Perceived Choice
Staring at the shelves of personal care products in the grocery store, I am overwhelmed by the choices. I narrow my search to the deodorant section, a series of shelves as tall as I am filled with little containers that have names like Rexona and Ultra Max. The smell is intense. The perfumes from the deodorants, soaps, and home cleaning products in the next aisle over mingle and make me want to get outside quickly. I am looking for deodorant, not antiperspirant, and not a deodorant that has artificial perfumes or colorants. That represents about 96 percent of the products that I must sort through to find what I am looking for. I also want something strong, not some flowery smelling organic stuff that wouldn't even be effective as potpourri. That eliminates the remaining three percent. One container remains, scented with rosemary, sage, and parsley, alcohol and aluminum free, vegan and never tested on animals. The packaging is minimal and made from recycled plastic. It's perfect—exactly what I am looking for.
If there are about one hundred brands of deodorant and each brand has several different types, maybe five on average, then there are roughly five hundred different types of deodorant to choose from. Deodorant, being slightly inane and something the average person is not faced with making a choice about daily, still presents daunting complexity and choice to the consumer. Now imbue every other good and service we consume with equal or greater variety and you have an environment that resembles capitalist America today.
When purchasing a cellphone, there are thousands of options to choose from; there are hundreds of brands, hundreds of types, and hundreds of plans. People who are unfamiliar with cellphone technology have no idea where to start when buying a cellphone. They probably often get more features than they actually want when they purchase one because they are unable to specify their needs. The bewildered purchaser ends up paying too much and struggles to use the overly complex device. Similar scenarios apply to many regular purchases, especially when dealing with high technology. Computers and many other electronic devices introduce a tremendous amount of complexity and choice into our lives due to their innately complex structures and their builder's aggressive revision cycles.
The number of economic choices we have to make on a daily basis is enormous. In order to be fully informed consumers we would virtually have to stop consuming and instead devote ourselves entirely to product research. As a result, we more often than not neglect to fully understand the subtle differences between brands and products, and simply opt for buying whatever is convenient, aesthetically appealing, or popular.
People living in our capitalist society are faced with too much complexity and too many choices. We would all benefit from less perceived choice and more distinction between products. A perceived choice is one when there is no real choice between similar products offered by the same brand or even made by different brands. When closely examined, it is apparent that many similar products have the same ingredients, and even when their ingredients are given proprietary names they are often chemically identical. For example, the artificial sweetener Aspartame is marketed under several trademark names including Equal, NutraSweet, and Canderel, but they are all chemically identical. Choosing between Equal and NutraSweet is a perceived choice because there is no real difference between them. Even when similar products are sold under different brand names, the brands are often owned by the same parent company. The alternate branding creates a perceived choice when really they are the same products with different labels.
I predict that as natural resources become more scarce and as people begin concentrating in earnest on resolving the pressing issues of our time, the facade of perceived choice will be shed from the marketplace. As our economy transitions from a neo-darwinian competitive paradigm to a cooperative based economic model, perceived choice will be shunned and looked upon as dishonest.
Creativity is as much a part of our human nature as our upright walk and opposable thumbs are parts of our physiology. Humans have invented and innovated from the time we started wearing clothing, building shelters, and preparing cooked food. Creativity is integral to to humanity's success and survival. Throughout human history people have devised enumerable creations in manifold fields, forming rich and diverse cultures. While much of humanity's initial creativity was constructive, it was also used for destructive purposes. Metallurgy gave rise to sanitary cookware and tools, but also to swords and shields.
I propose that invention can be divided into two categories: competitive and cooperative. Competitive creativity is often purposed to match or exceed the capabilities of the competition. Weapons and armor are competitive innovations because they must continually evolve to compete effectively with the opposition's newly developed enhancements. Weapons and armor without the consideration of an opponent satisfy no need and thus are not cooperative creations. In all cases except defense, weapons and armor serve no useful purpose. Satisfying no need, weapons and armor do not enhance our lives in any meaningful way. Any inventions solely developed to compete in the marketplace that do not satisfy needs and do not provide people with real benefits are competitive inventions. Marketing for such products often plays off of our fears and insecurities in order to drive us to purchase them. On the other hand, cooperative innovation is specifically geared toward solving real problems, improving our lives, and making us truly better off.
