Failures of the invisible hand

It’s true that self-interest in its place, used well and with the right limits, can be a force in society which is very powerful for the advancement of the economy, for human innovation, and for the comforts we enjoy in America today.  Such is the invisible hand doctrine and we can see that it has achieved some pretty big victories.  Everyone looks out for themselves and everyone benefits.

I think it’s time we acknowledged, though, that sometimes there are behaviors for which no one pays a price except everyone, and others from which no one benefits except everyone.

That is, there are plenty of things you could do that wouldn’t benefit you – that don’t make sense for you – but which would benefit the world, benefit society.  There are plenty of things that wouldn’t harm you – that make perfect sense for you – but which would cause a cost to humanity, to society.  And in those circumstances, the invisible hand malfunctions.  The invisible hand guides us powerfully toward those harms and away from those benefits.

Oh, there is good in people’s hearts, and when it’s called to our attention, sometimes behaviors that don’t make economic or individual sense become commonplace anyway.  (As long as it’s not too much trouble.)  And we have in many cases made laws which instead of promoting strict capitalism are designed to promote prosperity by, as it were, pushing the invisible hand back in the right direction.  Laws against behaviors where we find self-interest leads to intolerable inequities.  Tax revenues into things we think help everyone and taxes on things we think hurt everyone.  Etc., etc.

I’ll add that in many cases, the cure is worse than the disease.  Someone can easily make a law to fix a problem, to give the invisible hand a shove, and discover that there are unintended consequences which are worse than the original problem.  Hence long stories about government incompetence and the legend that it really needs to just leave us alone.

But the invisible hand left entirely alone is not a magical force for good.  Let’s not forget that.  Let’s not think that everything would be hunky-dory if the government would just let us engage in the free market with no restrictions whatsoever.  And let’s not forget that sometimes we need to appeal to people’s consciences, to guide them against just their own self-interest and toward the interests of the whole.  Unbridled capitalism could, in a society of good people, be a fine enough thing.  In a society where if it is legal, if capitalism will allow it to you, and if it is in your own self-interest, then everyone will declare it to be not merely legal but good – in that society, unbridled capitalism is death.  Literally death for the poorest, for those who cannot compete.  Death for the crippled, death for the retarded, death for the young children whose parents cannot support them.

Time to stop being abstract.  Time to give one concrete example of what the invisible hand has done to our society.  Just one.  There are many others I could add, but here’s one.

Advertising.

Imagine your life without advertisements.

Imagine that if you were looking for a given product, you could learn the facts about it, but no company would ever bombard you with emotional appeals about how much your life would be better if you only had this thing.

Imagine if there were no billboards.  No pop-up ads.  No spam.  No telemarketers.  No public landmarks or sports events covered in ugly endorsements.  No commercials. 

Now, I grant that marketing is what pays for at least a large percentage of a great many other things we enjoy in life.  For Google, for TV broadcasts, for so much more.

I also grant that once in a blue moon, I’ve actually seen an advertisement for a product I genuinely wanted and wouldn’t otherwise have known existed.  Something that, when I paid for it, I was truly glad I had.

But let me ask you:  If you could eradicate all advertisements from your life, what would you pay for that?

Consider this:  Because of self-interest, because the company wants, needs, for consumers to know about their product, it’s good for them to distribute the information widely.  Because once in a blue moon, they’ll hit me with something I want and I’ll pay for it, they’ll continue hitting me with hundreds of things I have no interest in.  As long as they pay less for a given advertisement than the profit they make off the products sold, they win.

What’s the key problem here?  They don’t need to pay me for my time, for the annoyance, for the waste that they caused me.  Telemarketing companies don’t need to pay for the productivity cost, for the destructiveness in family life they cause by calling at the wrong times, for the stress and the unpleasantness.  The only financial cost they have is the cost of using the phone lines and paying the telemarketers.  They don’t pay any cost to the people they hurt with their activity.  Meanwhile, they have financial rewards from literally everyone they benefit and likely some people they didn’t benefit.  (The latter would be people whom the product doesn’t really help, at least not more than whatever competition they were considering, but who were convinced by the rhetoric, emotional appeals, etc. to buy it anyway.)

