There are some very strange ideas floating round on the interwebs about the cornerstones of all economic debate - goods, services and money. This is an attempt to straighten out some of the more blatant misunderstandings.
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The Three Sectors
Economic theory tends to break economic activity down into three segments, imaginatively named Primary, Secondary and Tertiary. This can a useful distinction when categorizing different economies, more "developed" economies tend towards a higher proportion of activity occurring in the secondary and tertiary sectors, and this has other uses in discussing how particularly industries may rely on others. It was never intended as a measure of how "good" or "useful" a certain industry is. In economic terms an industry (either a particular company or group of companies) is ""better"" (in a huge string of inverted commas) if it produces (adds) more wealth than another industry, regardless of where on the 1 / 2 / 3 scale the industries in question sit.
To briefly clarify;
Primary industries deal directly with natural resources. This therefore covers things like mining, forestry, farming, and oil and gas extraction. Under-developed nations tend to have a lot of primary economic activity because it (generally - oil and gas being the exception) can be undertaken with a labour heavy base rather than a capital intensive one. The "value adding" component of the primary industry is predominately a function of location - iron ore in a warehouse is worth more than iron ore a mile underground even though the object itself hasn't changed.
Secondary industries deal with manufactured goods. This could potentially be broken down further into 2.1 and 2.2; 2.1 industries take the output from the primary industries and create manufactured goods (i.e. take iron ore and turn it into iron bars), while 2.2 industries take manufactured goods and use them to create more complicated manufactured goods (take iron bars and turn them into knives and forks). The value adding component of secondary industries comes from the increased utility the same amount of physical material can have in different forms. (In the example above 10 sets of knives and forks has more value than the pure value of the metal because the form has a function).
Finally the tertiary industry deals with services. An exact definition of what a service industry is can be a little harder, though I'd take a punt that services deal with where and when things are rather than what they are. As an example a transport company provides a service - i.e. moving your 1,000 tonnes of wheat from point A to point B; they haven't changed the product, but they have changed where it is, thus adding value (it has practically speaking very little value in a barn on a farm, but potentially enormous value as the input to a corn-flake factory). The value adding component of the service industry is allowing the utilizing goods.
It should be pointed out that these definitions are a little blurry round the edges - this isn't really that relavent and shouldn't be used to derail the general thrust of this piece, but its something to be aware of. (For example you could argue mining is changing the location of an object and hence a service industry, although intuitively we all accept that a copper mine is doing something different to UPS though on paper they are both moving an object from A to B, likewise the distinction between utilizing a set of goods to add value (service) and manufacturing a new good (secondary) could be blurred).
I'm going to take a slightly tangent here to talk about what value actual means.
Value, Utility and Moneys
In economics the term utility appears, and while sufficient for the purposes of economics-as-maths and as a placeholder word for a general concept in economics-as-social science, it often gets mistranslated into common English. Utility is roughly speaking the benefit we get from consuming a good or service. Somewhat unfortunately this will be different for each individual. While I will derive some benefit (happiness, pleasure, etc) from eating a cake, there will be other people who would have got more or less benefit had they been the ones eating the cake. This conundrum presents all kinds of problems for economists since it undermines the idea that a group of rational agents presented with the same choice will make the same decision. (For example do you want this piece of cake or this piece of banana, I would pick the cake, others would pick the banana, but we are both acting according to the same utility-maximizing principle).
To circumvent this principle economics often equates utility which is person-specific and difficult to quantify (happiness is best seen ordinally rather than cardinally - i.e. you can say you were happier in situation A than in situation B, but not by how many "units") with money. Money is great since it is easily quantifiable, easily observable, and, in the modern market place, easily transferable. The idea is that while there will be specific combinations of items valued at £10,000 that any given person prefers over other 'baskets' worth £10,000, having £11,000 will always allow you to have a higher total level of utility than £10,000. (Fuzzy indifference curves aside). The risk however is that in the world of faux-business that passes as "man down the pub / man on a forum" economic debate money gets seen as the end in and of itself, rather than as a proxy for the consumption of goods and services.
So, to reiterate; money is not value. Value is a measure of utility. Money is a proxy for value only.
In practice this means that when assessing the output of an industry and ultimate question is how does this make people happy - that is, give them utility. Not how does this industry contribute to the circulation of the bits of coloured paper that we use as a medium of exchange.