Capitalism began as an effort to satisfy real needs. Before capitalists mastered the art of manipulating markets, politicians, and consumers, they identified needs and sought to satisfy them. Most products were simple, inexpensive, and functional. People kept products for many years and extracted their full utility. Even today, some companies carry on cooperative relationships with their customers. Instead of exploiting their psychology to drive purchases, they poll them for suggestions in order to anticipate and provide for their customers' needs. The cooperative economic model encourages the development of well defined products. The differences between similar products developed under the cooperative economic model can be clearly distinguished: the products are not overly redundant, and they serve unique purposes. Using the principals of cooperation and collaboration to develop creative solutions to today's problems would supply the marketplace with an elegant array of products intended to satisfy needs, create real choices, and emphasize clear distinctions between similar products. The implementation of such a model would drastically reduce the complexity we are faced with in our everyday lives, and consequently, people would experience less stress and enjoy more free time.
People convinced of the perfection of the competitive capitalist economic model believe that competition encourages efficiency and weeds out useless products through a kind of survival of the fittest process—basically, this amounts to evolution through natural selection applied to economics. By applying the processes at work in nature to the marketplace, the free-market capitalists believe that they are using the optimum form of market regulation. The flaw in this logic is that humans themselves are not subject to natural selection pressures, and neither are their ideas. Ever since we began living in cities, using medicine, and dividing labor, humans have insulated themselves from nature. Thus began a process of cultural evolution in which people were favored for their ability to cooperate and get along within their societies. All of our strengths as humans are derived from our ability to collaborate, organize, and communicate. We are not exceptionally fast running animals, we are not especially big or strong, and we do not possess fangs, claws, venom, or stingers, all of which are products of competitive natural selection which we are not a part of. Indeed, humans have only survived due to their ability to cooperate. By mixing a competitive economy and a cooperative society, the market gets the benefit of neither.
Of course, humans are animals, and a competitive spirit is born into every one of us. One only has to point to sports in order to provide an example of our strong desire to compete. It is true that some of humanity's most spectacular feats can be attributed to competition. Landing on the Moon, Venus, and Mars were all important accomplishments and tremendously useful to science. Some competition is fun, honorable, and fulfilling. Intellectual competitions such as spelling bees, science bowls, and debates can provide participants with great satisfaction and self esteem. Such competition is good spirited, though—even at the height of the Cold War, it was US and Russian competition in space that served to unite the two nations through the pursuit of science. Mean spirited competition in which opponents seek not merely to win, but to crush each other, represents the dynamic found in Corporate America. Hostility marks the relationships between most corporate competitors, with total market domination as their goal.
We must transition our economy from the inhuman and antisocial institution it is today to a collaborative environment where ideas are exchanged freely and benefit everyone. The economic community must more closely resemble our social and intellectual communities. It is proven that the scientific method embraced by scientists around the world facilitates the creation of a unified scientific framework. If we could only apply those principals to our economy, we could also have a unified economic model where needs were met, waste was minimized, and people were able to concentrate on the things in life that truly matter.
If there are about one hundred brands of deodorant and each brand has several different types, maybe five on average, then there are roughly five hundred different types of deodorant to choose from. Deodorant, being slightly inane and something the average person is not faced with making a choice about daily, still presents daunting complexity and choice to the consumer. Now imbue every other good and service we consume with equal or greater variety and you have an environment that resembles capitalist America today.
When purchasing a cellphone, there are thousands of options to choose from; there are hundreds of brands, hundreds of types, and hundreds of plans. People who are unfamiliar with cellphone technology have no idea where to start when buying a cellphone. They probably often get more features than they actually want when they purchase one because they are unable to specify their needs. The bewildered purchaser ends up paying too much and struggles to use the overly complex device. Similar scenarios apply to many regular purchases, especially when dealing with high technology. Computers and many other electronic devices introduce a tremendous amount of complexity and choice into our lives due to their innately complex structures and their builder's aggressive revision cycles.
The number of economic choices we have to make on a daily basis is enormous. In order to be fully informed consumers we would virtually have to stop consuming and instead devote ourselves entirely to product research. As a result, we more often than not neglect to fully understand the subtle differences between brands and products, and simply opt for buying whatever is convenient, aesthetically appealing, or popular.
People living in our capitalist society are faced with too much complexity and too many choices. We would all benefit from less perceived choice and more distinction between products. A perceived choice is one when there is no real choice between similar products offered by the same brand or even made by different brands. When closely examined, it is apparent that many similar products have the same ingredients, and even when their ingredients are given proprietary names they are often chemically identical. For example, the artificial sweetener Aspartame is marketed under several trademark names including Equal, NutraSweet, and Canderel, but they are all chemically identical. Choosing between Equal and NutraSweet is a perceived choice because there is no real difference between them. Even when similar products are sold under different brand names, the brands are often owned by the same parent company. The alternate branding creates a perceived choice when really they are the same products with different labels.
