But forget airlines: look at other things “too cheap for what they are”. It may be tactless to mention it just as our attention is on rising prices of essentials — food and fuel — but the point is that too-cheap things are generally inessentials. The two phenomena are wickedly connected. When something is too cheap for its value the odds are that someone’s work, physical wellbeing and security are being undervalued to make it so. A sweatshop, damaged ecosystem, wrecked neighbourhood, industrial blight, employment kept deliberately insecure: something usually pays the price when top-of-the-tree consumers get a bargain.
The entire aim of having an economy is so that those things which used to be the exclusive property of those at the top of the tree become those things which everyone has.
An obvious example is fast fashion. We’ve known for years about clothes made under harsh supervision, often far away, by employees underpaid, exhausted, too young or economically enslaved, just so that a party dress or a hoodie can sell for five quid and be worn twice. There has been plenty of exposure of global sweatshops, many pictures of mountains of discarded garments washed up on African beaches or rotting in Turkish landfill. They may not be great clothes but they were functional, our ragged ancestors would have treasured them, and their very cheapness is an insult to the hands that made them or tended the machines spinning their fabrics out of oil products and fossil-fuelled energy. Argue if you will that cheap schmutter is a boon to our poorest, but that doesn’t explain the tonnes that turn up in landfill. Better to raise wages and welfare so everyone can buy, keep and mend decent stuff.
The, ahem, linen shirt. One of which I bought for €4, just to make a point about it.
Just think back. 100 years ago people would have been saying that three squares a day could become too cheap. 50 that central heating. Twats.
“mountains of discarded garments washed up on African beaches”
We normally put our old clothes in the big bin thingie outside Tesco. They obviously drop down a special 12-mile chute to the sea, where the current washes them down past Portugal to Africa.
You’d think that some charity could empty the bins and give or sell the old clothes to poorer countries, who would be glad of them.
@Sam The way the ocean currents work, if dumped from the UK most of the stuff would end up at the dutch/danish coast or in the Norwegian fjords.
I haven’t noticed a new Lindisfarne or a renewal of the dutch-english wars over piles of clothes washed ashore and littering our coast… 😉
Ah, the Thunderer. Challenging the Graun for the position of being Socialism Central. Closely followed by the Torygraph.
Libby bloody Purves….
I used to listen to her on Midweek on R4, when I needed a rest from drilling holes into my head, but still craved the effect.
Things can never be too cheap… only ‘not expensive enough’ for the elite to flaunt their status.
Perhaps if fast fashion upsets people we should impose new Sumptuary Laws… during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, specific laws were in place relating to dress codes, which dictated the colours and fabrics that people were permitted to wear based on their social rank and wealth.
Perhaps we might expand the scope of the New Sumptuary Laws to include what model of cars people may buy, what model of cell phone etc. Good luck with that
A woman and economics.
When will inflation protection become one of “those things which everyone has”, not just “the exclusive property of those at the top”?
Flying is too cheap because of who exactly being exploited?
Why, yes, I do want to be lectured about “inessentials” by someone who has a monthly column in the sailing magazine Yachting Monthly.
“When something is too cheap for its value the odds are that someone’s work, physical wellbeing and security are being undervalued to make it so. ”
Go on…
“An obvious example is fast fashion. We’ve known for years about clothes made under harsh supervision, often far away, by employees underpaid, exhausted, too young or economically enslaved, just so that a party dress or a hoodie can sell for five quid and be worn twice.”
Pretty sure the women working making garments in Bangladesh are living better than if they were peasant farmers.
“What else is indecently cheap today? Delivery. The lives and security of warehouse staff and van drivers are occasionally deplored in reports on employment”
That’s reports on employment written by the sort of lefties that hate capitalism and the gig economy and want more union jobs. Lots of people do it, often as a bit of a side thing and it works for them.
“Yet every self-promoting Instagram, Facebook boast, flippant tweet or WhatsApp has its cost in energy consumption, as giant server-farms across the world are powered and cooled. ”
Printing newspapers, distributing them across the country and running newsagents ran on unicorn farts of course.
The reason why there are some cheap flights is that airlines aren’t run by government bureaucrats. Business people understand that if there’s a seat empty on a plane you might as well collect a fiver for it than nothing. Same as how you can sometimes get Premier Inn rooms for £30 a night. Railways have never figured this shit out, and so run half-empty services outside of peak. Someone has just recently figured out an app where you can pay for a cheap last minute upgrade to 1st class, even though that’s been leaving free money on the table for decades.
@pseudonym rhetorical question:
It was called the 19th Century.
So, this twat seriously thinks she ought to be setting the price of freaking everything? All wages, too? Running freaking everything? They usually don’t make it so obvious where this is headed.
“Help! The stupid peasants have got too much stuff!”
‘ When something is too cheap for its value…’
I spy labour theory of value.
Nothing has any instrinsic value, only what an individual perceives its value to be to them, and therefore what they are willing to offer in exchange. And that is subjective, varying between people.
“Yet every self-promoting Instagram, Facebook boast, flippant tweet or WhatsApp has its cost in energy consumption, as giant server-farms across the world are powered and cooled.”
These people just *LOATHE* the fact that humans are capable of communicating with other humans, don’t they.
@jgh: perhaps they loathe the fact that the communication takes place without journalists as intermediaries.
One of the nurses at the hospital today was most impressed by my shoes. No masking tape holding them together.
But I live this way because I want to. Not to save Holy Mother Gaia, or stop the waste of resources, or whatever. I’m perfectly happy for others to live how they wish. Provided they don’t bother me, of course.
And as you point out Tim, the way to ensure this is lots and lots of fossil fuel powered industry. And a market economy so we can buy what we wish.
“Perhaps they loathe the fact that the communication takes place without journalists as intermediaries”
In view of the abysmal standard of speling and puncturation exhibited by the average journo, that’s undoubtedly a good thing. And (from personal experience) it also means we don’t find our comments being altered to give a completely different meaning…
giant server-farms across the world are powered and cooled
I “borrowed” a largish Sun server off of my employers to do dev and test work at home, they then went bust, so I kept it. It was like having a bloody jump jet taking off in my living room. Of course, one never notices this in computer rooms.
It is now consigned to the cupboard under the stairs. One day I’ll turn it into a table or bench or something and it will be a conversation piece eg “Why the hell have you kept this piece of junk ?”
“…a party dress or a hoodie can sell for five quid and be worn twice.”
Does anyone in reality land actually do this? I have a hoody that I bought for a fiver in a charity shop. I wear it all the time in the winter, I’ve certainly worn it more than twice.
Regarding setting prices, the Soviets thought they could do this by committee, but soon realised that setting hundreds of thousands of prices in real time was too arduous. The complete simpletons then elected to smuggle Sears catalogues over from the US and copied them verbatim, forgetting that these would no longer to subject to supply and demand.
Result? Hangars of shiny tractors for sale at top prices during a huge grain famine. Well done leftists.
@Stonyground
You probably don’t want to wear the same hoodie too often when committing armed robbery.
Stonyground,
“Does anyone in reality land actually do this? I have a hoody that I bought for a fiver in a charity shop. I wear it all the time in the winter, I’ve certainly worn it more than twice.”
Women do have larger wardrobes because they care more about how they look, and so buy more to have more choices. And sometimes that leads to a woman buying a top or skirt and only wearing it once, yes. But that’s what affluent and middle class women have done for decades.
And all that Primark have done is to extend that lifestyle to girls on council estates, who previously couldn’t afford to own many clothes. I don’t think that’s a bad thing.