Long ago, the gameshow 'Wheel of Fortune' made players spend the money they won on selection of prizes instead of getting cash. Watching an old episode recently, I put the price of the refrigerator into an inflation calculator and was astonished by just how expensive it was, relatively speaking, back then. No doubt that was the MSRP and could be purchased for less at Sears, but it still was a shock to see how much more expensive such goods were back then. Ditto for exercise equipment. We've become so accustomed to even large appliances being relatively inexpensive that we tolerate them being mostly disposable instead of repairable.
Right—most of our stuff is so very much cheaper, especially relative to wages, than it was even in the 1980s, let alone earlier. Of course we aren't as interested in repairing our stuff, either DIY or paying to have it repaired.
This goes for food, too. Articles about food waste can be read as articles lamenting that food's so cheap it's not worth trying to recover all that waste.
I'm pretty far from a free-market superfan, but these two particular, perennial stories—"can you believe how much food waste there is?! What a tragedy!" and "nobody repairs anything anymore, what a shame"—amount to complaining that shit's way too cheap, to my eye. Neither's due to carelessness or wastefulness or laziness, really, but economy. Quintuple the prices on everything and watch food waste plummet and interest in repair skills achieve levels not seen in decades. But, like... I'd rather we not.
We could reorganize our entire economy, so that we could live in a world with $200/pair sneakers, $500/month rent, and free universal healthcare. This alternate world would likely be much less carbon-intensive, have a higher life expectancy, and vastly reduced rates of depression and anxiety; unfortunately, as it could reduce profit for shareholders, it could never happen under capitalism
It is actually amazing jus how cheap the low end stuff is. Just look at pretty much anything.
Next step to think is that if they can make that for that price. What are we paying for when the price is 2x, 3x, 5x or more? Is the quality and longevity really similar or is there something shared...
