Restore the Craft
The headline is not a typo. I am not talking here about Iraq, terrorism, or the draft. Instead, I am talking about a much more fundamental issue in American life.
Recently, David Brooks and Robert Reich wrote Op-Ed pieces in the New York Times about two apparently different topics. Brooks wrote about the use of separate checking accounts in marriage. Reich wrote about the reason why Wal-Mart is so successful. Brooks wrote that separate checking accounts have their origin in our hyper-individualistic, capitalist society, which promotes self-indulgence and person growth over shared values, the common good, and personal sacrifice. He says these values are disrupted to the family, which is based on self-sacrifice for the purpose of producing children. Indeed, he puts it in almost either/or terms: either you take care of yourself, with your separate checking account, or you take care of your children and your family, with a joint checking account. The market and the family have different foundations, and although they both need to exist, one should not incorporate the values of the other.
Reich talks about the conflicting economic goals of society, which is based on the labor market and the market place. As workers, we want to earn as high a wage as possible for our contribution. However, as customers, we want to pay as little as possible for the products we purchase. We cannot have it both ways because the money we pay for products is the money that businesses use to pay their employees. If we pay less for products, employers cannot pay their employees very much. The bottom line is that a living wage and a good bargain are not compatible goals. They contradict each other.
The reason I have titled this piece "Restore the Craft" is because the craft is the basis of both the marketplace and the family. Reich is correct: it is impossible to get bargains for purchases and to promote living wages simultaneously. However, instead of sacrificing our income to promote a living wage, and instead of restricting the growth of Wal-Mart, we can do something entirely different: we can start our own businesses. We can become the capitalists.
Every economist knows that there are two types of capitalism: industrial capitalism and market capitalism. They are based on two opposing premises. The premise of industrial capitalism is to have continuous profits. People invest in a company, the company grows by hiring more people, developing more products, and giving increased dividends to the shareholders. The shareholders want their money to double, triple, or more, and so they invest in companies that will grow more by either producing more products or paying workers less. You get a profit by having more income than expenses. If employers pay more for labor, they cannot make much profit. Thus, in order to maximize profit, employers must eliminate labor costs.
The premise of market capitalism is sustainability. It is the law of the bazaar, which we have had for all of human existence. I make a piece of clothing, you pay me for the cost of the materials, and maybe a little extra. I don't need much money to sustain my life. I only need food, clothing, and shelter. As long as I can walk, I can travel. As long as I am living around people, I have a community. The rule of the market is that I sell products to sustain myself, and once I achieve sustenance I do not have to sell any more products. We really don't even need the market to achieve sustenance. All we need is the ability to produce our own goods, which we then consume. Instead of buying bread from someone else, I can bake my own bread. The same goes for clothes, books, music, toys, and any other product.
Industrial capitalism destroys market capitalism because it destroys the idea of sustenance. The goal of industrial capitalism is to live off the work of others: you make the bread, I pay for it. You make the bread, I sell it to someone else and make a profit from your labor. The goal of profit contradicts the goal of sustenance. Indeed, most people intuitively understand the goal of sustenance. We all need to live. Most people understand the goal of profit. We want to have as much leisure time as possible, without spending so much time struggling to live. Few people understand that the goals of sustenance and of profit cannot coexist in
perfect harmony.
This brings me to the family. Families exist for the purpose of promoting sustenance. Every family has some type of a division of labor, but every family also has shifting roles in that labor. The wife cooks sometimes, and the husband cooks other times. Even the children cook sometimes. The rule of industrial capitalism is to have specialization such that a given person can only do a given job, and must undergo years of training to do any other specialized work. There is no specialization in families though. Instead, families promote each other by occupying multiple roles simultaneously.
The reason people get separate bank accounts is so they can develop their own special interests. Their special interests are based on their separate specialization in the industrial society. This contradicts the idea of having shared interests in the family.
The reason I talk about restoring the craft is because a craft is the only way to incorporate special interests into shared interests. A craft is a method of producing something. It could be a pie, a play, a book, a poem, or a shirt. When making any of these things, the individual cares about the quality of the final product. The individual also knows that quality is dependent on how you make the product. The process and the product are indistinguishable. Thus is because there are rules to follow - syntax, grammar, order, steps - when making anything. These rules can be improved with specialization, but the craft shows all people how to learn these specialized rules.
The principle of industrial capitalism is that knowledge, or the ability to apply specific rules, is restricted to workers. Workers compete with each other to increase their own understanding of the rules, but if one person is better at applying a set of rules, he receives the money and the job for making the product. Indeed, this person directs everyone else on how to follow the same rules.
The principle of the craft is that, once a person develops a better way of making a product, he doesn't get more money for that knowledge or get a job where he can apply that knowledge. Instead, the principle of the craft stipulates that a person who improves a process shares the improved process with everyone else. There is no "job" because the process is the job. There is no "income" from the job because the finished product is the only income.
