Cheap

By Mike Lundy

Here's a versatile adjective: cheap. Depending on its context, it can be positive or negative. 

In its positive meaning, it can be a compelling adjective: 'Buy this now! It's too cheap not to!' In our western retail stores, the signs screaming 'SALE' are so ubiquitous we hardly see the word, but once '50% OFF' is added, now that's definitely a bargain! 'Those t-shirts are so cheap; I think I'll get three!'

But in its negative meaning, cheap is a dismissive adjective: 'Let's get something else, that fabric looks a bit cheap'. It can also be a critical adjective: 'He's so cheap, he never pays his share', or 'Talk is cheap; I want to see action'.

Interesting. What does the dictionary have to say about the adjective cheap?

1. charging or obtainable at a low price; b: purchasable below the going price or the real value;
2. a. of inferior quality or worth; b: stingy; c: contemptible because of lack of any fine, lofty, or redeeming qualities
3. gained or done with little effort

So, when it's about the price we have to pay for something, cheap seems positive. Yet when cheap refers to the quality of a product or a person's behaviour, it's not good at all. The negative implication of cheap is that something important is missing, something that we expect to be present: quality, generosity or effort.

Why do we have a different connotation altogether when cheap refers to the amount of money we have to pay? If we look a bit closer, we will see that someone important is missing then too.

The majority of us have a limited amount of money, so cheap clothing, for example, is a good find. Cheap products, power, food, alcohol, service at a restaurant: all appealing. Paying less money to get something is desirable. We all want that, surely?

The problem is that with price the word cheap is an illusion. This illusion only allows us to see 'right this instant, for me, in this transaction, meeting this need (or whim), this purchase is cheap. (Let's get three!!)'

Cheap when used about the cost of products fails to highlight, as it does with other meaning of the word, that something very important and expected is missing.

What is missing is the full cost of the process of development, for all those involved in creation, production and delivery to get it to you. Costs perhaps in the future too. There are costs that you, the buyer, don't pay right now. Something important and expected - the costs that other people or our natural environment 'pay' to produce your latest purchase - that is what is missing.

For that cheap t-shirt - the land used to grow cotton is obtained (sometimes forcibly) from those who once grew food on it (so they need to buy food at a higher price); the irrigation water for the cotton crop is removed from the river so those further downstream have to buy in water; the poisons used to ensure a good harvest leach into soil and leave lasting damage that requires costly clean up (usually paid for by government i.e. taxes paid by the regular Joe workers who can't dodge their tax responsibility); the people in the factories that sew the shirts often work in dangerous conditions (high risk of injury or fire) where no one pays upfront to install safety measures, but the workers often pay with injury and pain, and sometimes with their lives; workers who rarely see daylight around their 12 hour work shifts 6 days a week also trade their health for income that often is insufficient to feed their families (so the whole family pays in hunger and deprivation); dyes from the manufacture create run-off that pollutes waterways and sources of public drinking water, so everyone in the community pays for drinking water (in plastic bottles which end up in the ocean); the ships bringing the containers stuffed with shirts to an Australian port sometimes inadvertently carry foreign invasive plant and animal species that exact a heavy cost on the country's agriculture in some areas (think banana disease) or the native flora and fauna in others (think myrtle rust); an excess of consumption is encouraged by the faux-sale discounting of the previously over-inflated prices (thus costing you just as much); the eagerly purchased t-shirt is worn twice then discarded ('oh, it was only cheap') and ends up in landfill, costing local councils an ever-increasing amount (also paid by the community through rates and levies). 

For that cheap manufactured food - food grown by agribusiness using chemicals to maintain yield which depletes the soil (more costs for oil-based fertilisers) and has lasting negative impacts on the health of the ecology including the people within it; smaller scale farmers paid less that the cost of production by middlemen (think Australia's dairy industry); workers for picking and packing employed only seasonally and paid poorly; food transported extensive distances contribute to road congestion and pollution (and the increased load on the roads is paid for by tax payers); the need to keep overall costs down in processing plants can lead to lack of cleaning or safety in some countries; in Australia, the cheap food chains can engage workers on temporary immigrant work visas and use then pay below minimum wage (think 7-11) or in the US, below poverty line wages require a ridiculous tipping system to make enough to feed the worker let alone family; the manufactured food products are affordable for poorer people but are nutritionally limited or empty (think potato chips/fries) leading to diseases of malnourishment or excess fat and sugar (looking at you, Diabetes II); the economies of scale of supply to retailers mean significant waste is left over, but rarely re-distributed to those without food, and instead dumped in landfill, with resulting costs to community (also paid by rates and levies); and later this organic 'waste' decomposes anaerobically, generating methane which contributes to global heating. 

