| Yesterday began as a cold rainy Friday for me when I | | | | ingredients, as it did 49 years ago, to make the same |
| got out of bed hungering for, of all things, a Hershey | | | | Hershey bar, the candy is considered to be worth 1500 |
| bar. It must have been the sudden intense craving for | | | | percent more now than then. Is this because the price |
| that yummy chocolate taste that caused me to get | | | | of sugar, chocolate, and the other ingredients in the bar |
| quickly dressed, grab my wallet, and, with an umbrella, | | | | have substantially increased? No. The price of the |
| walk the oft-beaten one block route to the | | | | ingredients haven't gone up that much, not 1500 |
| neighborhood convenience store. There I found the | | | | percent. Candy makers can currently buy their |
| traditional black and white packaged candy displayed | | | | ingredients wholesale and not pay but 10 percent more |
| prominently among its many rivals crying out, "buy me, | | | | than they paid in 1960. The overall cost of producing |
| buy me." So I grabbed one and rushed hungrily to the | | | | the candy hasn't gone up more than 25 percent.In |
| checkout counter to discover that the small bit of | | | | relation to the pencil, you can clearly see that the |
| chocolate for which I, as a child, paid 5 cents was now | | | | content and basic quality of the Ticonderoga Number |
| 79 cents. But as I was suddenly exasperated by the | | | | 2 is the same as it was in 1960. The cost of producing |
| retail price of the item, I found myself pulling out a dollar | | | | it might have possibly increased 5 percent or less. But |
| bill, handing it to the cashier, and getting back my 21 | | | | the popularity of the pencil has not increased as much |
| cents in change. As I walked out of the store tearing | | | | in 49 years as has the Hershey bar. The candy maker |
| the paper off the chocolate bar, it dawned on me that | | | | knows that people enjoy eating candy more than using |
| even if the candy had been a dollar, I probably would | | | | a pencil. That is why countless millions of dollars are |
| have still bought it.But isn't that the way the free | | | | spent by candy companies each year to advertise |
| market works to regulate our lives according to the | | | | their quickly consumable products. They know that the |
| arbitrary values set by private industry? Perhaps the | | | | American public will pay 79 cents for a Hershey bar |
| current 4.9 percent unemployment rate in America | | | | even if it is really only worth perhaps less than 20 |
| may be defined and understood better by taking a | | | | cents. Yet, while everyone can't eat candy because of |
| snapshot of the rise and fall of arbitrary values, or the | | | | health concerns, the whole American population uses |
| prices set on the things the American people hold dear. | | | | pencils. However, I can't remember the last billboard I |
| As far as the Hershey bar is concerned, | | | | saw advertising pencils, though you can probably find |
| approximately 6,000 employees currently labor | | | | at least one in every American home, school, and |
| year-round in Hershey, Pennsylvania to produce the | | | | office. |
| same type of candy that was made nearly 80 years | | | | What does this have to do with the current |
| ago by Milton S. Hershey. Supposedly, the quality and | | | | unemployment crisis? Well, American capitalists are |
| quantity of the original Hershey chocolate bar has not | | | | driven by the profit motive to produce and deliver their |
| changed over the years, but the price sure has.When I | | | | products. This is the amount of money they get for a |
| was a young boy, I regularly collected soda-pop bottles | | | | product after the cost of producing it is subtracted. |
| from alongside the county roads in East Texas. People | | | | The high point of American capitalism is finding the |
| then would ordinarily buy Dr. Peppers and Cokes in the | | | | maximum cost for which a product can be offered |
| ten ounce glass bottles, drink them while driving, and | | | | which will be accepted readily by the consumer. In the |
| throw them from their cars into the high uncut grass. | | | | same way the cost of something can be artificially |
| This was to my benefit, because in an hour's time I | | | | raised in order to increase profits, the number of |
| could find ten or more of those bottles and sell them | | | | employees it takes to produce the product can be |
| back to grocery stores for their deposits, then 10 cents | | | | arbitrarily decreased for the same reason. For |
| per bottle. With my pockets bulging with dimes and | | | | instance, the high rate of unemployment during the |
| quarters at the end of a summer day, I would pay a | | | | Great Depression occurred even though the |
| visit to the candy case of my local store. With the | | | | production of essential products throughout the nation |
| dollar or more I had made from the bottles, I would go | | | | continued. The stores continued to sell these products |
| away from the store with ten or more Hershey, | | | | even though there wasn't as much international trade. |
| Butterfinger, or Mars bars in a paper bag. That's when | | | | The wealthy people in the country, the ones with |
| candy bars were 5-10 cents each during the 1950s | | | | money to spend, continued to live their lavish lifestyles. |
| and 60s. At the current selling price of 79 cents, a | | | | A certain percentage of the workforce was retained |
| Hershey bar, with the same size and content of the | | | | in order to secure this level of production. Had the |
| bar produced in 1955, has increased 1500 percent in | | | | production levels been arbitrarily increased by the |
| value. Does this surprise you, or are you willing to | | | | corporate CEOs at that time, unemployment would |