I’ve seen and heard a few ads I was glad for, ads that got me to buy products that I was glad to have, products that were worth the price.  But I would happily give those products up if by doing so I could have an ad-free life.

That just considers the annoyance I face.  What of the social harm advertisements do?

Unrealistic expectations of female beauty.  Anorexia.  Rape.  Objectivication of women.

Materialism.  Greed.  Selfishness.  Inability to delay gratification.  Addictions.  Lack of discipline.  Dissatisfaction.  Ingratitude.

What if the advertising industry had to take responsibility for the women who starved themselves to death in part because of the things advertisers did to sell products?  What price could atone for that?  What price could make up for the slow poison of the constant fostering of the belief that things will make you happy?

If you could eradicate all advertisements from your life and the lives of all those you come in contact with, what would that be worth?

I’m not sure what the best solution is.  I’m not sure if there is a good solution.  But I am sure that when it comes to advertising, the invisible hand is not our friend.

A Rhythm of Gratitude

Once upon a time, back in my college days, someone suggested that maybe the days in Genesis 1 were symbolic, that maybe it didn’t have to literally refer to 24-hour periods.  I objected, which might well be a reasonable thing to do (I withhold judgment), but my reason was certainly bad:  I couldn’t see what the symbolism could possibly be in saying that, for example, sea and sky were created on the second day.  And that was just blindness.

Then, about a couple months back, just for fun, I started thinking of the days of the week, not just in terms of their names in our calendar, but in terms of what was made on each day.  Sunday is Lightday.  Monday is Seaday or Skyday or Waterday.  Tuesday is Landday or Plantsday or Treesday or Fruitday.  Wednesday is – wait for it – Sunday (I know!) or Moonday or Starsday.  Thursday is Fishday or Birdsday.  Friday is Animalday or, more often, Manday.  (Humanday or Peopleday is better, but Manday has more of a ring to it.)  Saturday is Restday.  Well, almost.  Since “evening and morning were the __th day,” Manday is really Thursday evening through Friday at sunset, for example.  Every time I think of the calendar name for a day of the week, I try to pause and think of this Genesis 1 name, too. 

I expected it to be a vaguely fun, interesting thing to do.  But I wasn’t really expecting the result.

I’m not sure I have ever in my life been more grateful for Creation.  It’s such a simple thing, but now every time I think the name of the day, I think of something God made.  And every week is a progression, first setting the stage, then bursting forth into life, and every Restday is a day for happy peaceful contemplation of the wonder of it all.  It’s a weekly rhythm of gratitude, and I love participating in it.

As an added bonus, I thought it was kind of awesome to suddenly realize that Christ was crucified and died (thus recreating mankind, if you listen to Athanasius) on Manday, lay in the grave on Restday, and arose very early in the morning, before the sun had risen, on Lightday.

Have a good week, and enjoy the wonder of Creation.  Landday/Plantsday has just begun, so think of mountains and forests and flowers and herbs and fruits and grains and vegetables, and be thankful.

Dementia

I’m staring through a glass window

And the person I love most in all the world is on the other side of it

The woman who was always there for me, who loved me, who dried my tears and held my hair back for me while I threw up

Who cleaned up my messes and drove me around and played with me every day

Who taught me to read, to sing, to love God’s Word

Who helped me find my way in the world

Is lost in a maze just beyond it

And I can see her there, trapped, lost

Alone, bored, not knowing where she is,

Confused, afraid, dependent, helpless, upset

Getting farther and farther away

And I can talk to her but my words don’t get through

I can’t get her out of that maze

And at every turn she is farther away

Every time I look she is farther away