The World's Last Remaining Ideology -- IIby Uriel Wittenberg (uw@urielw.com)May 10, 2005 (Continuation of The World's Last Remaining Ideology.) Paul Krugman's observation on how much of America's health care spending "is devoted to passing the buck: trying to get someone else to pay the bills" is an apt response to the blind ideology of free-market zealots. But there is so much more to be said about the way our system of capitalism functions. The U.S. is not drowning in money. There are many unmet needs -- health care, education, security, etc. etc. Yet the U.S. is wasting colossal amounts of money because of a system that does not serve the people. To really pursue the public interest would involve reforms to capitalism so radical they're not remotely on the horizon. One of the great deficiencies in the conventional workings of our system of capitalism was made particularly conspicuous to me, ironically, when I was living in "Communist" China and seeing the deluge of advertisements urging people there to buy automobiles. The ads push all the usual buttons -- glamor, sex, status. Now, it is surely obvious that it is crazy -- totally contrary to China's interests -- to increase the Chinese people's appetite for cars. That can only worsen pollution, traffic nightmares, accidents and associated health care costs and lost productivity, etc. etc. But how to twiddle the functioning of capitalism? Outlaw automobiles? Of course not. Clearly, many Chinese can enjoy a much nicer life if they have the option of buying automobiles. But outlawing advertising that encourages the use of automobiles would clearly be beneficial to China. Or as considered from the perspective of a Chinese consumer: One wants the opportunity to buy a car; but one doesn't want one's neighbors pushed to buy one too. This particular illustration comes from China but obviously applies all over the West. The economist J.K. Galbraith wrote decades ago about how we've entered a stage of capitalism in which business people are less concerned with satisfying needs than with creating new ones. Many of these new needs are only "needs" because our psyches are manipulated by advertisers. Others amount more or less to a business conspiracy against the people. Consider computer viruses. Viruses are a widely recognized issue for ordinary people using computers. But despite regular mentions of viruses in the popular press, a central political insight remains a secret, hardly known to anyone: Viruses could be made impossible for ordinary users of computers. All it would take is legislation that properly acknowledges the broad public interest. Microsoft should be forced by the federal government, by means of legislation, to fix Windows so as to prevent viruses. Same with vendors of any operating systems besides Windows that are also prone to viruses. Again, we are talking about radical stuff, beyond the horizon, crazy, politically inconceivable. But also the plainest common sense. This is what a "government for the people" would do to put a stop to the insane waste we needlessly incur because of viruses. (Virtually eliminating viruses for ordinary users would not just be feasible but easy. Briefly: Ordinary users want little more than word processing, email, and the rendering of text, pictures and sound from the web. It is ludicrous that any of these involve any risk of viruses whatsoever. For the occasional importation of executables from outside the machine, a properly designed OS would make it virtually impossible for a user to unwittingly install and execute a virus.) But we have a thriving industry selling anti-virus services. So, somehow, the world's dominant operating system, Microsoft Windows, persists in welcoming viruses. The invisible hand appears to be at rest. One might think that the major players in the anti-virus industry would exercise some measure of discretion in their business methods, that some degree of nervousness would operate, that undue provocations would be avoided. Given that the very existence of the industry is something of a crime, surely the players would not operate like brazen crooks. One would be wrong, as my recent personal experience indicates. "Once you're fairly sure your system is infected, don't panic," advises a recent PC World magazine article. "If you don't have any antivirus software on your system (shame on you), or if the software has stopped working, stay online and go for a free scan at one of several Web sites." The article then lists the websites of 3 industry players, two of whom I've recently dealt with: McAfee and Symantec. Both feature mail-in rebate promises. Pay the money at time of purchase, they tell you, and they'll send some of it back to you ... later. Last August, I found myself unable to renew my Symantec Norton Antivirus subscription. My address at the time was u@urielw.com, and it had apparently never occurred to the good people at Symantec that a customer might have an address with only one character before the "@". Their online subscription renewal system was utterly incapable of swallowing my address. They simply couldn't take my money. So I went to the competition, McAfee, which was offering a "competitive rebate" for people ditching Symantec in favor of McAfee Antivirus. After purchasing the McAfee product, I carefully read all the instructions, completed the rebate form, and mailed it in together with the required enclosures. The result came by email:
