Talking Tuesday: Craftsmanship and Modern Low Price Culture

As I've mentioned a time or two recently, I'm reading Ellen Ruppell Shell's Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture, and I'm currently about half-way through.   She begins by describing the history of modern retailing, starting in the mid-19th century, and I found that whole section fascinating.  She then moves through a rather tedious section about the economics of retailing and consumerism, and the chapter I just finished deals with the various ways that the supply line for most modern retailing is compromised by low price pressures.  

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I think one valuable aspect of the book so far is that Ruppell Shell points out the many ways in which discount culture applies down the retail food chain, and ultimately does not benefit the consumer or the general economy.  Yes, we can get that wooden dining and two chairs table at IKEA for $69.99, but we are probably going to have to drive a significant distance to purchase it, spend countless time assembling it, possibly making a return trip to the store for missing parts, and it will probably fall apart in a few years' time.  But therein lies the rub: to get a truly quality piece from a craftsman (Amish furniture comes to mind), one that will last a generation, is to put out a significant sum of money, and one which not everyone can afford to do.  

There is also the problem that so many goods in our economy (fast fashion in particular) that are not made to last.  Shoes are meant to wear out in a season, and there aren't very many cobblers who can affordably repair cheaply-made shoes.  If you have to pay more than the shoes are worth to have them repaired (assuming you can find a cobbler to do so in the first place), it is worth it?  A pair of boots I bought this winter for around $60 needed some repairs to them by the end of the season.  Since I'd bought them in January, I was a little put out that the soles needed significant repair, as did the heel caps.  I took them to a well-regarded cobbler who quoted me a repair price that was nearly twice what I'd paid.  I balked, and he smirked at me and said, "Just buy new ones."  I wasn't willing to give up that easily, since the boots were a style that was hard to find, and I've have hard-to-fit feet and legs for tall boots, so I went down the street to another cobbler I've used before, and they quoted me a price that was about what I'd paid for the boots.  I swallowed my irk and paid it, figuring that whatever repairs they made would probably hold up longer, and I'd get another few seasons of wear out of them, plus I'd prevent the waste of sending a pair of boots to the landfill while purchasing another pair equally likely to fall apart.  I could have bought boots at a higher price point to begin with, and perhaps saved myself some trouble, but these days, higher price in fashion is no guarantee of quality, so I might have ended up having to repair a more expensive pair of boots anyway, and then would have been out even more money.  This is the crux of the problem: in current retailing, there is the ultra-expensive, ultra-high quality, available only to a select few wealthy people, and then there is everything else, designed to break, fall apart, unable to be repaired at any price.  As a consumer, it is hugely difficult to suss out quality because of how much pricing distorts the general picture and mid-range quality consumer goods have basically gone the way of the horse and buggy.

Some of it is our own attitude toward spending and pricing, and some of it is basic pennies and dollars (which actually are coming from the whole discount culture problem in the first place).  Catch, meet 22.

I'm finding more to like as I go along, but I'm still waiting for prescription for the deep cultural problems she describes so well.  I thought the passage below encapsulated a lot of the first half of the book.  

"Those who regard craft as a euphemism for elitism overlook the fact that craftsmanship need not be precious or effete; it can be practical, simple, an everyday thing: a well-made table, a sturdy chair, a butcher or tailor or travel agent who knows his or her business.  A bricklayer or carpenter or teacher, a musician or salesperson, a writer or computer code--any and all can be craftsmen.  Craftsmanship cements a relationship of trust between buyer and seller, worker and employer, and expects something of both.  It is about caring about the work and its application.  It is what distinguishes the work of humans from the work of machines, and it is everything that IKEA and other discounters are not.  

Craftsmen aren't led to a "glorious future" paved with ever lower prices for "the many."  They rely on their own skill, commitment, and judgement, and take pride and satisfaction in the work itself.  But to raise the issue of craft in the postindustrial age is to risk scorn.  Our knowledge-based service economy demands razor-sharp wits, finely tuned synapses, quick reflexes, and, most of all, drive.  We are warned that workers in the developing world are rapidly outpacing us.  They are smarter, more dedicated, and more focused.  They can program computers, write legal briefs, and diagnose disease expertly, quickly, and at an unbeatable low price.  We must work smarter and quicker, which is to say, cheaper."

~Ellen Ruppell Shell, 

Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture 

New York: Penguin, 2009, 

pg. 141, emphasis mine.