This blog post will be the first in a series on “statist left contradictions”, where I will seek to look at the major areas that those on the statist left run into difficulties in their analysis and their prescriptions for social ills. I hope to show that, often, the prescriptions the statist left proscribe are contradictory to their analysis of the problems in modern society.
This is not to say that I disagree with either the statist left analysis or antidote in all individual incidences. It is to say, however, that the left has further to go in questioning the foundations and consistency of their own analysis. It should also be emphasised that I use basic stereotypes of state leftist ideology that does not apply to all state leftists.
Inequality and Consumerism
One such area that the left have drawn themselves into confusion is their parallel attack on both consumerism, understood as "a social and economic order that is based on the systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts and material inequality" (Wikipedia), and economic inequality.
Intuitively it might seem that wealth inequality and consumerism seem a natural pair of bedfellows to fight against. Both benefit corporations and the rich who make money from consumers buying ever more consumer goods and whom sit at the top end of the unequal society. But is a criticism of both inequality and consumerism consistent?
Firstly, it would seem the statist left are right to make criticisms of consumerism. As it turns out, inequality of wealth does not automatically result in inequality of happiness despite increased consumption of those things advertisements suggest will make us happy. The recent trend of research into what makes people happy, as opposed sad, has confirmed the findings of anti consumerists that happiness is largely to be found in finding a sense of meaning in life and ones attachment to your community around you.
However, the lefts distaste for flashy consumer goods somewhat jars with its criticism of inequality of wealth, that is, inequality of enjoyment of consumer goods. If happiness lays not in material goods but non material goods such as spirituality, family, friends, health and recreation then the complaint that some have more material goods then others seems strange. If the rich want to shackle themselves with flashy objects the anti consumerist statist left should be happy to let them do so.
The enjoyment of non material goods such as family, friends, spirituality and recreation often requires nothing but the opportunity cost of time: which the richest often make available to the rest of us by spending all of theirs figuring out ways to save us more of ours. Anybody that likes to spend their free time on more spiritual matters will be thankful to whoever invented the dishwasher.
State leftists may answer these critiques by saying that it is the creation of artificial desires through consumerism and the subsequent unequal distribution of the object of those desires that is objectionable. Even if we ignore the presumption that desires can be created out of thin air through advertising, (this is probably false considering the amount of money corporations spend on market research on what people actually want), the argument still does not hold much water. A doctor who sees a patient hooked on a substance that makes him sick, for example, will not advocate a government programme to redistribute wealth so the patient can have more of it. The doctor will instead to try to convince the patient to stop consumption of that good and look for fulfilment elsewhere. This is exactly what the anti consumerist left should be doing.
N.B The arguments here only apply to non essential consumer goods. An inequality of essential consumer goods such as food and shelter in which the poorest are bellow subsistence is a different topic.
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