| Yesterday began as a cold rainy Friday
| |
| | ingredients, as it did 49 years ago, to
|
| for me when I got out of bed hungering
| |
| | make the same Hershey bar, the candy is
|
| for, of all things, a Hershey bar. It
| |
| | considered to be worth 1500 percent more
|
| must have been the sudden intense craving
| |
| | now than then. Is this because the price
|
| for that yummy chocolate taste that
| |
| | of sugar, chocolate, and the other
|
| caused me to get quickly dressed, grab my
| |
| | ingredients in the bar have substantially
|
| wallet, and, with an umbrella, walk the
| |
| | increased? No. The price of the
|
| oft-beaten one block route to the
| |
| | ingredients haven't gone up that much,
|
| neighborhood convenience store. There I
| |
| | not 1500 percent. Candy makers can
|
| found the traditional black and white
| |
| | currently buy their ingredients wholesale
|
| packaged candy displayed prominently
| |
| | and not pay but 10 percent more than they
|
| among its many rivals crying out, "buy
| |
| | paid in 1960. The overall cost of
|
| me, buy me." So I grabbed one and rushed
| |
| | producing the candy hasn't gone up more
|
| hungrily to the checkout counter to
| |
| | than 25 percent.In relation to the
|
| discover that the small bit of chocolate
| |
| | pencil, you can clearly see that the
|
| for which I, as a child, paid 5 cents was
| |
| | content and basic quality of the
|
| now 79 cents. But as I was suddenly
| |
| | Ticonderoga Number 2 is the same as it
|
| exasperated by the retail price of the
| |
| | was in 1960. The cost of producing it
|
| item, I found myself pulling out a dollar
| |
| | might have possibly increased 5 percent
|
| bill, handing it to the cashier, and
| |
| | or less. But the popularity of the
|
| getting back my 21 cents in change. As I
| |
| | pencil has not increased as much in 49
|
| walked out of the store tearing the paper
| |
| | years as has the Hershey bar. The candy
|
| off the chocolate bar, it dawned on me
| |
| | maker knows that people enjoy eating
|
| that even if the candy had been a dollar,
| |
| | candy more than using a pencil. That is
|
| I probably would have still bought it.But
| |
| | why countless millions of dollars are
|
| isn't that the way the free market works
| |
| | spent by candy companies each year to
|
| to regulate our lives according to the
| |
| | advertise their quickly consumable
|
| arbitrary values set by private industry?
| |
| | products. They know that the American
|
| Perhaps the current 4.9 percent
| |
| | public will pay 79 cents for a Hershey
|
| unemployment rate in America may be
| |
| | bar even if it is really only worth
|
| defined and understood better by taking a
| |
| | perhaps less than 20 cents. Yet, while
|
| snapshot of the rise and fall of
| |
| | everyone can't eat candy because of
|
| arbitrary values, or the prices set on
| |
| | health concerns, the whole American
|
| the things the American people hold dear.
| |
| | population uses pencils. However, I
|
| As far as the Hershey bar is concerned,
| |
| | can't remember the last billboard I saw
|
| approximately 6,000 employees currently
| |
| | advertising pencils, though you can
|
| labor year-round in Hershey, Pennsylvania
| |
| | probably find at least one in every
|
| to produce the same type of candy that
| |
| | American home, school, and office.
|
| was made nearly 80 years ago by Milton S.