This, of course, goes against what Adam Smith said when he advised us about the structure of a market economy. He argued that a person does not make a product for himself, but for other people, and the reward is the profit from selling the product to other people. The rule of the craft, in contrast, is that a person makes a product for himself and for other people simultaneously, and the reward is the use of the product itself. This is the fundamental origin of family. Kids are the product, and everyone in the family shares their improved methods of raising the children. The reward is the children themselves. The kids are raised by teaching them how to make products, and to engage in the process of the craft. If a child has an interest, show the child how to consistently apply that interest to making products, and how to consistently improve the products. Teach the child that the joy in life comes from using the improved products.
Thus, Reich and Brooks are pointing to the exact same problem - the rule of convenience and the abandonment of the craft. Convenience forces us to abandon the craft because it forces us to ignore how a product is made. It forces us to separate the quality of the product from the production process, when the quality and the process are innately connected to each other. Convenience, and profit, present paradoxes to use, and automatically point to the importance of the craft, because the purpose of convenience and of profit is to lead directly back to the craft.
Profit allows us to use our time for making products that we like and enjoy, instead of having to worry about sustenance. Convenience allows us to quickly take care of sustenance so that we can move on to making and enjoying products. However, when we have too much convenience, and too much profit, we end up with a lot of free time. If we forget about the craft, we end up with time that we don't know how to use. Consequently, we stop enjoying life because the craft is what allows us to enjoy life.
So, instead of worrying about having separate checking accounts, or about what to do about Wal-Mart, the important step we should be taking is restoring the craft in family, friendship and business. We need to pay close attention to the process in everything around us, because by improving the process we directly impact our quality of life. By ignoring the process because of a desire for convenience, we ruin our quality of life.
There is a simple way to focus again on the craft. We had it before capitalism came along. It is called the Apprenticeship, and today we call it the internship. However, the internship merely entails bring individuals into a process so that they can learn by doing. In contrast, an apprenticeship entails a master working closely with a student to tell him how to do the process correctly, and then allowing the student to improve the process once the basics have been mastered. The problem with the pre-capitalist age was that the guild prevented this knowledge from spreading. Now, we have a greater emphasis on shared knowledge through education and books, but we have less emphasis on the craft because we expect individuals to be warehouses of knowledge and skills. We need to combine the process of the apprenticeship with the shared knowledge in books and schools. This means that instead of focusing on profit, or on family, we need to focus on the production process that is embodied in the Craft, and have the craft be the basis of everything else.
Recently, David Brooks and Robert Reich wrote Op-Ed pieces in the New York Times about two apparently different topics. Brooks wrote about the use of separate checking accounts in marriage. Reich wrote about the reason why Wal-Mart is so successful. Brooks wrote that separate checking accounts have their origin in our hyper-individualistic, capitalist society, which promotes self-indulgence and person growth over shared values, the common good, and personal sacrifice. He says these values are disrupted to the family, which is based on self-sacrifice for the purpose of producing children. Indeed, he puts it in almost either/or terms: either you take care of yourself, with your separate checking account, or you take care of your children and your family, with a joint checking account. The market and the family have different foundations, and although they both need to exist, one should not incorporate the values of the other.
Reich talks about the conflicting economic goals of society, which is based on the labor market and the market place. As workers, we want to earn as high a wage as possible for our contribution. However, as customers, we want to pay as little as possible for the products we purchase. We cannot have it both ways because the money we pay for products is the money that businesses use to pay their employees. If we pay less for products, employers cannot pay their employees very much. The bottom line is that a living wage and a good bargain are not compatible goals. They contradict each other.
The reason I have titled this piece "Restore the Craft" is because the craft is the basis of both the marketplace and the family. Reich is correct: it is impossible to get bargains for purchases and to promote living wages simultaneously. However, instead of sacrificing our income to promote a living wage, and instead of restricting the growth of Wal-Mart, we can do something entirely different: we can start our own businesses. We can become the capitalists.
Every economist knows that there are two types of capitalism: industrial capitalism and market capitalism. They are based on two opposing premises. The premise of industrial capitalism is to have continuous profits. People invest in a company, the company grows by hiring more people, developing more products, and giving increased dividends to the shareholders. The shareholders want their money to double, triple, or more, and so they invest in companies that will grow more by either producing more products or paying workers less. You get a profit by having more income than expenses. If employers pay more for labor, they cannot make much profit. Thus, in order to maximize profit, employers must eliminate labor costs.
The premise of market capitalism is sustainability. It is the law of the bazaar, which we have had for all of human existence. I make a piece of clothing, you pay me for the cost of the materials, and maybe a little extra. I don't need much money to sustain my life. I only need food, clothing, and shelter. As long as I can walk, I can travel. As long as I am living around people, I have a community. The rule of the market is that I sell products to sustain myself, and once I achieve sustenance I do not have to sell any more products. We really don't even need the market to achieve sustenance. All we need is the ability to produce our own goods, which we then consume. Instead of buying bread from someone else, I can bake my own bread. The same goes for clothes, books, music, toys, and any other product.