"Winning" at trade
There have been plenty of people through history (and indeed in the modern world) who have acquired vast fortunes through trade and business. Though to those who cry out against the perceived wealth inequality between the "1%" and the rest in today's world, it may be worth checking out the equivalent in today's money of the fortunes accumulated by the original barons of industry, (whether it be textiles, ironworks, railways or whatever) and historical rulers (wiki has a somewhat dubious claim that the Roman orator, general and politician Crassus may have accumulated a personal fortune equivalent to the annual Budget of the entire Roman Empire. Based on some very dubious extrapolations compared to the gdp of the British Empire (which had a comparable % of global population and technology), this would be equivalent of 1.3 trillion dollars in today's money - that's 17 times more than Bill Gates, or about 2.5 times the combined wealth of today's ten richest billionaires.).
There are two ways you can acquire wealth through business/trade (through all of this I'm ignoring the distinction between you personally, and "you" in the sense of a business you own. It's now a meaningful distinction in this context).
The first is to take some inputs (say iron bars, timber, gravel, nails, and largely unskilled labour), and turn them into something which has more value then the inputs themselves had (i.e. a railway network). Through this process the total aggregate value of all the goods and services in the economy increases, i.e. the total cake gets bigger. A canny owner/businessmen can pocket a significant chunk of that increase for himself, thereby becoming fantastically wealthy. But the point is he has created value. The railway example is very informative - imagine you are a dairy farmer, you sell milk. Without a railway you can only sell to the nearby village and other farms, and you'll end up throwing away a lot of milk you can't sell (particularly since your likely to be surrounded by other dairy farms). Along comes the railway and suddenly you can sell you milk (remember this is fresh milk before refrigeration etc) in the nearby town, which will always have someone looking to buy it. Net result? You get to sell more of your product and make more money. Of course you have to pay to use the railway. So lets say you make an additional £15 a day from selling your goods, and you have to pay £5 of that to the railway. Your still better off, potentially a lot better off. But the guy who owns the railway? He make's £5 of you. And the next farmer, and the next, and the next, and so on, until he's earning hundreds of thousands every single day.
This is capitalism as it's meant to work - you create value, and in doing so you get to keep some of it, and some of it flows out into the economy benefiting others. (Indirectly all that money you keep for yourself still has a benefit, since it means you'll consume more goods and services yourself, thereby creating work for others). The key to the genuinely mega-rich in this process is to come up with something that benefits everyone, so you get a bit of value of everyone. Railway became a service consumed by the entire economy, so the barons got their slice of every cake in the country. Bill Gates made his fortune of Windows - a system which virtually every computer on the planet uses.
"Cheating" at trade
The alternative is to take some inputs (a bank account, an advertising budget, and some fancy linguistics) and create a product with no value ( a ponzi scheme), and then get people to buy it.
The idea here is that you got more for the product then its worth, thereby pocketing the difference. Note - this isn't you got more than the inputs are worth (which is true of any value adding industry), you got more than the finished product is worth.
What should hopefully be apparent is that this system relies on some form of deception, often deliberate - it relies on convincing people things are worth more then they actually are. Going back to our point above about value, at heart this means telling people that products or services will do something that actually they won't.
The ponzi scheme is an example of a financial product / service, that offers to take your money and give you back more money at some future point. Fine, that's the basis of virtually all investments, but the ponzi scheme is predicted on a disparity of information - the person running the scheme knows full well that the "product" has no real value since it will never return any of the money. But the investors don't know this , and therefore complete the purchase.
Cheating at trade does allow you to get rich, but the overall size of the economy hasn't changed. Blank DVDs don't gain "real" value (i.e. they don't add more utility when consumed) by being packaged up in movie boxes and sold as films. Thus this type of trade is about shifting value from one person to another, not creating new wealth.
As an aside, generally you don't get super rich with this approach - why? Because it relies on continually deceiving people and 1.) people are harder to trick as the amount of money involved goes up, and 2.) it gets harder to trick people a second time. A function of a wealth creating industry is that it encourages repeat use. In the example of the dairy farmer above, having gone to market, sold your milk, and got home with a profit, you are more inclined to do it again, i.e. when you get some more product you will make use of the railway to again increase its value by taking it somewhere you can sell it. On the other hand if the railway were a "cheating at trade" idea - (i.e. if there were no trains so you can't actually move things, or maybe you can't get out at the other end ??), then you won't do it a second time.
Value is Perceptive
A clarification is required here, to distinguish two different concepts.
1.) Promoting and advertising a value adding product
2.) A cheating at trade (value-reallocating) product.
Having created a product (iphone, Imperial Knight titan, chocolate cake), you naturally want people to part with money in exchange for the product. Advertising lets people know your product exists, and promotes its benefits and features. The price you set will be as high as you think people will pay. However we have a concept of "fair" or "honest" advertising. It is considered an institution of trade that you can't flat out lie about your product to encourage people to buy it, and if you do consumers have various rights of recourse to get their money back.
