How the Wealthy Few Shape Our Consumer Culture
And How it Relates To the Workplace
In most modern day, American-run businesses, there are two components in business operations — upper-management who decides what goods and services the company will produce, and the workers who create said goods and services .
In the American economy, most companies are privately run, so upper-management is only accountable to their partners and shareholders. For example, factories have an owner or small group of owners that own the building(s), land, and equipment. The workers use these assets to create what the owner(s) tell them to create.
Communication between upper-management and workers is a top-down, one-way street where the higher-ups have final say; all the negotiating power lies in their hands.
Occasionally, factory workers will make suggestions that are then implemented, but that only happens with the approval of those at the top, as they own the equipment.
The factory is used to illustrate the relationship between upper-management and workers. This upper-management-to-worker relationship is not limited to simply having a boss and worker existing in the same building, but also to wealthy investors acting as de facto upper-management through utilization of their capital.
Once you’ve amassed an enormous amount of capital, you can simply pay someone else who readily has the tools to create what you desire; furthermore, you can create what you desire across multiple industries, a bonus of being a capital owner rather than strictly owning a factory.
To clarify, a factory owner can create things to be sure, but she can only create what her factory is capable of creating. A capital owner is able to create anything so long as she has enough money to pay someone else.
In this article, when I refer to upper-management, I am referring to the factory owners (i.e., actual owners of companies, land, equipment, etc.), as well as capital owners.
Given enough time to play out, the divide between upper-management and the workers grows significantly. The small sliver of society that is upper-management alone decides what to create. The more populous part of society — the workers — do the bidding of upper-management. This divide comes with certain asymmetric powers that can be utilized solely by upper-management; accordingly, these powers are inaccessible to the workers.
Using these powers, upper-management determines the availability of goods and services for the masses.
The Power of Creation
I have dubbed the first of these operative powers the Power of Creation. Simply put, the Power of Creation is the ability to say, “I would like to see Object X in the world,” AND having the ability to then create it.
This power has some industrial restrictions. For example, owning a cell phone plant does not translate into having the ability to create the next Star Wars movie.
However, anything that the manager or investors’ machines are capable of making, he can create if he so chooses. The workers have no such choice and produce only what comes down from upper-management.
The Power of Selection
I call the second operative power the Power of Selection. In essence, upper-management gets to pick and choose what products are worthy of being on store shelves. Alternatively, they can also decide which items fail to make it into stores. Again, upper-management gets final say in which goods and services will flourish in the world, and those that will not.
The Power of Selection is more elusive, but can be seen clear as day in the television show Shark Tank.
For those unfamiliar with Shark Tank, the premise is simple: an entrepreneur/inventor pitches an idea, product, or business to a group of wealthy investors (upper-management). The goal is to secure funding from one or more of these investors in exchange for equity in the venture.
When people have a good idea, but the sharks show no interest, then the pitch is done. For the contestants, this signifies the end of the road.
Where I find issue with Shark Tank, and the Power of Selection more broadly, is that power rests in the hands of so few.
A quick caveat — for inventors and entrepreneurs on Shark Tank, it’s not necessarily the end of the line. It is not everyday that you land a spot on national television. According to a report by Business Insider, simply appearing on Shark Tank can be worth up to $4–5 million in marketing exposure. However, this free exposure is unique to contestants on Shark Tank and is not broadly applicable in real world product pitches.
This is a microcosm of sorts in how the Power of Selection works in the real world.
If you invent something that would benefit society as a whole, but there is no private investor that is both willing to invest in and produce your product, then that product will have no future.
Case in point:
Farmer John Georges created a cheap, effective way to save fuel, water, and time when growing a tree. However, due to the inadequacy of Georges’ pricing model, Kevin O’Leary lamented over poor profit margins and therefore opted not to invest.
If this wasn’t Shark Tank, with its multiple investors, but rather Georges getting denied by local investors and banks, that would be the end of his story.
Despite the quality of Georges’ invention and the environmental benefits it could provide, it might not have been funded, thus illustrating with mathematical clarity that Profits > Societal Benefits .
This should not be surprising if you live in America, but disheartening nonetheless. Consider that this is how all investors will view things. “What will this product generate for my bottom line?” will always be more important than any humanitarian or societal benefit.
Real World Implications
As a result, very wealthy investors/owners, whose day-to-day lives are materially different from the general population, determine what is available to the working class. When you look at how these two operative powers function in our society, it is easy to see just how much upper-management almost completely shapes consumer culture.
The next time you’re shopping, take a look around. The shelves are lined with products that were created top-down through the Power of Creation or were one of the lucky few to have made it through the vetting process inherent to the Power of Selection.
Think about all of the societal benefits lost along the way. Think about all of the great ideas disappeared to time because they failed upper-managements’ tests. We can see this playing out in real time in the energy sector.
A 2013 Gallup poll indicates that 75% of Americans support moving to solar or alternative energy sources, but these 75% of Americans possess neither the Power of Creation to create the solar panels needed nor the Power of Selection to green light clean energy projects. So instead of moving towards a cleaner energy future, we have debates about the efficacy and ethics of fracking and seizing foreign oil.
Occasionally the disconnect between those wielding the Power of Creation and the consumer is quite distinct, as seen in these notoriously poorly performing products, like Crystal Pepsi.
These powers do not end at you directly consuming through your purchases. What you listen to on the radio is determined the same way. Music studios directly assist their artists with the creation of songs, lyrics, beats (Power of Creation) and only sign artists who they think will work within their system (Power of Selection). These managers and investors then pump said music over your airwaves, thus influencing culture with a power that few are capable of commanding. The same can be said of the movie and television industry, as well.
The implications of these two powers and the fact that more industries are becoming owned by fewer companies means that fewer and fewer people are controlling more and more about what is available to you for consumption. The only way I can see combating this trend of less people having increasing influence is to wholly rethink the system we currently use in determining how products come to market.
Here’s More Information:
These 6 Corporations Control 90% of The Media in America
Foodopoly: Big Agribusiness and the Monopoly on the Food Industry