| |
| | What does this have to do with the
|
| Hershey. Supposedly, the quality and
| |
| | current unemployment crisis? Well,
|
| quantity of the original Hershey
| |
| | American capitalists are driven by the
|
| chocolate bar has not changed over the
| |
| | profit motive to produce and deliver
|
| years, but the price sure has.When I was
| |
| | their products. This is the amount of
|
| a young boy, I regularly collected
| |
| | money they get for a product after the
|
| soda-pop bottles from alongside the
| |
| | cost of producing it is subtracted. The
|
| county roads in East Texas. People then
| |
| | high point of American capitalism is
|
| would ordinarily buy Dr. Peppers and
| |
| | finding the maximum cost for which a
|
| Cokes in the ten ounce glass bottles,
| |
| | product can be offered which will be
|
| drink them while driving, and throw them
| |
| | accepted readily by the consumer. In the
|
| from their cars into the high uncut
| |
| | same way the cost of something can be
|
| grass. This was to my benefit, because
| |
| | artificially raised in order to increase
|
| in an hour's time I could find ten or
| |
| | profits, the number of employees it takes
|
| more of those bottles and sell them back
| |
| | to produce the product can be arbitrarily
|
| to grocery stores for their deposits,
| |
| | decreased for the same reason. For
|
| then 10 cents per bottle. With my
| |
| | instance, the high rate of unemployment
|
| pockets bulging with dimes and quarters
| |
| | during the Great Depression occurred even
|
| at the end of a summer day, I would pay a
| |
| | though the production of essential
|
| visit to the candy case of my local
| |
| | products throughout the nation continued.
|
| store. With the dollar or more I had
| |
| | The stores continued to sell these
|
| made from the bottles, I would go away
| |
| | products even though there wasn't as much
|
| from the store with ten or more Hershey,
| |
| | international trade. The wealthy people
|
| Butterfinger, or Mars bars in a paper
| |
| | in the country, the ones with money to
|
| bag. That's when candy bars were 5-10
| |
| | spend, continued to live their lavish
|
| cents each during the 1950s and 60s. At
| |
| | lifestyles. A certain percentage of the
|
| the current selling price of 79 cents, a
| |
| | workforce was retained in order to secure
|
| Hershey bar, with the same size and
| |
| | this level of production. Had the
|
| content of the bar produced in 1955, has
| |
| | production levels been arbitrarily
|
| increased 1500 percent in value. Does
| |
| | increased by the corporate CEOs at that
|
| this surprise you, or are you willing to
| |
| | time, unemployment would have been
|
| casually say, "what's the difference?
| |
| | substantially reduced.Presently,
|
| Everything goes up in price and I'd buy
| |
| | government employment is increasing way
|
| it if it were a dollar."The poignant
| |
| | above the private sector. What this
|
| question festering in the back of
| |
| | means is that the executive branches of
|
| everyone's mind, whether they want to
| |
| | the federal, state, and local governments
|
| admit it or not, is, "did the price
| |
| | are using tax money to pay an expanding
|
| really have to go up if the quantity and
| |
| | number of salaries. While tax revenues
|
| quality of the product are the same as
| |
| | are not earned, but collected from
|
| they were in 1955?" The answer is one
| |
| | taxpayers, the private sector is
|
| that almost all hard-nosed capitalists
| |
| | essentially paying for the continued
|
| would rather not care to expound upon.
| |
| | proliferation of government. At the same
|
| Most would have it remain in obscurity,
| |
| | time, the private sector is downsizing
|
| blowing in Bob Dillon's wind.
| |
| | its workforce in order to increase its
|
| Nevertheless, the free market remains a
| |
| | profits. This doesn't make sense if the
|
| strange rapacious beast that continually
| |
| | cost of the increased government
|
| seeks its own existence, according to its
| |
| | infrastructure is the same or more than
|
| widely varying appetite, without regard
| |
| | the cost of increased corporate
|
| to who and what it consumes along the
| |
| | production. What I'm saying is that the
|
| way. You might wonder if I copied the
| |
| | private sector, the corporate
|
| foregoing description of free market
| |
| | capitalists, can successfully manipulate
|
| capitalism from some old book of
| |
| | the level of unemployment in the country
|
| socialist aphorisms. No, it's an
| |
| | the same way it can arbitrarily increase
|
| original that I thoroughly contemplated
| |
| | the price of a popular product 1500
|
| before enlisting it in this essay. It's
| |
| | percent. They do this knowing that the
|
| predicated upon an essential principle of
| |
| | American public will still buy the
|
| human nature, greed. For instance, a
| |
| | product at the exorbitant price, and will
|
| grizzly bear will, by instinct, kill and
| |
| | look forward to doing so. And when they
|
| eat lesser creatures only to survive and
| |
| | announce that 36,000 or more employees
|
| feed its young. A human being, on the
| |
| | have to be laid-off to sustain a
|
| other hand, will prey on its own kind by
| |
| | particular level of production, the
|
| premeditation and design in order to have
| |
| | unemployed worker will docilely accept
|
| more than it needs to adequately exist.