It goes on, but you've got the idea.

So, these things are cheap for you. Not because they don't cost very much to make and provide to you - but because something important is missing. Something that should be there: the full cost of producing the product. The cost is paid by other people and other species, and often by depleting resources, so those in the future also pay.

There's even a word for this in economics - these types of costs are referred to as externalities.

In economics, an externality is the cost or benefit that affects a party who did not choose to incur that cost or benefit. Externalities can be both positive or negative. In simple terms, a negative externality is anything that causes an indirect cost to individuals. An example is the toxic gases that are released from industries or mines, these gases cause harm to individuals within the surrounding area and have to bear a cost (indirect cost) to get rid of that harm.  Wikipedia (abridged) 

Companies that function in competitive markets to produce manufactured food, clothing, energy, personal care, essential services, housing, etc., avoid paying the full costs of production that would include all these 'externalities' through processes that offset, defer, avoid, deny, transfer, write-off or walk away from the real costs.

Someone else pays the cost of environmental degradation, clean-up, human health toll, or the cost to personal dignity when draining 12 hour workdays do not pay enough to cover basic food and shelter. Sometimes, people and inconveniently located plants and animals pay with their lives.

Cheap is an illusion of the capitalist production system to accompany the actual material production. Yes, capitalism might be the 'best' way to produce 'cheap', 'mass', and 'on demand' things. But capitalist economies manipulate and degrade people and the natural world to produce these things cheaply, on mass and on demand. Capitalist production methods ignore the high personal and social costs of 'externalities'. This is not due to personal cruelty or individual wrongdoing in production or business, this is just the reality of how capitalism works.

Capitalism entails each producer competing against the other to stay in business by making a profit. Endlessly increasing growth and ever increasing profit are both the driver (cause) and rationale (explanation) for all business decisions in a capitalist economy. Once the actual production costs have been cut to a minimum, successful competition requires further reductions in production costs somehow. The obvious alternative would be increasing the price paid by the consumer, which could impact sales, i.e. lowering profits, which would be a disaster! Further cutting costs is necessary, or the business will be out-competed. Hence, the tendency to devalue or create an 'externality' of anything and any person possible, always pursuing a profit.

The other alternative, much more palatable within capitalist systems, is out-laying a fair sum for marketing to keep over-consumption humming along. Advertising works by spinning an illusion that this t-shirt is going to do wonders for your self-esteem and status. Marketing is a necessary business cost of promoting consumption. Paying living wages, cleaning up environmental damage - well, not if it can be avoided (deferred, denied, transferred, etc.)

This is not an accusation against individual business people of deliberately doing the wrong thing, although this does happen. These people are merely operating in our capitalist economy which relies on over-consumption and the treating of full and real costs as 'externalities' that never make it onto a company's balance sheet. And we consumers accept this illusion, expressing outrage when the facts are too glaring and awful to ignore (think Bangladeshi clothing workers dying in factory fires). We blame that producer, that circumstance - we never say 'well that's capitalism working at peak form'.

Without the illusion of cheap, consumers might stop participating in the over-consumption and the waste (one wear and throw it out!). Unpaid-for 'externalities', below living wages for workers, over-consumption and high levels of waste underpin so many businesses masquerading as successful. While changing this whole mess of a system will cause a chaotic and difficult disruption to our way of life, it will be no less chaotic and difficult than the looming failure of natural systems and societies if we do not face some hard facts about our supposedly cheap products.

The illusion cast by the word cheap as 'not costing much' is hiding the reality that the product or service is 'not costing me much right now.' When cheap is used with the word price, the reality is negative - something very important and expected is missing. 

Someone, somewhere, at some time, does pay the full cost of producing and delivering that cheap t-shirt. Just not you, not today.


Image links
Harrison quote: https://www.alternet.org/
O'Brian quote: snipped originally from FB, accessed at https://me.me/i/kayla-obrian-yesterday-at-2-37-pm-if-you-cant-afford-bf46a06e774c4869b2b22c0b6699b429