Examples flash by on a fairly regular basis, though they are generally on the grey areas round the edge - yes the product will do what's advertised, but only in certain, unlikely circumstances. Hence we have the term "misleading" advertising. This is promotion taken the extremes, with the positives stressed unreasonably, and the negatives covered up. Personally I may dislike the extent to which this occurs, but it is still (just) in the realms of "winning at trade" - your product does have advantages and does create value. You've just exaggerated to what extent and for whom.
"False" advertising on the other hand is the precursor to "cheating" at trade. Adverts for a color TV that is actually black and white, for a 3 for 2 offer that actually only includes 1 product, or books that turn out to be full of blank pages, would all quickly fall foul of "cheating" at trade. The distinction here is you are advertising a benefit that doesn't exist.
A few points then;
Banking and Financial Services
I often come across claims that the Banking sector doesn't add value, it just re-allocates value from customers to bankers. In effect the claim that it is part of the cheating camp. To begin I'm going to split off the fantasy world of derivatives trading and investment banking. Yes, I can quite accept that the trading world is focused on exploiting knowledge inequalities to sell things for more than they are worth by apparently offering benefits which you full well know don't exist. However the people in this world know the "rules of the game" and are not part of the regular consumer/producer market. This is not unlike going to a poker tournament and then complaining all the people there were trying to win your money off you.
"Retail" i.e. everyday, banking, adds value in a huge range of ways;
1.) It provides a safe, secure, easily accessible way to keep your money. Imagine if you had to keep all your money as notes under the bed, and your life savings as either gold or coin in your house.
2.) It allows access to the electronic payment world - direct debits, standing orders, debit and credit cards and so on are all services that allow you to easily manipulate when and where your money is.
3.) It provides a method of borrowing money to bring forward future consumption. On the whole I would conjecture banks are pretty clear in their advertising of how much you will borrow and how much you will pay back. It is then up to you to decide if that cost (i.e. the interest) is worth the value (whatever it is your planning on using the money to acquire and consume).
4.) In climes more typical than today's 0.5% BoE base rate world, it provides a low return, ultra-low risk investment (bank deposits are liquid investments in the bank. But they are incredibly safe since it would require an insolvent government before regular deposits were lost).
One of the points I raised in the "value adding vs value stealing" sections was that a value-adding industry attracts repeat (or ongoing) business, while a value-stealing one finds it difficult to get people to re-use or re-purchase a product once they know what they are really getting.
So, if banking is such a huge scam, with no benefit to the regular user, why does everyone have a bank account? Why do people still want to take out mortgages and credit cards? Why is the complaint not so much "we don't want banking" but "we don't want to pay for banking?".
The PPI scandal bears some consideration here since it appears to meet the above criteria for cheating ("having found out what it is I don't want it anymore"). Without risking an entirely new topic, I would suggest the consideration is not so much the product itself, but how it was sold. A mismatch can occur when a customer doesn't realize they are in a sales conversation.
Two examples:
1.) You go to a used car salesman and he tells you XYZ car is brilliant. You know this is a sales pitch (advertising) and therefore to be careful to check the product is what you expect. Its unlikely your being directly lied to (i.e. car has a year's MOT when in fact it failed its MOT), but your probably getting the best possible version of the truth.
2.) You go to the dentist and they tell you you need XYZ treatment. Here you expect your being informed as to what would be best for you, not being given the spiel on a particular product. We expect medical professionals (and legal, mechanics etc), to be acting in an advisory capacity not a sales capacity.
Now imagine the problem that arises when the customer thinks they are in situation 2.) and the salesman thinks its situation 1.). The general public, who until recently, largely saw the banks as social institutions, if not an extension of government, would have sat down with a customer service rep, and probably assumed that if they were offered a product it was a good idea to take it, in the same way that if your dentist says you need a filling, you assume he's acting in your best interests. On the other hand, the CSR, who has sales targets, sales coaching and a sales focused job description, sits down to the same meeting with the intention of shedding the best possible light on his products, and assumes the customer knows they are being sold to - in the same way that the salesman in PC World or Currys knows that the customers knows its a sales pitch.
This then leads to "mis-selling" scandals.
Do I have much sympathy for people who were given the details of a product, read them, decided they wanted it, then changed their mind? - No. This is a straight case of your making a judgement on the value you get from different baskets of goods then changing your mind.