I predict that as natural resources become more scarce and as people begin concentrating in earnest on resolving the pressing issues of our time, the facade of perceived choice will be shed from the marketplace. As our economy transitions from a neo-darwinian competitive paradigm to a cooperative based economic model, perceived choice will be shunned and looked upon as dishonest.
Creativity is as much a part of our human nature as our upright walk and opposable thumbs are parts of our physiology. Humans have invented and innovated from the time we started wearing clothing, building shelters, and preparing cooked food. Creativity is integral to to humanity's success and survival. Throughout human history people have devised enumerable creations in manifold fields, forming rich and diverse cultures. While much of humanity's initial creativity was constructive, it was also used for destructive purposes. Metallurgy gave rise to sanitary cookware and tools, but also to swords and shields.
I propose that invention can be divided into two categories: competitive and cooperative. Competitive creativity is often purposed to match or exceed the capabilities of the competition. Weapons and armor are competitive innovations because they must continually evolve to compete effectively with the opposition's newly developed enhancements. Weapons and armor without the consideration of an opponent satisfy no need and thus are not cooperative creations. In all cases except defense, weapons and armor serve no useful purpose. Satisfying no need, weapons and armor do not enhance our lives in any meaningful way. Any inventions solely developed to compete in the marketplace that do not satisfy needs and do not provide people with real benefits are competitive inventions. Marketing for such products often plays off of our fears and insecurities in order to drive us to purchase them. On the other hand, cooperative innovation is specifically geared toward solving real problems, improving our lives, and making us truly better off.
Capitalism began as an effort to satisfy real needs. Before capitalists mastered the art of manipulating markets, politicians, and consumers, they identified needs and sought to satisfy them. Most products were simple, inexpensive, and functional. People kept products for many years and extracted their full utility. Even today, some companies carry on cooperative relationships with their customers. Instead of exploiting their psychology to drive purchases, they poll them for suggestions in order to anticipate and provide for their customers' needs. The cooperative economic model encourages the development of well defined products. The differences between similar products developed under the cooperative economic model can be clearly distinguished: the products are not overly redundant, and they serve unique purposes. Using the principals of cooperation and collaboration to develop creative solutions to today's problems would supply the marketplace with an elegant array of products intended to satisfy needs, create real choices, and emphasize clear distinctions between similar products. The implementation of such a model would drastically reduce the complexity we are faced with in our everyday lives, and consequently, people would experience less stress and enjoy more free time.
People convinced of the perfection of the competitive capitalist economic model believe that competition encourages efficiency and weeds out useless products through a kind of survival of the fittest process—basically, this amounts to evolution through natural selection applied to economics. By applying the processes at work in nature to the marketplace, the free-market capitalists believe that they are using the optimum form of market regulation. The flaw in this logic is that humans themselves are not subject to natural selection pressures, and neither are their ideas. Ever since we began living in cities, using medicine, and dividing labor, humans have insulated themselves from nature. Thus began a process of cultural evolution in which people were favored for their ability to cooperate and get along within their societies. All of our strengths as humans are derived from our ability to collaborate, organize, and communicate. We are not exceptionally fast running animals, we are not especially big or strong, and we do not possess fangs, claws, venom, or stingers, all of which are products of competitive natural selection which we are not a part of. Indeed, humans have only survived due to their ability to cooperate. By mixing a competitive economy and a cooperative society, the market gets the benefit of neither.
Of course, humans are animals, and a competitive spirit is born into every one of us. One only has to point to sports in order to provide an example of our strong desire to compete. It is true that some of humanity's most spectacular feats can be attributed to competition. Landing on the Moon, Venus, and Mars were all important accomplishments and tremendously useful to science. Some competition is fun, honorable, and fulfilling. Intellectual competitions such as spelling bees, science bowls, and debates can provide participants with great satisfaction and self esteem. Such competition is good spirited, though—even at the height of the Cold War, it was US and Russian competition in space that served to unite the two nations through the pursuit of science. Mean spirited competition in which opponents seek not merely to win, but to crush each other, represents the dynamic found in Corporate America. Hostility marks the relationships between most corporate competitors, with total market domination as their goal.
We must transition our economy from the inhuman and antisocial institution it is today to a collaborative environment where ideas are exchanged freely and benefit everyone. The economic community must more closely resemble our social and intellectual communities. It is proven that the scientific method embraced by scientists around the world facilitates the creation of a unified scientific framework. If we could only apply those principals to our economy, we could also have a unified economic model where needs were met, waste was minimized, and people were able to concentrate on the things in life that truly matter.
posted by IGUS at 10:47 PM
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