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