| |
| | his fate and the state of affairs as
|
| In fact, the human being is the only
| |
| | inevitable. This amounts to the
|
| specie that will kill its own kind, as
| |
| | unfortunate conditioning of the American
|
| well as other species, in order to live
| |
| | public through the media.Is democratic
|
| more comfortably. The desperate burglar
| |
| | socialism a better way to secure a
|
| who ends up killing in order to steal
| |
| | quality of life for the average American
|
| money or valuables is a street variety of
| |
| | worker? I look at Canada, Britain,
|
| this creature. The corporate Wall Street
| |
| | Australia, and New Zealand and wonder
|
| type of this animal is an elusive sort
| |
| | whether vast corporate profits are more
|
| that will prey on its victims from high
| |
| | important than the government providing
|
| in the suites, always pretending that
| |
| | health care and the basics of life to a
|
| what it is doing is best for them and the
| |
| | deserving population. These nations may
|
| economy. All the while, the intended
| |
| | not have the GNP of the United States or
|
| victims of this corporate predator scurry
| |
| | the vast military-industrial complex that
|
| about in their middle-class and
| |
| | spends the highest percentage of the
|
| lower-middle-class existences doing
| |
| | federal budget to sustain a war machine,
|
| exactly what they have been conditioned
| |
| | but they provide a quality of life for
|
| to do.
| |
| | their citizens. In the long run, the
|
| After I had feverishly downed the
| |
| | preeminence of a nation-state is not
|
| purchased Hershey bar, savoring its 79
| |
| | determined by its international status,
|
| cents of delight, I sat at my desk
| |
| | but, rather, by its ability to provide
|
| holding a Number 2 Dixon Ticonderoga
| |
| | for its own. Perhaps it's time to place
|
| Pencil. I had sharpened it in order to
| |
| | as much a public value on healthcare and
|
| do some math calculations. All at once I
| |
| | employment as on the almighty Hershey
|
| thought of something rather profound.
| |
| | bar. Perhaps if we raised the value of
|
| Though I had paid 3 cents in 1960 for a
| |
| | an end to costly healthcare 1500 percent,
|
| pencil of that quality, the same type of
| |
| | the mandate of our Constitution to
|
| pencil, just a week before, had cost me
| |
| | promote the general welfare would be
|
| only 4 cents. There was something very
| |
| | quickly realized. At the same time,
|
| revealing in that comparison that seemed
| |
| | maybe the price of the Hershey bar would
|
| to jump out at me. Why had the candy bar
| |
| | come down. I would hope so.Norton R.
|
| increased 1500 percent in 49 years while
| |
| | Nowlin holds M.A. and B.A. degrees from
|
| the pencil had increased only 1.3
| |
| | the University of Texas at Tyler in
|
| percent? The pervasive principle of free
| |
| | addition to one year of law school at
|
| market economics that is at work here is
| |
| | Thomas Jefferson School of Law, in San
|
| the essence of public demand and how much
| |
| | Diego, California, and 70 semester hours
|
| the capitalist can greedily derive from
| |
| | of inter-disciplinary post-graduate
|
| the popularity of the product. Though it
| |
| | credit in history, sociology, ecnomics,
|
| presently takes the same amount of
| |
| | and law. Mr.
|