Do I have sympathy with people who thought they were being advised, but were in fact being sold to? Yes - to some extent. Though ultimately you still bought a product, and you probably weren't actually lied to about what it did.
Finally, do I have sympathy with people who sought financial advice and were told to buy a product they didn't need? Absolutely - this is a cut and dried case of "value by cheating". If the service you sell is financial advise, and your giving people bad advice driven by your own targets or commissions, then your being misleading when you advertise "advice".
All hail Manufacturing
I was going to end with a comparison between the German and UK economies in response to the perennial racket that we should shift back towards manufacturing because somehow manufacturing is more holy than financial services. However, this is probably a topic that justifies its own post, so a few observations only;
1.) Yes Germany has both a bigger manufacturing base, and is the worlds top exporter.
2.) Yes there does seem to be a trend that western countries export pretty much all of their manufactured goods.
3.) The causation on the above is not clear. This could simply be saying we've shifted labour and capital out of manufacturing to higher value-adding industries and used the money to buy cheap manufactured goods from other people (China, Taiwan etc). The manufacturing that has remained is the capital and skill intensive industries which are primarily exporters by nature (automotive, aerospace etc). Therefore pivotting back to semi and low skilled manufacturing will not add a great deal of value, though it might improve the balance of trade position.
4.) Germany has an artificially low exchange rate thanks to the Euro, which boosts its export capacity.
5.) German work and investment ethics are far superior to those in the UK. It doesn't really matter whether your in manufacturing or servicing, a culture which promotes skills, training, experience, and inwards investment will have solid fundamentals. Germany excels in these areas. The UK does not.
6.) We could focus on making our services an exportable commodity. If we are good at financial services then specialize in that and sell it globally. Someone once said "not everyone can sell insurance" - this is true. But there is no reason why one person/country can't sell everyone's insurance. Maybe we should be looking at how to sell what we do have, not what we may theoritically have if we re-build the whole economy.
Conclusion (the TL;DR version)
You can either dig stuff up, turn stuff into other stuff, or make people's lives easier. They are all value adding. Proper capitalists create value and get rich by getting a slice of a growing cake. You can cheat by misleading people over your products, but this isn't how stable, ongoing industries operate. And no, everyone making chairs isn't a superior position to everyone selling insurance.
Happy Trails,
/Z
Sunday 13 April 2014
Walk Softly...
The original purpose of this blog was to give me an outlet for the various thoughts, conclusions, revelations, insights and rationalizations (that is, lies I tell myself), that pass through my mind. It was a means of emptying out completed considerations to free up mental capacity for new challenges, a way of ensuring my observations were not lost to me in the same way as nearly 10 years of musings were due to a technical fault on a removable hard drive. It has, however, become more of a forum for me to preach my eco-political views to a readership who are now the target audience of what was once a virtual monologue.
I return herewith to my original intentions, this post is deliberately not linked on social media, and I would appreciate a degree of discretion on the part of those who choose to read it.
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A friend of mine has recently suffered the traumatic, and unexpected, end to a long term relationship. This has therefore caused me to dust off a hat that has sat dormant for almost a decade, that of a guide to the unexpectedly single. I've seen a lot of relationships end, some mutual, some not, some from the point of view of the dumpeé and some from the dumper. Those circumstances, plus my own laundry list of ill-timed, ill-conceived or flat out implausible relationships, has given me ample opportunity to build some understanding of why certain pairings do, or more often, don't, work out.
That is not actually the purpose of this post however, merely a precursor. In conversing with aforesaid friend, I was required to articulate and verbalize various aspects of my own personality and outlook on life which up until now have gone largely unspoken. It seemed fitting to record this observations and considerations..
Unilateral Decision Making
It appeals to those of a libertarian or democratic bent to believe that if a decision impacts them they have some right to be consulted. It is a principle that underpins how we elect our governments, and how we claim adult affairs are conducted. Yet from a logical point of view it makes no sense where any other party's consent is required for a state of affairs to continue.
The choice to give, or withhold, consent is made by each individual, based on their own considerations, and is not open to judicial (i.e. external) review. If I choose to leave my job, my employer has no method for requiring me to change that decision (they may be able to give me a bad reference or stop paying me, but they can't require me to come back to work). If I choose to hold a particular political opinion or support a particular group then others with differing opinions can't require me to change my views.
By the same token a relationship exists because both people in that relationship choose to be part of the pairing. And should either of them choose to leave, the other has no recourse for requiring them to come back. As has been quoted in more than one TV show or film (in various styles) "you can't rationalize someone into loving you".
