Why the idea of buying "local" goods at higher prices vs. large corporations at lower prices is against our best interest
I keep hearing, still, on many of my youtube channels that we need to buy local rather than "saving a few bucks by going to Wal-Mart".
For my argument, we need to assume that the widgets are identical. That it is the exact same product. We are also assuming that the distance from your house to the mom and pop store is the same distance from your house to Wal-Mart
The current myth goes, that to support the revolution, you should buy your widgets from mom and pop instead of the Wal-Mart. The idea is that we will starve the beast, and also that big corporations are somehow responsible for our current situation. False.
Capitalism rewards efficiency. If we lived in a true free market system of capitalism, with true free market money with no govt interference, you would see 2 things happen.
1. Our standard of living would increase
2. Unemployment would increase as a result because less people would need work in the first place
People go to work to produce a good or service that someone else desires. In the utopia situation, all businesses operate at their most efficient level possible. As a result of their efficiency, the most efficient corporations survive and the least efficient go out of business.
If mom and pop shop cannot sell our example widget at the same price level that Walmart can (again, assuming identical widget, equal travel time to both stores), then mom and pop should not be given your business, just for the sake of supporting a cause that is flawed. Supporting mom and pop at the expense of your wallet only serves to perpetuate malinvestment. If shopping only at mom and pop store causes your wallet to empty faster, you are not doing society any favors.
Let assume that the fiat system has crashed on planet earth, and we smartly move to free market sound money, chosen by the public, not by congress, not by bankers. Lets assume no govt exists. We have transcended above and beyond this primitive system. Therefor, there are no bailouts, no taxes. The only thing that determines whether or not a business survives is its ability to produce desirable goods or services at the most efficient (lowest cost) possible.
In this system, as technology increases through the natural human desire to generate more output with less input, we would eventually be taken to a place where humans had INCREASING levels of freetime and leisure. We could get to a point where not only could mom stay home with the children, but dad might only have to work a 4 hour day instead of 8 hours with a lunch break.
When people talk about rising unemployment as a negative factor for society, it is only negative because the ridiculous monetary system/govt system that we allow to exist through our own participation and consent. If we were to take control of these 2 factors as a general public, efficiency would rule. Goods and service providers would consolidate in the sake of efficiency, and people would cheer every time unemployment went up another percent because it would mean that our standard of living was increasing. It would symbolize our progress. Again I state, that in the abscence of govt regulations, and in a system where the money is chosen by the free market, with no banker control and no legal tender laws, big corporations would be celebrated and loved. In our current system, govt creates conditions in which competitors are not able to enter the marketplace to compete with the established. The competitors may have a more efficient means of producing the goods, but govt control stifles them. We reward terrible business decisions. Of course it makes sense then that unemployment is such a concern. The reason we need men, women, and children all fully employed is because all of that human effort is required to compensate for idiotic business decisions and a lack of innovation.
