's a bit of a food snob rather than an anti-capitalist though.....
The continental lifestyle: this is also my experience of Spain. Most people in the cities live in apartment blocks above shops, and so you are never far from a local cafe or baker's or whatever, and there are plenty of local markets.
Class and supermarkets: some of the people I teach are asylum seekers. One of the students yesterday mentioned that the government gives her "vouchers" for food, and I asked if I could have a look at one - I had heard of these things and was curious as to what they looked like. She happily produced it from her purse. It was an Asda Gift Card.
I'm interested you mention 6music.
In my option, the extra listeners they gained from having Russell Brand as presenter started the rot. Many listeners, I suspect, largely tuned in to hear a notorious, high profile celebrity, not for 6music's musical output.
The sustainable reaction to this would have been to accept that some new listeners would also be music fans. They would continue listening to 6music and the station would be left with an increased, but not unrealistically inflated listener base.
Instead, 6music's management seem to have made a very unsustainable attempt to recreate this 'success'. This has seen them run a music station by relegating amusing and music savvy presenters and instead promoting comedians, turning 6music into a bit of an 'end of the pier' variety show that may eventually lead to them losing core listeners.
A perfect example I fear of how the initial intentions of something get lost in the rush for success. All the more depressing, however, when it occurs in a 'nationalised industry' like the BBC.
Today we have Tesco, two hundred years ago we had the East India Company, three hundred years before that we had feuding Robber Barons ( the noble ancestors of today's charming aristocracy), and before THAT the Merchant Traders, who did very well indeed from following the routes of the Crusaders.
This is all part of a continuum; the desire to own more, bigger, shinier, faster is absolutely nothing new - but the technological advances of the last century have made it so much easier for the 21st Century Robber Baron.
Karl Marx (who?) predicted, in the terminal phase of capitalism, the emergence of what he called 'false consciousness', where the bourgeoisie and lumpenproletariat alike are so sated and mesmerised by capitalism's shiny toys that they lose all political and economic consciousness and curiosity, and are hence more dulled and malleable. I'd say he got it about right, though I don't think we're yet in the 'terminal phase'. God knows what on earth THAT's going to be like.
For the record, I have not set foot in a Tesco for nearly twenty years. I wanted to minimise the chance that a single penny of mine might ever end up in the pocket of that bitch Shirley Porter. I go to Waitrose and fool myself that it's OK because at least the woman behind the till on six quid and hour is a 'partner'. Power to the people!
The problem seems to be at the moment that small businesses cannot get a foothold in the market now that it has been overtaken by a few huge businesses. Those small businesses which are still in business are finding it harder and harder to compete which is a shame.
I'm very uncompetitive. If I feel someone is competing with me then I'll usually simply stop doing whatever it is, or at least make it clear that I'm not engaging in a competition. It's not that I'm afraid of losing, it's just that I equate the competitive urge with a kind of sad, empty, needy, self-unaware, insecure mindset. I know I'm insecure; I don't need to demonstrate my desperate need to boost my self-esteem to prove it. In other words, I dislike competitive people because I think I know why they're competitive and I recognise that characteristic in myself.
That said, I'm a computer programmer - not a great one, but quite a good one - and I try to do the best job I can do with every program I write. And I get a great deal of satisfaction when something I've written goes live and it works right away and it causes few or no support calls. (On those criteria I'm a great programmer, even if I do say so myself.)
If I were a businessman and it was my job to maximise a company's profits (which I assume usually involves growing the company) then I would probably approach my work with the same mindset. And I'm not sure that the sort of businessmen who are good at that kind of thing are necessarily the competitive types that I and others here dislike. They're just people doing a job they're good at. And some of them probably appreciate the arts too.
I'm sure that Tesco know that every time they grow, other people go out of business. But I would imagine that they'd point out that they're also creating jobs. And I can't take the moral high ground here because I know for a fact that programs I've written have put people out of work. In other words: business is business. I hate it. I hate what Tesco represents. But I haven't got a clue what could or should replace it. When I wore a donkey jacket I think the boilersuits had some appeal. But neither would suit me now.
On the subject of Tesco, one has recently opened up near where I work. Since I can walk there I went for a look. Everything I would have bought was more expensive than my local Co-op. The staff seemed uninterested and unhappy. It's brand new and it looked shabby. On the evidence of what I saw, however Tesco is getting bigger, it isn't by being competitive.
I bet I'm less competitive than Dave - and I'd like to prove it in a challenge.
