a lot of people feel that capitalism is, de facto, the best economic system that humanity has ever developed because it is motivated, supportive of the greatest variety of skills and talents, and supplies all of us with the things that we need to survive.  i agree, that compared to some of the failures of socialist and communist regimes, it’s hard to argue that captialism isn’t all of that.  however, like any system that endures, adapts, and evolves over time, i’m wondering if capitalism hasn’t become, somehow, completely broken.

i was having an after-work beer on friday with some friends when this thought first took hold of me.  i work mere blocks from the financial core of the country of canada – the south end of bay street where the nation’s banks, trading houses and most powerful corporations have their head offices.  there is so much money and so much power concentrated in that core of the city, it boggles my mind.  so many of the patrons of the bar were masters of this universe and i was an outsider, staring in like a small child peering into a candy shop.  i wondered to myself, “do we really need all these people to run an economy?  what the hell do they all do?”  the answer came to me pretty quickly – we really don’t need them all… so what the hell are they?  they are ants climbing over a mound of honey.

in my mind, high-powered finance has the job of managing the interests of investors who hold the purse strings of so many of the industries that we depend on for our modern urban life.  stock markets control the fate of all of the corporations who are therein represented, and failure in that arena means death to the corporation.  so all of a corporation’s collective will and effort must be bent to the demonstration, not just of health and fitness, but of strength and growth – and in many cases, not just strength and growth, but huge strength and growth.  the most fundamental decisions that a corporation makes must therefore be in service of their stock value.

but here is where i think things go kind of wrong.  if i have a bank account, and i choose to put my money there, am i not the customer?  isn’t the bank’s reason for being properly to serve me, it’s customer, the person who gives them my money to safeguard, and possibly to grow up a little?  well, as it turns out, the answer seems to be “no”.  unless i’m a shareholder, i don’t benefit from the huge profits that the bank makes on service charges, interest charges, or even the profits that it makes on the investments that it holds because i have given it my money.  there’s a fundamental break in the chain of responsibility between the customer and the provider, and this i believe is due to the pre-eminence of the interest of the shareholder.

now, i know that shareholders are people like you and me, people who have money to invest in corporate interests and they rely on the appreciation of their investments for financial gain.  i have mutual funds and some stocks, so i’m complicit in this state of affairs.  but when i think how almost every financial transaction that i make has this fundamental break in loyalty to me the customer, it makes me angry and want to do something to stem the tide.

it’s not an easy choice though.  i need computers and software and a place to live in the city and gas for my car and food for my cats, so i can’t just say that i’m only going to patronize mom and pop shops from now on.  moreover, even if i did, mom and pop shops sell me goods and services that come from corporations. 

i’m thinking of a trying to forge my own kind of customerism… a way of looking at what i buy and what i consume like i would if my paradigm were environmentalism.  there’s a “reduce, reuse, recylce” mentality that can be applied to purchasing of goods and services that i think needs to get started sooner or later.

starting with food, i want to reduce the number of corporate services and products i consume by purchasing cottage industry products – farm eggs, flour, produce and meat.  i already cook almost everything i eat, so a way for me to reduce my contribution to corporate economics run amok is to take that next step and buy locally and do more of the work myself.  this happens also to fall in line with what environmentalists would have us do for reducing the carbon footprint of the food that we consume.

if i need to buy a computer or an ipod, then i can reduce the contribution that my purchase makes to corporate economics run amok by buying it from a local retailer rather than a futureshop, or by buying it with cash rather than filtering the purchase through my visa card or a financing company.

if i need to drive my car somewhere, regardless of how infrequently that is, well, i’m S.O.L. it seems because no matter what i do, i’m paying someone who has to do his or her best to exploit the incomprehensible price of gasoline.  however, there’s a bike show this weekend in toronto, so maybe i can get myself an all-weather bike that is built by a small startup shop here in canada.

i’m pretty sick and tired of not being the most important part of the economic relationship between me, my money and the person who is selling me what i want.  i’m not sure if anyone else is – my google search for customerism didn’t lead me to a huge ground-swell of sentiment.  but for myself, i’m going to be looking very very closely at how i spend every dollar from now on to make sure that i’m giving it to someone who really cares about it.

- g

song of the day for hating what economics have become:   i’m the man, joe jackson