Xiaorui
Huang
SOC 420 Political Economy
First Paper
First Paper
Instructor: Prof. John Foster
2013-Feb-12
Grade: A+
The Present
Survival Relying on Future Death:
The
Sales Effort and Monopolistic Capitalism
Introduction
With capitalism reaches maturity and monopolistic
economy replacing competitive economy, the tendency for the surplus to rise
becomes the principle. In this phase of capitalism, normal production and
consumption mode can no longer generate enough outlets for increasing surplus,
which is the root for stagnation of capitalist economy. As a result, idle
capital concentrates in a few hands; productive capacity is far from fully
utilized, and the whole economy suffers from chronic stagnation. The sales
effort is one of the approaches developed by capitalists to stimulate demand
for consumption, drive investments, and absorb surplus. According to Baran and
Sweezy, sales effort is one of the most powerful factors that shape economy and
other social institutions (115).
A side effect of the sales effort as a method
to drive surplus absorption is the wasteful utilization of resources, which
becomes increasingly significant in a long term. I argue that while it
counteracts chronic stagnation of monopolistic capitalism, the sales effort
will lead to depletion of natural resources and pose an ultimate threat of
capitalist economy. In addition, with research and development being
compromised by the sales efforts, technological progress is very unlikely to
help transcend the limits of natural resources and save capitalist economy.
Therefore, paradoxically, the capitalist economy replies on the sales effort, a
surplus-absorption mode that will ultimately lead its death, to temporarily
maintain its existence.
The Sales Effort Causes Wasteful
Utilization of Resources
The sales effort under monopolistic
capitalism both upsizes and speeds up the flow of goods from production phase
to consumption phase, which introduces significant wasteful utilization of
resources. Here I analyze three ways (although there are many others) that
sales effort causes and accelerates wastes of resources.
First, the sales effort subdivides people’s
needs and desires, and reduces people’s tolerance of using one product for
multiple purposes. Baran and Sweezy argues that oligopolistic corporations use
advertisements to “establish and maintain a pronounced difference between their
products and those of their competitors” (116). One way of doing this is to
subdivide people’s needs and desires and artificially create different “niches”
for products with overlapping functions. A quintessential example is cosmetic
products. Take lip make-up products for instances: originally a lipstick satisfies
almost all needs; then cosmetic industry through advertisements introduces lip
liners, lip plumper, lip balms, and lip-glosses, etc., each allegedly satisfy a
unique need and is both indispensable and irreplaceable. Consumers are persuaded
to buy all of them, even though there is actually great overlap of their
functions. As a result, consumers demand more than what they actually need,
which leads to unnecessary high level of production and resources exploitation.
In this sense, by intentionally subdividing people’s needs and desires, sales
efforts lead to wasteful utilization of natural resources.
Another way that sales efforts cause wasteful
utilization of resources is discouraging shared use among people. For example, housing
industry cites child psychologists and claims that each child needs a private
room to develop individuality (Robbins 22). This advertisement discourages
parents to share bedroom with children or children share bedrooms with their
siblings. While the scientific validity of this advertisement remained
unverified, consumers are likely to be swayed by it and tend to build or buy
bigger houses, which inevitably increase unnecessary consumption as well as
resource utilization.
Thirdly, the sales efforts also accelerate
wasteful resource utilization through bringing future needs and desire to
present, which consists two elements. First, the advertising industry creates
constantly changeable fashions and encourages people to pursue these fashions.
This encourages consumers to keep buying new and “fashionable” stuff to replace
older ones before they wear out. In other word, the future need to replace a
product after its use value depletes is replaced by a much temporally nearer
need to buy new stuff when older ones’ “fashion value” deplete. Second, the
“selling” industry employs credit system to enable consumers to use their
future purchasing power to buy goods at present time. Since consumers’ demands
are only valid if they actually make the purchase, the credit system virtually
brings future needs of people to present. Both elements combined speed up the
flow of goods from production to consumption. Considering the fact that such a
flow involves wasteful utilization of natural resources, the sales effort
accelerates the wasteful utilization created by itself.
Generally, while it can boost demand for
consumption and counteract the tendency of stagnation of monopolistic
capitalism, the sales effort causes and accelerates the wasteful utilization of
natural resources.
