The Myth of Choice_ Personal Responsibility in a World of Limits - Kent Greenfield [55]
So markets are not the perfect embodiment and celebration of choice. What we have to pay for things is dependent on others. What we earn is dependent on others. What products are available is dependent on others. What jobs are available is dependent on others. Moreover, an empty wallet is not a problem that markets race to fix. By definition, if you have nothing to trade in an exchange, markets ignore you. If your resources are thin, the market is no longer a source of abundant choices. Since markets allocate even basic necessities according to our ability to pay for them, if you cannot pay then the market does not provide them. The market becomes a way to limit choice.
In fact, if we remove the hazy presumptions of economic deism from our eyes, the world around us reveals the limits of markets. There is nothing magical about markets that raises the living standard of any given person over time. Billions of people are desperately poor and not getting better off as markets reach them. As Jon Jeter notes, “With more cash spinning the globe faster than ever, 1.3 billion people now live on the equivalent of less than $1 per day. Half the world’s population—3 billion people—survive on only twice that, or about 25 cents less than each cow in the European Union receives per day in government subsidies.”7
The problem of market-created scarcity and inequality does not just affect the developing world. Even in the richer nations, scarcity is real. In the United States over the past generation, the richest of the rich have seen their wealth and income skyrocket, both in absolute and relative terms. Meanwhile, working people in America are struggling, often working longer, in less secure jobs, for pay that has been largely stagnant in real terms since the early 1970s. More and more working Americans are crushed by financial obligation, and the poverty rate recently hit a new high, with nearly one in seven Americans qualifying as poor.8 After each day of work, they are another day older and deeper in debt.
All this is to say that markets provide choice only if you have something to pay with. Nothing limits choice like scarcity. For millions of people in the United States and billions throughout the world, markets are a source of powerlessness.
4.
If you’ve ever been in a casino, you know that both money and hours can vanish without much apparent help on your part. Windows and clocks do not exist. Lighting does not change: it could be 3 o’clock in the afternoon or 3 o’clock in the morning. Attractive young women in sexy outfits offer free drinks as long as you play. Fresh air is pumped in continuously. When you win at the slots, lights flash and bells ring, and the slots that the casino calibrates to pay out at a higher rate are placed in high-traffic areas where more people will witness your victories. Brain scientists have shown that when we win at slots, our brain experiences a rush of pleasurable dopamine, and because of the randomness of winning our brain is unable to adapt to reduce the dopamine the next time.9
When you win at craps, other gamblers around the table win too, so you’re cheered onward and slapped on the back. Casinos track how much you gamble and give you extra benefits (such as free rooms) if you’re a high roller, like airlines giving frequent flier miles. Casinos are laid out like mazes, difficult to navigate, so you can’t walk through quickly. Ceilings are low, giving gamblers a sense of safety, intimacy, and privacy. Some casinos reportedly use “mood-influencing” aromas, to make us more open to the suggestion that we release our grip on our cash. Everything about the casino environment is crafted with sophistication intended to separate us from our money.
Perhaps the cleverest tactic is