I don't go to Tescos because the last time I did the fruit and veg looked artificial. I don't know how they feed them, but they don't look right. Check out the chillis next time you're there, they're bulbous and orangey rather than slim and scarlet.
shut up. all of you.
mr tesco
swineshead - that's coz they're picked earlier so they can ship and then be on the shelf for a week and just look nice the day before they go off in your fridge.
Very interesting debate, I don’t know where to start...! so in the mean time while I get round to some kind of coherent missive on the subject, some response to random comments-
“Charge everyone £20 to park in supermarket car parks or - better still - when the planning application goes through say fine you can build your supermarket but you can't build a car park. Then a trip down the high street to visit a few local independent shops might seem a lot more attractive.”
On what grounds to you justify this? Because you personally don’t like supermarkets? That’s fine, your choice, but you don’t have the right to stop other people going there if they want to. I’d quite like to make people pay £20 for a Girls Aloud album on the grounds its vacuous shite, but sadly that would be undemocratic too.
“And if you really think the only alternative to the free market is living in a commune then the standard of political debate in this country is even worse than I thought.”
Fire away then, we’re all ears….
“Most people are just too fat and lazy to take the harder path and go to the bakers, the butchers and the grocers or dare I say it - have an allotment - they want it all on a plate in front of them. drive in, load up.”
This is just (class) snobbery surely? Or some kind of puritanical ‘its easy and convenient, so must be evil’ type view. I bet you just went down to PC world, bought the computer you typed this on and plugged it in and online you went. What an appalling lack of morale fibre. Why didn’t you go to your local electrical supplier, buy all the bits and put to together yourself?
“Karl Marx (who?) predicted, in the terminal phase of capitalism, the emergence of what he called 'false consciousness', where the bourgeoisie and lumpenproletariat alike are so sated and mesmerised by capitalism's shiny toys that they lose all political and economic consciousness and curiosity, and are hence more dulled and malleable. I'd say he got it about right, though I don't think we're yet in the 'terminal phase'. God knows what on earth THAT's going to be like.”
Well, Marx was pretty much wrong about everything else, so I wouldn’t worry about this too much….
“The problem seems to be at the moment that small businesses cannot get a foothold in the market now that it has been overtaken by a few huge businesses. Those small businesses which are still in business are finding it harder and harder to compete which is a shame.”
Overall, this isn’t true. In the UK, 95% of all businesses employ fewer than 10 people. This in turn accounts for around 30% of all employment. The situation is complicated- but in generally the trend is towards more small firms than fewer.
People have tended to assume over the last century or so that at any given time the largest firms around are indestructible and here forever. Again, this isn’t true either. I don’t have the facts to hand, but of the 100 largest firms in existence in 1900 something like fewer than 10 were around 100 years later. There’s no reason to think this won’t be the case in another 100 years time.
As Saint Nick's first two comments were fired in my direction I'll start shall I?
I'm one of that diminishing band who still thinks that the government/state can have a positive influence to bear on society and should take an active role in trying to make it a better place.
Taking measures to gently discourage people from pursuing a certain course of action/type of behaviour is central to this - it's the same principle as imposing high taxes on gas-guzzling cars to protect the environment or speed limits near schools to reduce the risk of road deaths.
I'm aware this leaves me open to accustions of impending totalitarianism but an interventionist social democratic system doesn't automatically turn into a police state. Take a look at Sweden.
There seems to be a consensus that having smaller, specialist and independent shops in town and city centres is a good thing. And having the choice to do a one-stop shop in a supermarket is probably a good thing too.
But you're not going to have both in a totally unregulated system - the big will continue to eat the small. By all means turn it round and leave the supermarkets alone if that makes it more palatable. Instead give small businesses more tax breaks, set fixed low rents for town centre shops, provide them with free advertising etc.
But levelling the playing field requires state intervention whichever way you dress it up.
That's not being undemocratic. You're getting democracy mixed up with the free market - which, to be fair, is an easy mistake to make in this day and age when even the Labour Party sees the two as indivisible.
Is that enough political debate to answer the second point? Well, it'll have to do for now. I may be determinedly uncapitalist but I do still need to do some work to keep body and soul together.
Essentially what you're saying is a completely free market encourages monopolies to thrive, which is as bad as a totalitarian state. And I agree. Especially when it makes chillis go orange.
Steve - thanks for your reasoned response. I'm playing devil's advocate to a degree, but I do think people need to consider why something is a “good thing”… is it just because they think so / like it? ie a value judgement.
If you can buy the stuff you want at a lower price in less time, why wouldn’t you go to the supermarket? I.e. in economic jargon you derive greater utility doing this, you’re better off…. It’s a rational choice in those terms. You on the other hand derive more utility going to the high street. That's great, no-one's stopping you. Why does the 'playing field need levelling', and what does that actually mean?
