Why We Hate Cheap Things
by The School of Life with Alain de Botton as the Series Editor
Timeline Unknown
Los Angeles, CA
My reading pace has slowed down slightly due to an overload of balancing work, delays in side-projects, and reading heavier and denser books. However, I’ve been getting back to my routine after realizing that things will happen on their own and that nothing should hold me back from continuing to read. I decided to pick up with a shorter and simple read that I found a boutique bookstore that was closing down in Santa Monica when I was with my friend Hatim Eldawi. I found two essay books with interesting titles by The School of Life and decided to give them a read.
This essay book is interesting as it talks about how we treat things based on their price, how we perceive people by their earnings, why arts graduates are paid less in a tech and finance based world, concepts of materialism and consumership, and the historical significance of using sex to sell and how we can turn it for the good.
The first essay discusses historical luxuries such as pineapples and plane tickets, which are no longer prized as they once were because we’ve reduced our esteem fore experiences as the costs of obtaining them have reduced. This trend increased with the Industrial Revolution were human beings discovered how to make high-quality goods cheaply, because of tech and new methods of organizing labor. As opposed to ancient and historical times where manufacturing goods required craft and skill, so a good being made by the best people from the best materials would be the most expensive because it was always the better one.
Similarly, we find a genuine link between talent, effort, skill, contribution and income. A person’s wages are determined by the scale of their social contributor. Well why aren’t low-skilled laborers or people working more “benevolent” jobs being paid as much as highly-skilled workers and people working more “intensive” jobs? Because social contribution is based in relation to the labor economics of demand, the determinant of wages is simple the strength of demand in relation to the supply of labor.
When people who are capable of doing something specific are less available, the more likely they are to be paid higher. While Christianity and Communism have attempted to get people to be treated more equally regardless of their salary, they’ve failed to do so. The approach recommended is through art, by showcasing how much work goes into each person’s work with beauty to make people appreciate their service.
In terms of materialism, we have to ensure the objects we invest in, and tire ourselves and the planet by making, are those that lend the most encouragement to our higher, better, natures. Consume what will help you be better. So my spending habits turn out not to be that bad after all, most of my credit card transactions are buying books anyways.