This facet of reality stands in stark contrast to the world many of us experience in working life where the topic of 'stakeholder management' (or "politics" as it is often dubbed (pejoratively)), consumes a significant portion of our day. In the working would you can rationalize/argue people into doing things they may not agree with - why? Because ultimately the aims of your project or the principles underpinning your analysis are not a function of your consent or opinions, they are a function of the opinions and views of those with authority within the hierarchy of your institution. My job does not require me to agree with the current medium term goals of my business, only that I accept them as the agreed target and work accordingly. My retort in this scenario is to remove my consent from working at all should I feel the situation warrants it, or more bluntly "if you don't like it, you can quit."
The world viewed through the lens of bilateral decision making is one in which rationality, articulate presentation of facts, well grounded opinions and a flair for minor dramatics dominate, it is a place where decisions can be planned and managed, where our skills in presentation and technicalities can provide us a fair degree of control over our future. It is also a place where we are entitled to be consulted, to 'make our case', and where a powerful argument can win over a reticent cohabitant. For those of us with the experiences and skills to thrive in this environment it can feel like a relatively safe place, secure in our linguistics and statistics.
But as a said above, the majority of the time we do not inhabit the world of bilateral decisions. We live in a world of unilateral decisions; where there is no appeals process, where decisions do not rest with an authority figure that can be swayed by reasoned debate, and where emotion, the lure of money, power, sex, the unknown, or simply blue oceans and warm beaches, carry more weight than all the fantastic constructions of logic and maths that can be constructed. This is a world where our continuity is held hostage to the ongoing, minute by minute, renewal of commitment from those who have formed the foundations of our lives. It is a world where the darkness behind another eyes can, apparently without warning, topple even the most fundamental assumptions by which we build our lives. For those who crave a degree of security and consistency this is a scary proposition, and it is therefore not surprising that we try to cloak with world in the mantel of bilateral decision-ism, but it is ultimately just a covering, a rationalization in the House sense ( a lie we tell ourselves). By accepting this, by accepting that many of the decisions that impact our lives are made without our input, we move a step closer to tranquility.
Framing the Issue
To dip into the huge bag of quotes that is Boston Legal, one in particular seemed relevant recently; "never let the other guy frame the issue." In its original context this was about winning court cases, in effect ensure your arguing the point where your client is in the right. However there is a wider applicability to this concept, how we frame issues to ourselves.
In talking with the aforesaid friend from work, the topic of how you view problems came up, initially in the context of being the "competent" one in a social group. Any given group of friends usually has at least one "competent" individual - they're the ones who everyone implicitly relies on to ensure everyone gets home, that will take charge if a serious problem emerges, and who is generally relied on to follow the Guide's main lesson "Don't Panic." What makes someone 'competent' then, and how does this relate to the wider issue? At heart the matter is one of framing the issue, or rather, framing the problem.
Seen through a rational, calm, perspective most of the problems that arise in daily life are not actually that big a deal. Barring the scenario of "drunk bar fight results in death," which, thankfully, I have not had to experience, there is not much that can happen in the normal run of events that is that big a problem.
A credit card, and ability to act relatively sober, and a mobile with a map function can solve most problems, or at least defer them until the morning. There is a simple thought experiment that illustrates this point; imagine you are dropped on a random street, in a random town, somewhere in the country. Could you get home using just what you normally carry with you? In my case the answer is a fairly simple yes. From a phone I can find either a train station or a hotel, and from there I can get back to wherever I need to be. It's not even that big a deal. And to some extent both myself, and aforementioned friend, have found ourselves in this situation and successfully got home, with, at most, the loss of a Sunday morning and the cost of a few taxis.
((As an aside, I know someone else who found themselves in a similar situation, but with the added problem of he's had his wallet and phone stolen. However, he was still back home by the next day. Having had your stuff stolen does make it harder to deal with things on your own, but also adds a new option of "call the police," - in his particular case via the first pub he came across, and the police and pretty good at dealing with people who have had their stuff nicked and need to get home)).