Wasteful Utilization of Resources
Poses An Ultimate Threat to Monopolistic Capitalism
Baran and Sweezy do recognize massive waste
of natural resources as a negative impact of the sales effort; however, with
their main focus on political economy, they appear to underestimate the
significance of wasteful utilization of resources. They claim that “there is of
course a waste of resources in such cases (i.e. the sales effort drives
investment that would not take place otherwise); but in the presence of
unemployment and idle capacity, these resources would have otherwise remained
unutilized” (127). In this argument, Baran and Sweezy seem to indicate that
unutilized resources are negative to economy, which is rather short-sighted as
they fail to consider unutilized resources as necessary reserve for future
development in a world with limited resources.
In my perspective, in a long term, the
wasteful utilization of resources introduced by the sales effort is as
significant as its political-economic function of increasing aggregate
effective demand. Furthermore, while the sales effort counteracts stagnation of
monopolistic capitalism, it poses an ultimate threat to monopolistic
capitalism.
In the face of various global environmental
issues including energy crisis and global warming, the waste of resources
introduced by sales efforts have gradually manifested as a significant concern
that threat almost all aspects of social lives. As the sales effort becomes an
integral part of monopolistic capitalism, economy is increasingly dependent on
it for surplus absorption. However, the limits of natural resources determine
the unsustainability of such a surplus absorption mode. If no intervention occurs, the final stage of
a monopolistic capitalism relying on the sales effort will probably be a phase
of a very high demand for consumption and very low level of production that,
due to resource depletion, is far from satisfies the. Great social upheaval is
foreseeable in this circumstance. Of course, when the shortage of natural
resources threats the ruling class, it may take measures to adapt to it.
Perhaps the sales effort will be largely cut off and frugality be promoted among
lower classes. In other words, lower classes will experience a great contrast
between the previously consumerist lifestyle and the later shortage of living
necessities. In this case, the ruling bourgeois is likely to have difficulties
keeping the lower classes under control without triggering a revolution that
overthrows capitalism. In this sense, the sales efforts poses an ultimate
threat to monopolistic capitalism by making it depends on wasteful utilization
of natural resources and leading it to a revolution triggered by depletion of
resources. However, different from the communist utopia in Marxist theory, the
sales effort will leave the post-capitalist society with a world of resources
shortage, which, if anything, is a dystopia.
Inability of Technological Progress
under Monopolistic Capitalism to Transcend Limits of Natural Resources
Some may argues that technological advance
could solve the problem of limited natural resources and enable monopolistic capitalism
continue to exist and develop with the help of the sales effort, which is
highly questionable. Although human creativity and the resulted technological
progress have contributed greatly to the development of human civilization, it
is doubtful, if not impossible, for technological advancement to help mankind
transcend the ultimate limits of natural resources. Even if there existed an ideal
technological level that could help human transcend the limits of natural
resources, it is unlikely to happen under monopolistic capitalism. This is
because the research and development sector as a whole is penetrated and
undermined by the sales effort, as discussed by Baran and Sweezy (94-95, 129-130).
Specifically, the goal of capitalists who have financial capability to invest
in technological research is maximizing profits, which, in monopolistic
capitalism, make them favor profit-oriented researches over researches for real
technological advancement. In other words, technological research in
monopolistic economy is compromised to be part of profit maximizing strategies.
According to Baran and Sweezy, monopolistic capitalism slows down both the
introduction of innovations and the replacement of older technologies by newer
ones (94-95). Moreover, through their political power, capitalists often
intervene in governmental research on new technologies that may threat their profits.
An example is Big Oil’s lobbies that successfully keep governmental research
funding on renewable energy much lower than the subsidies to oil corporations. Thus,
technological researches for real advancement in both private and public sectors
are suppressed in monopolistic capitalism. Therefore, it is highly unlikely for
technological progress under monopolistic capitalism to help human beings
transcend limits of natural resources and save monopolistic capitalism.
Conclusion
While the sales effort is considered
effective in counteracting chronic stagnation of monopolistic capitalism, its
side effect of wasteful utilization of natural resources poses an ultimate
threat to capitalist economy. Specifically, the sales effort leads the
monopolistic capitalism depending on it to an anti-capitalism revolution
triggered by depletion of resources. In addition, with research and development
being compromised by the sales efforts, technological progress is very unlikely
to help transcend the limits of natural resources and save capitalist economy. By
and large, the capitalist economy replies on the sales effort, a
surplus-absorption mode that will ultimately lead its death, to temporarily
maintain its existence. Such a paradox reaffirms Baran and Sweezy’s conclusion
that capitalism is not a “socially necessary economic system” (141).
Work Cited
Baran, Paul A., and Paul M. Sweezy. Monopoly capital. N.Y.:
Monthly Review Press, 1966. Print.
Robbins,
Richard H.. "Constructing the Consumer." Global problems and the
culture of capitalism. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, 1999. 11-31. Print.