I would also suggest that you in turn confuse "capitalism" with "unregulated free markets" - there are many varieties of capitalism, the Scandinavian style “coordinated market economy being one example. [if you’re interested, there’s a book on this very subject! - Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage By Peter A. Hall, David W. Soskice]
"Essentially what you're saying is a completely free market encourages monopolies to thrive, which is as bad as a totalitarian state. And I agree. Especially when it makes chillis go orange."
Not necessarily, why would does it do this? (the market bit I mean, not the chillis..)
In what way is Tesco 'a monopoly'? Within about a 10 minute drive of where I am now (or even walk in a couple cases) I could buy stuff at ASDA, Tescos, Sainsburies, Aldi, Lidl, Morrisons, M and S,... and numerous other shops large and small. Hardly a monopoly... and almost certainly a wider range than say 20 or 30 years ago.
You don't like Tescos chillis? well, fine...you know what's coming next don't you...!
Sorry Saint Nick, I was playing the role of the person in the pub who doesn't like talking about serious things so makes a joke. I am actually too thick for this conversation as all I ever do is watch reality television and then mock it online. A waste of a life, really.
Supermarket shopping is a nightmare. The name on the carrier bag makes no difference. Although Booths is probably the least unpleasant.
We do our monthly 'big shop' at Morrisons, so it seems I am 'working class or below'. Excellent.
I used to live in a supermarket-free environment and had no car. When you know you will have to carry everything home yourself it tends to focus the mind pretty effectively.
[Andrew: I am another list user. I never stray from it but, when I'm halfway through the checkout, I almost always find that someone else has put bottles of wine in my trolley by mistake. It's too late to do anything about it by then, unfortunately.]
Hmmmm.
Sorry about the ultra-banal comment.
I was trying to keep up with the discussion but it seems that I either have the attention span of a gnat or am quite thick and can't follow it.
I know - I'll start shopping at Waitrose, that'll sort me out!
Nick - may I call you Nick? - what I mean about levelling the playing field is understanding that small shops are never going to be able to compete directly with the big supermarkets - purely in terms of advertising, marketing, price cuts, lost leaders etc. They therefore need help to be able to compete within the same market.
Now, whether you consider protecting small shops to be a good thing is another matter. In that sense you're right - it is a value judgement. The free market would say that competition is a healthy thing, the strongest flourish and the weakest go under. The ultimate winner is the consumer.
I don't subscribe to this but then I consider local fishmongers, butchers, markets etc to be more than just economic concerns. I see them as having a vital role to play within the community.
I live in West London where social cohesion isn't always our strongest point. But shopping at Acton Farmers' Market every Saturday is a genuine community experience that you're simply not going to get driving out to some hypermarket beyond the North Circular. The Farmers' Market = World Peace theory may still need some work but I leave each week with my dirty carrots and sprouting beetroot feeling happier with the world than when I arrived. And I think that's something worth protecting.
It's also interesting to note that the Farmers' Market - which is situated provocatively right outside Morrisons - is not only cheaper but to my mind much more convenient than the supermarket; it's also patronised largely by Acton's sizeable immigrant population while the 'natives' head straight to Morrisons. I'm sure this tells us something significant. Just not sure what...
Oh and thanks for the book recommendation - I am interested; I'm just not sure I'm that interested. Now I really must do some work...
Sorry Beth, didn't mean to offend with the Morrisons = working class statement, if indeed you were offended. There's no denying though that there is a stronger class system in the UK and if you asked most people to rank supermarkets according to class the list would be similar to mine.
On another note, has anyone ever come across "beer and nappies"? It's an interesting example of how supermarkets use data mining to drive sales. In the 1990's Walmart brought in a new IT system, partly to improve stock control. It threw up some interesting correlations, including a link between beer and nappy sales. Apparently they found that young men (mid 20's upwards) who were sent to buy a pack on nappies on their way home from a hard day at work would often add a 6 pack of beer to their basket, since they didn't get to go to bars as often as they used to. Simply by putting thier nappies and beer sections next to each other in the shop they significantly increased their friday evening beer sales.
It's OK Tristan, I am not in the least offended at being outed as working class.
Oh let's all go to the market.
ah bugger, I'm digging deeper and deeper aren't I?!?
Wasn't implying there's anything offensive in being considered working class. Merely hoping you weren't offended at the idea of being labelled by your supermarket choice whatever class you are. That's all.
...put the shovel down and walk away from the hole... ;)
On the subject of Tesco and Asda, 'Tesco is cheaper' announcement at Asda:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIIRmIQVXrE
Beth said “I used to live in a supermarket-free environment and had no car. When you know you will have to carry everything home yourself it tends to focus the mind pretty effectively.”