So, in somewhat circuitous fashion this brings us back to the "Framing the Issue". What do all "competent" people have in common? Is it some stoic ability to face adversity borne out of genetic stubbornness and panache? No - its a mindset that looks at the world from the point of view of "What can I control?" Virtually any issue can be rephrased to something which you control, and once seen through that lens, it is simply a choice between the various options currently available. The exact application of this in the context of an unexpected break-up is to re-frame the issue from "Why did she leave?" to "Given that she has left, what will I do about it?". The first is a somewhat existential question to which a coherent, fulfilling answer is likely never-coming. It will lead into endless, inwardly looking circles of "but that" and "what if this". You did not control her decision to leave (unilateral decision making) and the reasons for that decision would not necessarily convince you even if you were given them. Seeing the issue from this angle is therefore inviting a destructive tailspin of introspection and a mash-up of several of the well known stages of grief (especially negotiation; "If I do X or make Y argument she will come back). Re-framed to the issue of "how am I going to react to this situation" sheds a very different light on the subject; "Am I going to be an depressed emotional wreck" or "am I going to move on with my life". This is something you control because it only relates to decisions about yourself. This is a decision over which you have unilateral decision making power. This is not to say you will just be able to flick a switch and move on with a nonchalant swish of the hair (psychopaths have it easy), but rather having made the decision to move on there is now a goal you control, and progress can be made towards it.
(As an aside, this "How am I going to react?" is actually a way to rephrase virtually any issue to one you control. You can't control the world, but you always at some level have control over how you intellectually, if not always emotionally, react).
Why Relationships?
This is a broad topic, but it perhaps bears touching on here since it had relevance to the original conversation. Why do people form relationships (in the traditional pair-bond sense, rather than a more general "sustained interaction between two people" sense)? Of the dozen or score of couples where I know both partners, the overriding consideration is usually practicality.
The world is built on the assumption that by the time your late-twenties to early thirties you'll be married, (while this may have moved slightly over the last twenty years to a broader definition of 'married' the general ideal hasn't changed). Supermarkets sell food on the assumption your feeding two people, holidays and social events are sold on the basis of 'two sharing,' even in general conversation 'no I'm single' tends to get an odd look at work functions.
(The Departed perhaps has something to say on this topic; “Marriage is an important part of getting ahead. It lets people know you’re not a homo. A married guy seems more stable. People see the ring, they think ‘at least somebody can stand the son of a bitch.’ Ladies see the ring, they know immediately that you must have some cash, and your cock must work.” )
And perhaps if you aspire to the middle (I realize that sounds harsh, but ultimately the majority of people are about average - that's what average on a normal distribution means (EDIT: *no pun intended*)) then the practicality factor is sufficiently overriding. If you expect to earn the £25k type salary that is the middle of the band in this country then maybe you need 2 salaries to buy a house, go on holiday or raise a family. Perhaps if you do 'mainstream' things every evening (watch the Simpson's, pretend to care about each others office gossip), then you need someone else to vindicate that this is a 'normal' life.
But what about the cohort that has pick up the mantel of the yuppies (I did find an acronym that made YOSHI that was something to do with ultra-high savings and investment, but can't find it again)? If you aspire to a 50, 80, or even 100,000 salary by your mid-30s, don't have much time for "pop" culture (whether that's the X-factor, glossy magazines, or increasingly football), and have a fairly wide social group that has been reinforced by the growth in social media that means university cliques never feel away and you can talk to someone 24/7?
There isn't a ringing conclusion to this particular section - when I put it to a few people that the foundation of their relationship (indeed their marriage) was a combination of practicality and social norms, they agreed. Does the admission of such a prosaic function necessarily invalidate those relationships? - No I don't think so. They serve a purpose in helping people live stable, secure lives. Does it hold a great deal of appeal to someone who is financially and emotionally stable without outside input? Also No.
Here's a random metaphor to end things on... standard, stable relationships are annuities. You know what your putting in, and what you get out is predictable and unexciting. But its also stable, predictable and lets you live your life comfortably. Relationships built on dreams and passions and wild intellectual fantasies is playing the lottery with your entire salary - probably not a good idea on a regular basis, hugely risky and painful if it goes wrong, but with the potential to be completely life-changing if you get lucky.
/Z
I return herewith to my original intentions, this post is deliberately not linked on social media, and I would appreciate a degree of discretion on the part of those who choose to read it.
**
A friend of mine has recently suffered the traumatic, and unexpected, end to a long term relationship. This has therefore caused me to dust off a hat that has sat dormant for almost a decade, that of a guide to the unexpectedly single. I've seen a lot of relationships end, some mutual, some not, some from the point of view of the dumpeé and some from the dumper. Those circumstances, plus my own laundry list of ill-timed, ill-conceived or flat out implausible relationships, has given me ample opportunity to build some understanding of why certain pairings do, or more often, don't, work out.
That is not actually the purpose of this post however, merely a precursor. In conversing with aforesaid friend, I was required to articulate and verbalize various aspects of my own personality and outlook on life which up until now have gone largely unspoken. It seemed fitting to record this observations and considerations..
