In my opinion there are specific things in the structures of markets, and more generally of highly unequal relations that tend to promote this kind of waste.

Would you mind stating some of those things. I'm only barely able to follow this discussion, but I have felt for a long time that we have the capability, but not the desire to help out our fellow humans. I've only recently tried to back that up, so this discussion is very interesting to me, even if I'm too dim to completely follow.

Oboy - this is the heart of a 20,000 word article. Still if I just state it and don't try to prove it, maybe I can be brief:

OK Markets depend on bargaining power between buyer and seller, and especially between buyers and sellers of labor. Now imagine yourself a business owner. You have a choice of two cost savings that will save you the same dollars. One saves labor, the other materials. Well your supplier probably has more customers than just you. (Not neccesarily, but probably.) You are probably your workers only current employer (not neccesarily but probably). So if you cut your need for labor or increase what you can do with the same labor you increase your bargaining power more than if you cut your materials cost by the same amount. In other words, saving labor will increase your bargaining power more than savings materials. You are more likely to be able to demand a wage cut (now or in the future) than a materials price cut (now or in the future). Thus there is a built in bias against materials savings. This is a long established bias. The article covers some accounting practices that actually make savings in energy or materials harder to see than direct labor savings.

Secondly markets (not just capitalism but any market) tends to encourage atomization and discourage whole systems thinking.

Tasks tend to get very subdivided with each person optimizing his or her part. But you very seldom optimize a system, by optimizing individual parts in isolation.

Take the example of pumps. Industry uses a lot of pumping energy to pump (for example) hot water through pipes. OK, most pumping energy is used to overcome friction. If you make the pipes 50% fatter this reduces friction by 85%. If you pay attention to layout and have them undergo fewer twists and turns this saves anther half or two thirds. fatter less twisty pipes will save over 90% of pumping energy. But normally this is not done, because the cost of fatter less twisty pipes is more than the energy saved. Only if you save pumping energy, you can also reduce the size of your pumps. And that saves enough to pay for the more expensive pipes - even before you save one Btu of energy. So by looking at pumping as a system, you can save 90% of energy in a new system, and it won't cost a dime even before energy is saved. But no one thought of that until the last five years, because no one was looking at pumpings system as a whole systems. And you know what? It still is not considered in most new pumping systems.

And as a second post - why markets tend to encourage atomization.

1) All markets end up with workers being controlled. Even worker owned co-ops in market systems end up hiring managers who are pretty much in control on a day to day system. Now from a managers point of view the ideal would be to measure and control every action every worker performed. But that is impractical. So the next best thing is for workers (including intellectual workes) to act as "black boxes" - with clearly measurable inputs and clearly measurable outputs. That way if a manager can't control a worker in detail, the manager can still make sure the worker requires no more inputs than she should, a produces the output she is supposed. So this encourages greater atomization, not only as a matter of efficiency but as a matter of control.

There are even examples where control has been chosen over productivity. In California, there was a tremendous fight to outlaw the use of short-handled hoes in agricultural labor (where employers required farm workers to use short rather than long handled hoes.) Short handle hoes destroy farm workers backs. Workers also can pull fewer weeds with them than with long-handled hoes. So why did farmers fight so hard against the change? because with a short handle hoe, you can see the muscles in a workers back tense with effort. An experience supervisor can glance a worker and instantly tell how hard he or she is working. With a long handled hoe, there is not so much strain. You actually have to look at the area the worker is clearing to tell how the worker is doing Supervison is much harder when teh workers use long handled hoes. And the farmers were willing to not only to cripple their workers, but to have them work less efficienctly until crippled, in order to keep tighter control.

2) Workers and especially intellectual workers have incentive to favor atomization in markets. Basically, in a black box situation, the worker has more bargaining power than if everything they do is easily replicated.

3) The same thing applies in other extremely top down systems - possibly more so in the case of stuff like central planning. Central planners need to keep control of workers just as owners dl. Managers working for central planners have the same need for control as managers in market systems. Workers have the same need for bargaining power with managers in central planning as they do in markets.

Okay - that was not short. But I hope it was clear.

That was nice and clear about atomization and quite worth the length.

Now I really feel dim, but can you define atomization for me? I totally get your second post about control and productivity. Studied it a lot in a management class. But I don't think I've come across that word, or if I had I've forgotten.

Wow. The consumerism and waste conversation is pretty much the same one my husband and I had today.

Not that I have anything to contribute. . . but I can talk about cartoons! I miss Blake and Mortimer from Teletoon. I'm not sure how a French comic book ended up being a Canadian (?) cartoon, but it was cool.

atomization - splitting into seperate unconnected parts. So everyone is a little black box. Everyone concentrates on their tasks and strictly defined interfaces with others; thinking about the business or system as a whole strongly discouraged.

t On Edit So actually I think you got everything. You just were not familiar with the word in that context. Which meant it was an unneccesary piece of jargon on my part.

Oh and Fayjay - you mentioned before how slammed you were right now. I simply forgot. I should not even have asked. But thanks for your patience in any case.

wow, this thread all with the long thoughtful posts...

in a nonthoughtful post...

We Spanish kids got crap like "Destinos," despite there being Almodovar right there at the local video stores.

the kids in my hs french classes also read "huis clos"! And we in the spanish classes had to read borges and garcia marquez and garcia lorca (and god knows I couldn't make it through a page of any of those now, which makes me sad)...but when we were good, on fridays the spanish teacher would let us watch "Destinos". It was our treat. How sad is that? But really, "Destinos" was SOOOOO much better than what I had to watch in my college french class--at least in Destinos, there was a plot, and people went places and did things (though I never did find out what happened...last I recall, they'd gone to Mexico, and then some caribbean nation...and there was mystery...). Er, but anyway, "french in action"? There was no action. Grrrr.