| casually say, "what's the difference? Everything goes | | | | have been substantially reduced.Presently, government |
| up in price and I'd buy it if it were a dollar."The poignant | | | | employment is increasing way above the private |
| question festering in the back of everyone's mind, | | | | sector. What this means is that the executive |
| whether they want to admit it or not, is, "did the price | | | | branches of the federal, state, and local governments |
| really have to go up if the quantity and quality of the | | | | are using tax money to pay an expanding number of |
| product are the same as they were in 1955?" The | | | | salaries. While tax revenues are not earned, but |
| answer is one that almost all hard-nosed capitalists | | | | collected from taxpayers, the private sector is |
| would rather not care to expound upon. Most would | | | | essentially paying for the continued proliferation of |
| have it remain in obscurity, blowing in Bob Dillon's wind. | | | | government. At the same time, the private sector is |
| Nevertheless, the free market remains a strange | | | | downsizing its workforce in order to increase its profits. |
| rapacious beast that continually seeks its own | | | | This doesn't make sense if the cost of the increased |
| existence, according to its widely varying appetite, | | | | government infrastructure is the same or more than |
| without regard to who and what it consumes along the | | | | the cost of increased corporate production. What I'm |
| way. You might wonder if I copied the foregoing | | | | saying is that the private sector, the corporate |
| description of free market capitalism from some old | | | | capitalists, can successfully manipulate the level of |
| book of socialist aphorisms. No, it's an original that I | | | | unemployment in the country the same way it can |
| thoroughly contemplated before enlisting it in this essay. | | | | arbitrarily increase the price of a popular product 1500 |
| It's predicated upon an essential principle of human | | | | percent. They do this knowing that the American public |
| nature, greed. For instance, a grizzly bear will, by | | | | will still buy the product at the exorbitant price, and will |
| instinct, kill and eat lesser creatures only to survive and | | | | look forward to doing so. And when they announce |
| feed its young. A human being, on the other hand, will | | | | that 36,000 or more employees have to be laid-off to |
| prey on its own kind by premeditation and design in | | | | sustain a particular level of production, the unemployed |
| order to have more than it needs to adequately exist. | | | | worker will docilely accept his fate and the state of |
| In fact, the human being is the only specie that will kill its | | | | affairs as inevitable. This amounts to the unfortunate |
| own kind, as well as other species, in order to live | | | | conditioning of the American public through the media.Is |
| more comfortably. The desperate burglar who ends | | | | democratic socialism a better way to secure a quality |
| up killing in order to steal money or valuables is a street | | | | of life for the average American worker? I look at |
| variety of this creature. The corporate Wall Street | | | | Canada, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand and |
| type of this animal is an elusive sort that will prey on its | | | | wonder whether vast corporate profits are more |
| victims from high in the suites, always pretending that | | | | important than the government providing health care |
| what it is doing is best for them and the economy. All | | | | and the basics of life to a deserving population. These |
| the while, the intended victims of this corporate | | | | nations may not have the GNP of the United States or |
| predator scurry about in their middle-class and | | | | the vast military-industrial complex that spends the |
| lower-middle-class existences doing exactly what they | | | | highest percentage of the federal budget to sustain a |
| have been conditioned to do. | | | | war machine, but they provide a quality of life for their |
| After I had feverishly downed the purchased Hershey | | | | citizens. In the long run, the preeminence of a |
| bar, savoring its 79 cents of delight, I sat at my desk | | | | nation-state is not determined by its international status, |
| holding a Number 2 Dixon Ticonderoga Pencil. I had | | | | but, rather, by its ability to provide for its own. Perhaps |
| sharpened it in order to do some math calculations. All | | | | it's time to place as much a public value on healthcare |
| at once I thought of something rather profound. | | | | and employment as on the almighty Hershey bar. |
| Though I had paid 3 cents in 1960 for a pencil of that | | | | Perhaps if we raised the value of an end to costly |
| quality, the same type of pencil, just a week before, | | | | healthcare 1500 percent, the mandate of our |
| had cost me only 4 cents. There was something very | | | | Constitution to promote the general welfare would be |
| revealing in that comparison that seemed to jump out | | | | quickly realized. At the same time, maybe the price of |
| at me. Why had the candy bar increased 1500 percent | | | | the Hershey bar would come down. I would hope |
| in 49 years while the pencil had increased only 1.3 | | | | so.Norton R. Nowlin holds M.A. and B.A. degrees from |
| percent? The pervasive principle of free market | | | | the University of Texas at Tyler in addition to one year |
| economics that is at work here is the essence of | | | | of law school at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, in |
| public demand and how much the capitalist can | | | | San Diego, California, and 70 semester hours of |
| greedily derive from the popularity of the product. | | | | inter-disciplinary post-graduate credit in history, |
| Though it presently takes the same amount of | | | | sociology, ecnomics, and law. Mr. |