Fabric softener

A few years ago a good friend of mine, a very successful investment banker, and I were discussing the relative merits of capitalism and communism, and he was telling me these stories of surplus and inefficient production under the Soviet economic system (where most production was under state control).

But since then I've begun to ask myself if the neo-liberal system of free market capitalism and economic freedom and deregulation is any more efficient in balancing consumption and demand with the means of production (labour, resources, machinery etc.) and, more importantly, doing so whilst sustaining a happy, healthy, and equitable society, and a habitable environment.

Consider an everyday supermarket shelf product: fabric softener. Millions of bottles of this chemical cocktail are produced every year, consuming vast amounts of natural resources and energy in their manufacture, packaging & transport, contaminating wastewater, consigning tonnes of plastic bottles to landfill, and adversely affecting the health of consumers (http://www.ourlittleplace.com/fabric.html). And what's more, global sales are increasing as the growing middle classes of developing countries aspire to 'western standards of living'.

Is having soft clothes a worthwhile justification for depleting our planet's ever-dwindling resources and contaminating our fragile environment, when one considers that, for millions of years prior to this product's introduction, humans were able to live without fluffy soft clothes? And especially when there is a natural product - ordinary vinegar - that does just as good a job of softening fabrics as the chemical product, and does so at a fraction of the cost and without the same levels of resource consumption, waste, health risk and environmental contamination? (Fabrics feel less soft after washing because of detergent residues binding to the fibres. As detergents are normally chemically base/alkaline, then any mild acid, such as vinegar, added to the rinsewater will react with the detergent to produce salts that are easily dissolved and rinsed away. In fact there are many other household products for which there exists a cheaper, safer and more natural alternative, see http://www.safersolutions.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=1&Itemid=136.)

Despite all this, millions of people are still willing to spend large amounts of money on chemical fabric softeners every year. Why? The simple answer to this question is 'capitalism'. Chemical companies, just like all other corporations, are expected/obliged by their shareholders, not only to make a profit every year, but to make a bigger profit every year in order to maximise dividend income and capital growth. To serve this growth, new products are developed and brought into the market. It is inconsequential to a company and its shareholders whether or not a new product benefits society in any useful way whatsoever, or what impact it has on the environment and health. The only thing that matters is that the company is able to manufacture the product at the lowest cost possible, and to conjure up enough demand to be able to sell it at the highest price and in the highest volumes possible.

How does a corporation create high levels of consumer demand for an essentially useless, inferior or overly expensive product? It uses highly skilled psychologists known as 'advertising consultants' to develop marketing campaigns that will make so many people think that they need to buy the product, that doing so becomes a social norm. Then it sits back, lets human habit take over, and watches the profits roll in.

Likewise, costs are minimised by placing the pursuit of profit above any duty of care to society and the environment, for example by exploiting workers and natural resources as far as regulations will allow - although governments can always be persuaded to relax regulations by bribing them with 'campaign contributions' or, thanks to free trade, they can be avoided altogether by moving production/waste disposal to other countries.

Arguably there are many useful products that have been developed through the capitalist/neo-liberal economic system (iPod?). But can not human ingenuity and invention exist without being driven by greed? Was the wheel invented in the pursuit of wealth?

In any case, the neo-liberal/capitalist system is inherently doomed. It is predicated on indefinite and exponential economic growth, and therefore on ever increasing levels of resource/energy consumption and waste production. But the Earth's resources are finite (we have already used over half our oil reserves) and its ability to assimilate waste products is limited (we are already beginning to suffer the consequences of pumping too much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere). At some point, in the very near future, we will have exhausted the Earth's resources to such an extent that, not only will we lack the means of production for further growth, we will lack even the means of survival. (Furthermore the system is inequitable because, invariably, the fruits of economic growth are enjoyed by the rich, while the poor continue to struggle.)

But none of this matters to today's corporate leaders. Their huge salaries and obscene bonuses depend only on the next financial quarter's growth. And even if they don't achieve the results expected of them and are forced to step down, their failure will be rewarded by their boardroom buddies with equally obscene golden handshakes and guaranteed pensions.

The financial crisis we are witnessing today, although more a consequence of inadequate financial regulation than of resource scarcity, is just a small taste of the problems the world faces in the near future. A complete rethinking of the global political economy is urgently needed. While the invisible hand of the free market arguably does a more efficient job of matching production to demand and providing consumer choice than, say, the Soviet system, much of this demand is artificially and unnecessarily generated through advertising - as in the case of fabric softener. And the cost in terms of resource/human/environmental exploitation is unsustainable, socially undesirable, and way beyond our means to repay.

What does this have to do with a cycling tour of South America? Nothing really. Just something I wanted to get off my chest, although I note that many people in Colombia and Ecuador do appear to have unreservedly and unquestioningly embraced the household products that multinational chemical companies, in their pursuit of global growth, have convinced them that they can't live without.