Another note in a series on Is the American Dream Killing You? by Paul Stiles.
Chapter Seven: “The Ozone Hole”
This is essentially thirty pages about how corrupt the world of Big Business is. He gives several good examples, some of which he explains quite well. Mr. Stiles worked on Wall Street for a while, so his descriptions of Wall Street tend to be a little more lively and authoritative (for me) than the stuff he’s just pulling out of his ass. There are some very annoying charts, the worst being the one on page 186 where he purports to contrast the ‘Principles’ and the ‘Practice’ of Merrill Lynch. He appears to pick five buzz phrases from Merrill Lynch’s statement of principles for the left column, and then puts a big black arrow to the right column where he puts a randomly chosen example of malfeasance. For instance, Teamwork points to pled guilty to defrauding the American public during the technology boom, whilst Integrity points to Fined $80 million for facilitating Enron accounting fraud. As far as I can tell, you could swap the words and it would work no worse, and I can’t figure out how making a chart makes it any more rhetorically persuasive, or clearer, or interesting, or anything.
I also don’t know why he called the chapter “The Ozone Hole”, but I suppose “Fuck This for a Game of Soldiers” wouldn’t have been any better. And, to give the man his due, he points out that if you don’t just mildly accept that of course the whole mail-in rebate scam is a scam but what can you do, you have to wonder why the fuck it’s legal. I understand, by the way, that it isn’t legal everywhere; in Connecticut, I’m told, the store must provide in-store rebates at time of purchase or they can’t advertise the rebate price. Mr. Stiles’s’s point is at its most persuasive here, because, really, if there were anything controlling our society other than the Market, there would really be no excuse for allowing the rebate scam to be legal anywhere. Or phone slamming, or any of the crap that hits consumers and leaves it up to them to Opt Out of the extra charges. And, yes, some of it is illegal, but much of the illegal stuff is punished with fines that make the illegal practice profitable. Why is this? Because, Mr. Stiles says, that’s the way the Market wants it, and so that’s the way it is.
I have given short shrift to much of Mr. Stiles legitimate points, so let me dwell on this one a little longer. It is possible to include both The Market and morality in an ethical decision-making structure. It’s possible to say that I want to make money, or even to maximize profit, within a structure that recognizes the costs that are not solely financial. That is, I can use them as limits, each on the other, which prevents me from either lotus-eating or grandma-selling. If, on the other hand, I compartmentalize them, and allow only Market interests in my Market life, then there is little to limit me, because one of the things The Market does is expand to fill available space. So if I don’t consider the value of, say, family time or rest or culture while I’m at work, then I will work late and do less of that stuff that is outside Market values, and then have less moral values to draw on when I do get a chance to use them. I’ll get into the Market habit, and it’ll seem absurd to me to spend a few bucks more (if I can) to shop at a store I like shopping in. Liking things doesn’t apply to The Market, and should be kept for the books I don’t have time to read, and the sex I’m too tired to have, and the days off I never take. So I’ll jockey for a bargain, and increase my stress, and enjoy the fruits of prison labor (which has nothing to do with my decision, because really, I’m just shopping), and pretty soon it seems reasonable to, oh, defraud my investors, because after all it’s The Market, and although the investors may be nice enough people after hours, that’s their business.
There are counter-examples to all of this, but I agree with the point. It is important to keep ethics in mind at all times. All decisions are ethical decisions. That doesn’t mean that the best choice is always the one the Market doesn’t like. When, for instance, someone chooses to trade off the convenience and the savings of shopping at Wal-Mart for funding their abhorrent practices, that may be, for that person, strapped for cash and time, a better choice than spending money and time on finding and patronizing a good business, and having less of both for good works, or his children. The point isn’t that everyone should have clean hands. The point is that everyone should know what is on their hands, as much as is possible (for learning is also a drain on time, money and energy, and sometimes investing those is not the best choice, either) and make those decisions as best they can within frameworks they understand and, ideally, choose. In fact, one of the ways that the internet may yet shake up our system is that it makes (for those people who have access to it) it no more convenient to shop at Wal-Mart than at GreenHappyPeaceUnionPensionChildrenPuppyCo. And it’s much easier than it used to be to find out whether GreenHappyPeaceUnionPensionChildrenPuppyCo is, in fact, a wholly-owned subsidiary of EvilBastardPillageEnslaveandSaltthefuckingEarthCo.
Again, what Mr. Stiles lacks is a sense of history. Things are not moving monotonically hellward. Some things get worse, some get better. I think we are in the front edge of a time when a lot of things are much worse, and that the some that are better don’t outweigh all the worse. But unlike Mr. Stiles, I don’t think things were always better, nor do I imagine that when the things that are now worse were better that it was better for it. Um. You know.
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.
Why should mail-in rebates be illegal? They differ from in-store rebates in that (a) there’s a delay before you get the money back; (b) if you fail to send in the right paperwork then you don’t get the money back at all. The first has the effect of lowering your net rebate slightly; the second has the effect that sometimes you won’t get the rebate.
Seems to me that you could simulate these with an in-store rebate that was 5% lower, and where you roll a die to see if you get it, and if you roll a one (or a 1-3, or whatever your odds of failing to submit the proper paperwork were), then you don’t get the rebate; would that be any more or less ok?
Actually, that would be illegal (I think) in any state, although it’s just possible that certain Indian tribes could institute it in some locations.
To be specific, what I think should be illegal that currently isn’t is advertising after-rebate prices for mail-in rebates. I’m OK if a store wants to advertise what they are charging you, and also note in similar size how much the rebate is, but if the store is charging you $199, the ad should say $199 and not $149 (after rebate).
Further, not only would I have much higher fines for failing to come through on the rebate (and there are plenty of people who submit the paperwork who have to then follow up to demand the rebate), but I might well have a system where if the rebating company paid rebates on less than, say, 80% of the total sold, then there would be a fine as well, even if there was no further evidence of bad faith.
What if, when you bought an item at the store with a charge card, the store charged you $50 just because they had your account number, and then you had to file paperwork to get it back, which would take six to eight weeks and might require two or three followup calls? Would there be anything unethical in that?
Thanks,
-V.