The consumer society is a consequence of freedom

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Earnest folk - whether they are slightly puritanical "traditional conservatives" or frothing left-wing greens - tell us that the consumer society is wicked. This is either because it harms our souls or because - in some unspecified manner - in harms 'the planet'.

Well I've news for you both, the consumer society is here to stay just so long as we keep hold of the idea of liberty. I am reminded:

Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer.  The maxim is so perfectly self-evident that it would be absurd to attempt to prove it.

Yet we hear always of production as the positive, pundits talk earnestly of exports as if they were more important than imports and of how we must work harder. We are enjoined to be more competitive - an utterly meaningless term. And all the while the greenies are urging us to 'consume less', to adopt a trajectory towards the rude hut and digging stick, away from the evil and sinful electrical society in which we live (and which we love).

But worst are those who would drag us back to protectionism, to industrial strategies and to a unionised labour force - to a less free society. These are the ones who fulfil the second half of the Adam Smith quote:

...in the mercantile system the interest of the consumer is almost constantly sacrificed to that of the producer; and it seems to consider production, and not consumption, as the ultimate end and object of all industry and commerce.

It isn't. We live to consume, to enjoy the bounty that our world and our creativity has made for us. To condemn 'underemployment' as some sort of curse rather than realising that it means more time for other things is the summation of this obsession with work and production.

So we must produce so we might consume. We may get pleasure from that production. But it is not our purpose here...

...our purpose here is to have the best time and the most fun we can, To eat, drink, drive fast cars, smoke cheroots, bungee jump, jet ski, knit, paint, sing, drum and throw balls. Or just to sit on the bank in the sunshine watching the world around us.

This is the consumer society. And we have it because we are free.

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Work, 'Big Society' and the labour theory of value

In his Living with Rats blog, Julian Dobson provides a well-crafted piece on the ‘Big Society’ drawing on the ideas of Robert Owen and, crucially, on the concept that all value is intrinsic – something has value and that is it. The actions of man cannot alter that fact. This is the core tenet of socialism – so not surprisingly something to which the socialist mill-owner (don’t you just love that term – such oxymoronic delight), Robert Owen would subscribe.

This is how the labour theory of value works:

A worker in a factory is given $30 worth of material, and after working 3 hours producing a good, and using $10 worth of fuel to run a machine, he creates a product which is sold for $100. According the Marx, the labor and only the labor of the worker increased the value of the natural materials to $100. The worker is thus justly entitled to a $60 payment, or $20 per hour.

If the worker is employed by a factory owner who pays him only $15 per hour, according to Marx the $5 per hour the factory owner receives is simply a ripoff. The
factory owner has done nothing to earn the money and the $5 per hour he receives is "surplus value", representing exploitation of the worker. Even the tools which the factory owner provided were, according to Marx, necessarily produced by other workers.

All quite straightforward really. So, if Julian and the New Economics Foundation are right and value (however we define it) does derive from labour then we need to worry about this:

…'the unpaid labour that is crucial to keeping society and communities functioning - the time that is put into caring for older people, volunteering for the community, exercising democratic rights to protest, and raising children'.

All this voluntary activity is work: it is labour that produces a wealth of social goods that would otherwise default to the state, either as a provider of services or as the place where the buck stops when society falls apart. It must be seen as such, and the Big Society provides an ideal lens.

In a world where we accept the labour theory of value then all this activity should be paid. After all if it is work then it has intrinsic value and for this value not to be remunerated must mean that some one else – the husband, the brother, the neighbour – is profiting at your expense.

Except – as a moment's thought would tell us – the labour theory of value is nonsense. Something’s value isn’t determined solely by the labour involved in producing that something. We know that because we experience the truth of it every day (and not just from watching Antiques Roadshow). And you know, the ‘Big Society’ isn’t about ‘production’ or ‘work’ it’s about value. And just because we choose a non-traditional measure of value, doesn’t mean that we should pretend that ‘work equals value’.

However we choose to measure value (and I like money because everyone understands it and it, famously, stores that captured value) it isn’t created solely by labour – Julian speaks of wasted work which can only be described as the creation of negative value. In the final analysis something is worth what it’s worth – the value is determined by consumption not by production. And volunteering – however ‘productive’ it may be – is an aspect of consumption made possible only by the value added through exchange. Which isn’t to belittle it – I for one do not work to produce. I work so I may consume. And part of that consumption is the pleasure I get from voluntary activity.

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