Unilateral Decision Making
It appeals to those of a libertarian or democratic bent to believe that if a decision impacts them they have some right to be consulted. It is a principle that underpins how we elect our governments, and how we claim adult affairs are conducted. Yet from a logical point of view it makes no sense where any other party's consent is required for a state of affairs to continue.
The choice to give, or withhold, consent is made by each individual, based on their own considerations, and is not open to judicial (i.e. external) review. If I choose to leave my job, my employer has no method for requiring me to change that decision (they may be able to give me a bad reference or stop paying me, but they can't require me to come back to work). If I choose to hold a particular political opinion or support a particular group then others with differing opinions can't require me to change my views.
By the same token a relationship exists because both people in that relationship choose to be part of the pairing. And should either of them choose to leave, the other has no recourse for requiring them to come back. As has been quoted in more than one TV show or film (in various styles) "you can't rationalize someone into loving you".
This facet of reality stands in stark contrast to the world many of us experience in working life where the topic of 'stakeholder management' (or "politics" as it is often dubbed (pejoratively)), consumes a significant portion of our day. In the working would you can rationalize/argue people into doing things they may not agree with - why? Because ultimately the aims of your project or the principles underpinning your analysis are not a function of your consent or opinions, they are a function of the opinions and views of those with authority within the hierarchy of your institution. My job does not require me to agree with the current medium term goals of my business, only that I accept them as the agreed target and work accordingly. My retort in this scenario is to remove my consent from working at all should I feel the situation warrants it, or more bluntly "if you don't like it, you can quit."
The world viewed through the lens of bilateral decision making is one in which rationality, articulate presentation of facts, well grounded opinions and a flair for minor dramatics dominate, it is a place where decisions can be planned and managed, where our skills in presentation and technicalities can provide us a fair degree of control over our future. It is also a place where we are entitled to be consulted, to 'make our case', and where a powerful argument can win over a reticent cohabitant. For those of us with the experiences and skills to thrive in this environment it can feel like a relatively safe place, secure in our linguistics and statistics.
But as a said above, the majority of the time we do not inhabit the world of bilateral decisions. We live in a world of unilateral decisions; where there is no appeals process, where decisions do not rest with an authority figure that can be swayed by reasoned debate, and where emotion, the lure of money, power, sex, the unknown, or simply blue oceans and warm beaches, carry more weight than all the fantastic constructions of logic and maths that can be constructed. This is a world where our continuity is held hostage to the ongoing, minute by minute, renewal of commitment from those who have formed the foundations of our lives. It is a world where the darkness behind another eyes can, apparently without warning, topple even the most fundamental assumptions by which we build our lives. For those who crave a degree of security and consistency this is a scary proposition, and it is therefore not surprising that we try to cloak with world in the mantel of bilateral decision-ism, but it is ultimately just a covering, a rationalization in the House sense ( a lie we tell ourselves). By accepting this, by accepting that many of the decisions that impact our lives are made without our input, we move a step closer to tranquility.
Framing the Issue
To dip into the huge bag of quotes that is Boston Legal, one in particular seemed relevant recently; "never let the other guy frame the issue." In its original context this was about winning court cases, in effect ensure your arguing the point where your client is in the right. However there is a wider applicability to this concept, how we frame issues to ourselves.
In talking with the aforesaid friend from work, the topic of how you view problems came up, initially in the context of being the "competent" one in a social group. Any given group of friends usually has at least one "competent" individual - they're the ones who everyone implicitly relies on to ensure everyone gets home, that will take charge if a serious problem emerges, and who is generally relied on to follow the Guide's main lesson "Don't Panic." What makes someone 'competent' then, and how does this relate to the wider issue? At heart the matter is one of framing the issue, or rather, framing the problem.
Seen through a rational, calm, perspective most of the problems that arise in daily life are not actually that big a deal. Barring the scenario of "drunk bar fight results in death," which, thankfully, I have not had to experience, there is not much that can happen in the normal run of events that is that big a problem.
A credit card, and ability to act relatively sober, and a mobile with a map function can solve most problems, or at least defer them until the morning. There is a simple thought experiment that illustrates this point; imagine you are dropped on a random street, in a random town, somewhere in the country. Could you get home using just what you normally carry with you? In my case the answer is a fairly simple yes. From a phone I can find either a train station or a hotel, and from there I can get back to wherever I need to be. It's not even that big a deal. And to some extent both myself, and aforementioned friend, have found ourselves in this situation and successfully got home, with, at most, the loss of a Sunday morning and the cost of a few taxis.