Presumably you then decided bugger this for a game of soldiers, got a car and starting going to the supermarket then? :-)
and Steve, yes of course you can call me Nick :-)
And generally I agree with you- those things you mention do add a quality to your neighbourhood. But the question remains… if people chose to go else where what can you / should you do about this? At the risk of a slight tangent, I would rather 5 million people didn’t read the Sun every day, but they do. I can’t (and shouldn’t) stop them… all I could do is offer something else and see if they’ll read that instead…
On the wider capitalism / choice / welfare / counter-culture type thing I would recommend a couple of books
John Kay’s The Truth About Markets: their genius, their limits, their follies
He’s a very insightful guy (and is absolutely not some kind of free market fundamentalist- check his website for shorter pieces e.g. stuff he writs for the FT)
http://www.johnkay.com/
And a brilliant book by Heath and Potter “The Rebel Sell” http://www.rebelsell.com/
Saint Nick : You've touched a raw nerve there! I would love to still be in the position where I could swan from shop to shop picking up my necessities and feeling part of a community.
(I still don't drive, but have lost the moral highground on that one by being quite happy to be driven when it suits)
Supermarkets are banal, horrible etc, but you haev to remember why they are there. We went on holiday to Sheringham, Norfolk this summer, which is in the middle of an epic planning battle as tesco want to build the town's first major supermarket (there are a small "local" Budgens and Co-Op). The town still has two or three butchers, bakers, greengrocers etc, just like the old days. And it takes bleeding ages, tramping from shop to shop, to get the stuff to make your dinner, and costs a bomb once you've done it! Much as I like my local farmer's market and delicatessan, I also have a problem paying the same money for four toilet rolls in a neighbourhood store that I can get eight with at the big Asda round the corner.
Then Tesco (or Asda) have won. I always try to think along these lines - not that I am a saint, I buy my toilet rolls at a supermarket - if it's this cheap, why is it this cheap? Perhaps the price it costs in the small shop is how much we should actually be paying for it. The profit's coming from somewhere, whether it's a squeezed diary farmer (or a squeezed cow) in Kent, a tomato grower in Spain, or a sweatshop worker in Indonesia. (Do I sound sanctimonious enough yet?)
As AC suggests, the key point is – are you paying the full cost of what you buy?
But I think that in many ways the argument about whether this involves a big shop or a small one is somewhat spurious… in many cases the higher price in smaller shop just reflects buying power, economies of scale etc…not the fact that the true price is being paid, or that more money is finding its way back to the farmer or whatever. On these grounds its no more ethical to buy your stuff in the small shop rather than the supermarket: the irony in these cases is that it’s the retailer with the lower price that is seen as the evil profiteer…
Part of the problem is that we are having debates regarding the pros and cons of scale vs local shopping, and green /organic or ethical shopping at the same. They are not necessarily one and the same.
I have the added disadvantage that my corner shop (literally less than five minutes walk away) is an Asda shed, which sucks the life out of any little shops that try to set up nearby, so I have to go out of my way to go further and pay more at the "little shops". It's just easier to want to do that if you can get better stuff (greengrocer fruit and veg is normally better than Asda; farmer's market stuff always is). I can justify (to my pocket as well as my conscience) paying two or three times as much to buy better/tastier/greener fruit and veg or meat and fish. Not sure I can to buy washing up cloths or breakfast cereal or the same brands I buy at the supermarket.
Another reason certain commodities, such as toilet rolls, are cheaper in supermarkets is price perception. We all buy toilet roll so we notice it is cheaper. The supermarket might even be selling at a loss but know we will fail to realise that many items are more expensive in super-markup-ets. My local fruit and veg shop is far cheaper than any supermarket and I bet yours is too.
For any one interested in issues raised try the excellent "The undercover economist" by Tim Harford esp chapter two "What supermarkets don't want you to know." It's in the Malcolm Gladwell "Tipping point" style and provides some excellent watercooler anecdotes.
Swineshead: you win, if it means that much to you(!)
For what it's worth, strictly in terms of "shopping experience", every Morrisons I've ever been in has been streets ahead of every similarly honoured Sainsbury's, Asda, Tesco, M&S, or whatever.
Now that I can drive I do the Thursday night "big shop" because I don't go "off-list".
I wish I lived in a metropolis that provided more choice but I don't. Dunfermline is now Tescoville.
Fife Council will gladly sanction new bus routes to take people to Tesco but not directly to work in Edinburgh (see Andrew's public transport blog).
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