The Humanistic Economics of Glasses

Why is it cheaper to buy 2 pairs of glasses than 1? You don't believe me? It's true! When I bought my glasses, it was cheaper to buy 2 pairs of glasses than 1. And why are millions of people starving in Sudan if it is economic beneficial for me to consume more? Speaking of consuming more: to my knowledge, a Whopper sandwich from Burger King contains 670 calories and can often be purchased for 99 cents (I think. I got the price off some Reuters report that was pretty old though.), while 1 pound of apple, equivalent in price, contains 220 calories. Think of the amount of energy that goes into whoppers: meat (due to the amount of energy devoted to raising animals, meat ends up being polyfold less efficient than plants for food), bread (wheat has to be processed, made into bread), cheese, all of the little condiments, the paper wrappers for the things, transportation for it all, etc. Think about the amount of energy that goes into apples: water, trimming, someone picking them, transportation. First of all, one must realize the cardinal rule of capitalism and the rest of the world in which we live: hypocrisy. And yes, communism is far more hypocritical than captalism... which is really scary. But just exactly how is it that in America, one has the economic incentive to consume more rather than less? One might try and explain our hamburger scenario by some wrangling with supply and demand, but things are deeper than that isolated instance. I think that American society is in a period of incredible oversupply and overconsumption. As you may know, capitalistic economies (since virtually all large-scale economies for the past 4,000 years have been capitalistic in nature, yes I'm talking about all major economic systems to date) rely on the premise of expansion to survive. Competition requires expansion. I have said before that this constant increase in output is impossible to maintain forever, therefore at some point humanity must develop an economic system unlike any other (i.e. one involving absolutely no capitalistic tendencies), it must self-destruct and start the process of capitalistic expansion all over, or revert to some 1984-like economy where war compensates for problems in the cycle of supply and demand. Up to that point, we should of course see the improvement of standards of living. The issue that I raise, is how far can standards of living increase. Can they increase forever? Certainly, people 1,000 years ago could not imagine the phenomenal improvements to the standard of living. I think I'm losing my train of thought here, so bear with me...

Let's go back to our current situation where overconsumption is being encouraged. This idea is a little weird now that I think some more about it, but it might have a shread of merit in it. It seems that the reason that we can now get more for less and less for more is because of this need for the economy to continually increase standards of living. That is, the American economy has reached such a glut in overproduction that is must compensate for it by forced overconsumption, in order to continue the capitalistic process. Worthy of note is the incredibly uneven QOL for America and W. Europe compared to the rest of the world. This is obviously partially due to centuries of economic domination that has forced most of the world into being economically subserviant to American and European needs. I really hate to turn this into America-bashing, but this all seems to be the consequence of an inevitable process. Needing to continue competition, the rest of the world was economically dominated, and now, further needing to continue competition, Americans are forced into this absurd situation which maximizes waste. Essentially this is no different from the 1984 war-waste economy, where selling more to the consumer is used a means by which to prop up the economy and continue expansion. This results in the creation of massive amounts of waste. Once again, I shall use the example of the Hummer H2. The superfluity of the H2 is comicly pointless (it gets 13 mpg in city, and is simply an incredibly giant, unaerodynamic, steel box put on a paltry Chevrolet Tahoe wheelbase), yet it is an immense use of resources and thus is very beneficial to the economy. The fact that this has led to the global economic disparity is inhumane and repulsive. It has led to extreme decadence in order to satisfy the continuation of the machine. As an aside, Friedrich Nietzsche said of decadence (albeit in a religious context): "Wherever the will to power begins to decline, in whatever form, there is always an accompanying decline physiologically, a decadence. The divinity of this decadence, shorn of its masculine virtues and passions, is converted perforce into a god of the physiologically degraded, of the weak. Of course, they do not call themselves the weak; they call themselves "the good." (The Antichrist: 17)

I've done a very poor job explaining all this, and it all sounds very Marxist. It is NOT Marxist however. Marxism, or communism, or whatever, always leads to exactly the same problems, often to a more extreme degree. It is horrible to discount Marx on account of this though. Marx pinpointed the very flaws of the extreme capitalism that dominated Europe throughout the 19th century. He was correct in his observations of the ills of society, but he was totally wrong in how to correct them. It's still incubating in my mind. Maybe I'm just mad at the endless hypocrisy. You have to admit, it is sickening. Gah!