Rebate: $30.00 Rebate Check Trust me, Reader. What I'd sent them had included the UPC code from the box I'd bought containing the software. I eventually got the rebate after the manager of the store where I'd bought the software interceded for me. I discovered only after my purchase how stupidly the McAfee software had been designed. At regular intervals my computer would abruptly freeze, like a carousing drunk suddenly checked by incipient nausea. I came to understand that this meant something good was on its way (like the drunk's catharsis), but that it would only fully arrive after the exaction of a penalty (not a vomiting episode, in this case, but a wait of several seconds). A sonorous BONG! would eventually sound, announcing that McAfee had once again preserved my security by downloading updated virus definitions and that I was free to continue with whatever task had been interrupted -- after I took the mouse and clicked my acknowledgement inside the little McAfee window that appeared in the screen's foreground. So I dumped McAfee to return to Symantec ("the world's most trusted antivirus solution"), whose latest version I bought online with the intention of taking advantage of their competitive rebate promise. I decided under the circumstances to be more accommodating than before, and used an alternate email address that Symantec's system found less daunting. I carefully read all the rebate instructions, completed the form, and mailed it in together with the required enclosures. The result came by postcard:
Dear Consumer: Two for two. Hey -- you know my mailing included the proof of purchase (of both the McAfee and Symantec products; I sent the physical McAfee CD and the confirmation email from my online Symantec purchase). The strategy is so simple you don't even need an MBA: Boost sales with a rebate promise; then boost profits by reneging. It's like eating the cake -- then regurgitating it whole so you can also have it. Luckily for me, Symantec provided a rebate hotline. Unluckily, though, one found after traversing a series of automated menu prompts that the "hotline" offered nothing better than a useless recording. If you find yourself in this kind of situation, remember that what you have to do is phone an unrelated department, where they will insist that they have nothing whatsoever to do with your concern, and press to speak to a supervisor. By this means I reached a member of an "Escalation Team" who assured me he had rarely heard of people having difficulty with rebates. If you find yourself running a crooked company, you will probably learn soon enough that it's unnecessary to divulge your more questionable business practices to employees who don't really need to know about them. Anyway, with the help of my new friend on Symantec's "Escalation Team," I'm expecting my latest rebate to come in the mail fairly shortly. This is another principle you'd do well to observe if you're running a scam. There are a few nuts out there who will actually make trouble for you over a $30 rebate. Don't waste your time on them. Give them their precious $30. Stick to the low-hanging fruit. Bulls win; pigs lose. Like my law prof used to advise the class. Of course, this is exactly what we already saw above (in part I) with the health insurance companies Paul Krugman described. As the physician he quoted wrote: Doctors "must hire office personnel just to deal with the insurance companies. A well-run office can get the insurer's rejection rate down from 30 percent to, say, 15 percent. That's how a doctor makes money." Some folks think it's wrong to call a crook a crook. And that's another great thing about being a "bull" in our marvellous system of capitalism. You can lie, cheat, steal, loot, pillage. And if anyone is rude to you, your victims themselves will object! And it's not like cheating is aberrant behavior. The U.S. Army, compensating for its difficulties in recruiting soldiers, has allegedly been ordering retired soldiers to return to military work and serve in Iraq even though the former soldiers have no further legal obligation to serve. Some have sued to avoid further service, and prevailed. Barry Slotnick, the lawyer for a former Army captain who successfully challenged an Army call-up,
said he wondered how many other soldiers might be in similar positions, but without the money, the contacts or the certainty to sue. Mr. Slotnick said he had received numerous calls from others since he filed [the case of the former Army captain] in late October. There are a lot of low-hanging fruit in the world. It's true, and wonderful, that people have all sorts of legal rights. But it's equally true that, depending on conditions, many of your "customers" have no recourse to their rights. But if you're on the other side -- ordered to Iraq despite having fulfilled your contract with the Army, or merely suckered by anti-virus rebate promises -- you may find solace in the fact that this goes on everywhere, at all levels. This is "capitalism"! (As we currently practice it.) The federal government (which of course is us, again) has been suckered too:
After spending more than $4.5 billion on antiterrorism screening devices to monitor the nation's ports, borders, airports, mail and air, the federal government is moving to replace or alter much of the equipment, concluding that it is ineffective, unreliable or too expensive to operate. Anyone can make a mistake. But some of the problems listed in that article are truly impressive. How could they have spent money on radiation monitors, for ports and borders, that cannot differentiate between radiation emitted by a nuclear bomb and naturally occurring radiation from everyday material like cat litter or ceramic tile?! How could they have bought air-monitoring detectors, for major cities, that do not produce results for up to 36 hours -- long after a biological attack would potentially infect thousands of people?! Seems to me someone got snookered. Maybe they could use my help to try to reach a supervisor....
|