Industrial capitalism destroys market capitalism because it destroys the idea of sustenance. The goal of industrial capitalism is to live off the work of others: you make the bread, I pay for it. You make the bread, I sell it to someone else and make a profit from your labor. The goal of profit contradicts the goal of sustenance. Indeed, most people intuitively understand the goal of sustenance. We all need to live. Most people understand the goal of profit. We want to have as much leisure time as possible, without spending so much time struggling to live. Few people understand that the goals of sustenance and of profit cannot coexist in
perfect harmony.
This brings me to the family. Families exist for the purpose of promoting sustenance. Every family has some type of a division of labor, but every family also has shifting roles in that labor. The wife cooks sometimes, and the husband cooks other times. Even the children cook sometimes. The rule of industrial capitalism is to have specialization such that a given person can only do a given job, and must undergo years of training to do any other specialized work. There is no specialization in families though. Instead, families promote each other by occupying multiple roles simultaneously.
The reason people get separate bank accounts is so they can develop their own special interests. Their special interests are based on their separate specialization in the industrial society. This contradicts the idea of having shared interests in the family.
The reason I talk about restoring the craft is because a craft is the only way to incorporate special interests into shared interests. A craft is a method of producing something. It could be a pie, a play, a book, a poem, or a shirt. When making any of these things, the individual cares about the quality of the final product. The individual also knows that quality is dependent on how you make the product. The process and the product are indistinguishable. Thus is because there are rules to follow - syntax, grammar, order, steps - when making anything. These rules can be improved with specialization, but the craft shows all people how to learn these specialized rules.
The principle of industrial capitalism is that knowledge, or the ability to apply specific rules, is restricted to workers. Workers compete with each other to increase their own understanding of the rules, but if one person is better at applying a set of rules, he receives the money and the job for making the product. Indeed, this person directs everyone else on how to follow the same rules.
The principle of the craft is that, once a person develops a better way of making a product, he doesn't get more money for that knowledge or get a job where he can apply that knowledge. Instead, the principle of the craft stipulates that a person who improves a process shares the improved process with everyone else. There is no "job" because the process is the job. There is no "income" from the job because the finished product is the only income.
This, of course, goes against what Adam Smith said when he advised us about the structure of a market economy. He argued that a person does not make a product for himself, but for other people, and the reward is the profit from selling the product to other people. The rule of the craft, in contrast, is that a person makes a product for himself and for other people simultaneously, and the reward is the use of the product itself. This is the fundamental origin of family. Kids are the product, and everyone in the family shares their improved methods of raising the children. The reward is the children themselves. The kids are raised by teaching them how to make products, and to engage in the process of the craft. If a child has an interest, show the child how to consistently apply that interest to making products, and how to consistently improve the products. Teach the child that the joy in life comes from using the improved products.
Thus, Reich and Brooks are pointing to the exact same problem - the rule of convenience and the abandonment of the craft. Convenience forces us to abandon the craft because it forces us to ignore how a product is made. It forces us to separate the quality of the product from the production process, when the quality and the process are innately connected to each other. Convenience, and profit, present paradoxes to use, and automatically point to the importance of the craft, because the purpose of convenience and of profit is to lead directly back to the craft.
Profit allows us to use our time for making products that we like and enjoy, instead of having to worry about sustenance. Convenience allows us to quickly take care of sustenance so that we can move on to making and enjoying products. However, when we have too much convenience, and too much profit, we end up with a lot of free time. If we forget about the craft, we end up with time that we don't know how to use. Consequently, we stop enjoying life because the craft is what allows us to enjoy life.
So, instead of worrying about having separate checking accounts, or about what to do about Wal-Mart, the important step we should be taking is restoring the craft in family, friendship and business. We need to pay close attention to the process in everything around us, because by improving the process we directly impact our quality of life. By ignoring the process because of a desire for convenience, we ruin our quality of life.
There is a simple way to focus again on the craft. We had it before capitalism came along. It is called the Apprenticeship, and today we call it the internship. However, the internship merely entails bring individuals into a process so that they can learn by doing. In contrast, an apprenticeship entails a master working closely with a student to tell him how to do the process correctly, and then allowing the student to improve the process once the basics have been mastered. The problem with the pre-capitalist age was that the guild prevented this knowledge from spreading. Now, we have a greater emphasis on shared knowledge through education and books, but we have less emphasis on the craft because we expect individuals to be warehouses of knowledge and skills. We need to combine the process of the apprenticeship with the shared knowledge in books and schools. This means that instead of focusing on profit, or on family, we need to focus on the production process that is embodied in the Craft, and have the craft be the basis of everything else.
posted by Marriah @ 9:56 AM
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