((As an aside, I know someone else who found themselves in a similar situation, but with the added problem of he's had his wallet and phone stolen. However, he was still back home by the next day. Having had your stuff stolen does make it harder to deal with things on your own, but also adds a new option of "call the police," - in his particular case via the first pub he came across, and the police and pretty good at dealing with people who have had their stuff nicked and need to get home)).
So, in somewhat circuitous fashion this brings us back to the "Framing the Issue". What do all "competent" people have in common? Is it some stoic ability to face adversity borne out of genetic stubbornness and panache? No - its a mindset that looks at the world from the point of view of "What can I control?" Virtually any issue can be rephrased to something which you control, and once seen through that lens, it is simply a choice between the various options currently available. The exact application of this in the context of an unexpected break-up is to re-frame the issue from "Why did she leave?" to "Given that she has left, what will I do about it?". The first is a somewhat existential question to which a coherent, fulfilling answer is likely never-coming. It will lead into endless, inwardly looking circles of "but that" and "what if this". You did not control her decision to leave (unilateral decision making) and the reasons for that decision would not necessarily convince you even if you were given them. Seeing the issue from this angle is therefore inviting a destructive tailspin of introspection and a mash-up of several of the well known stages of grief (especially negotiation; "If I do X or make Y argument she will come back). Re-framed to the issue of "how am I going to react to this situation" sheds a very different light on the subject; "Am I going to be an depressed emotional wreck" or "am I going to move on with my life". This is something you control because it only relates to decisions about yourself. This is a decision over which you have unilateral decision making power. This is not to say you will just be able to flick a switch and move on with a nonchalant swish of the hair (psychopaths have it easy), but rather having made the decision to move on there is now a goal you control, and progress can be made towards it.
(As an aside, this "How am I going to react?" is actually a way to rephrase virtually any issue to one you control. You can't control the world, but you always at some level have control over how you intellectually, if not always emotionally, react).
Why Relationships?
This is a broad topic, but it perhaps bears touching on here since it had relevance to the original conversation. Why do people form relationships (in the traditional pair-bond sense, rather than a more general "sustained interaction between two people" sense)? Of the dozen or score of couples where I know both partners, the overriding consideration is usually practicality.
The world is built on the assumption that by the time your late-twenties to early thirties you'll be married, (while this may have moved slightly over the last twenty years to a broader definition of 'married' the general ideal hasn't changed). Supermarkets sell food on the assumption your feeding two people, holidays and social events are sold on the basis of 'two sharing,' even in general conversation 'no I'm single' tends to get an odd look at work functions.
(The Departed perhaps has something to say on this topic; “Marriage is an important part of getting ahead. It lets people know you’re not a homo. A married guy seems more stable. People see the ring, they think ‘at least somebody can stand the son of a bitch.’ Ladies see the ring, they know immediately that you must have some cash, and your cock must work.” )
And perhaps if you aspire to the middle (I realize that sounds harsh, but ultimately the majority of people are about average - that's what average on a normal distribution means (EDIT: *no pun intended*)) then the practicality factor is sufficiently overriding. If you expect to earn the £25k type salary that is the middle of the band in this country then maybe you need 2 salaries to buy a house, go on holiday or raise a family. Perhaps if you do 'mainstream' things every evening (watch the Simpson's, pretend to care about each others office gossip), then you need someone else to vindicate that this is a 'normal' life.
But what about the cohort that has pick up the mantel of the yuppies (I did find an acronym that made YOSHI that was something to do with ultra-high savings and investment, but can't find it again)? If you aspire to a 50, 80, or even 100,000 salary by your mid-30s, don't have much time for "pop" culture (whether that's the X-factor, glossy magazines, or increasingly football), and have a fairly wide social group that has been reinforced by the growth in social media that means university cliques never feel away and you can talk to someone 24/7?
There isn't a ringing conclusion to this particular section - when I put it to a few people that the foundation of their relationship (indeed their marriage) was a combination of practicality and social norms, they agreed. Does the admission of such a prosaic function necessarily invalidate those relationships? - No I don't think so. They serve a purpose in helping people live stable, secure lives. Does it hold a great deal of appeal to someone who is financially and emotionally stable without outside input? Also No.
Here's a random metaphor to end things on... standard, stable relationships are annuities. You know what your putting in, and what you get out is predictable and unexciting. But its also stable, predictable and lets you live your life comfortably. Relationships built on dreams and passions and wild intellectual fantasies is playing the lottery with your entire salary - probably not a good idea on a regular basis, hugely risky and painful if it goes wrong, but with the potential to be completely life-changing if you get lucky.
/Z
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