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Deconstructing the Politics of Culture Jamming: True Cost Economics

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Deconstructing the Politics of Culture Jamming: True Cost Economics DECONSTRUCTING THE POLITICS OF CULTURE JAMMING: TRUE COST ECONOMICS by Jana Seidl A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of The Wilkes Honors College in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences with Concentrations in Economics and Anthropology Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University Jupiter, Florida May 2008 DECONSTRUCTING THE POLITICS OF CULTURE JAMMING: TRUE COST ECONOMICS by Jana Seidl This thesis was prepared under the direction of the candidate‘s thesis advisors, Dr. Keith Jakee and Dr. Jacqueline Fewkes, and has been approved by the members of her/his supervisory committee. It was submitted to the faculty of The Honors College and was accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences. SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE: _____________________________________________ Dr. Keith Jakee _____________________________________________ Dr. Jacqueline Fewkes _____________________________________________ Dr. Daniel White _____________________________________________ Dean, Wilkes Honors College _____________________________________________ Date ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thank you to the entire faculty at the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College; without your support and without your challenges I would not have grown to be who I am today. Thank you, especially, To Dr. Jacqueline Fewkes, for believing in me and her continued support and patience, To Dr. Keith Jakee, for providing the inspiration for my thesis, for his continued advice and for pushing me to excel, and, To Dr. Daniel White, for his support throughout the past four years as a mentor and for his continued friendship. All of you have allowed me to see that I can aim higher and reach my goals. Thank you, also, to my family: my brother for always encouraging me to set an example, and my parents for working hard throughout the years to allow me to pursue my seemingly never-ending list of interests, and to broaden my horizons traveling. iii ABSTRACT Author: Jana Seidl Title: Deconstructing the Politics of Culture Jamming: True Cost Economics Institution: Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University Thesis Advisors: Dr. Keith Jakee and Dr. Jacqueline Fewkes Degree: Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences Concentration: Economics and Anthropology Year: 2008 Culture Jammers, an activist guerilla-like movement, entered the global scene in the 1990s and, through public performances, attempt to draw attention to their claim that the US economic structure is facing a fundamental need to shift away from a consumer- oriented capitalist economy. As an alternative, the activists propose ―True Cost‖ economics, a model that would include the costs of negative production and consumption externalities in the pricing of commodities. In this paper, I focus on culture jammers‘ critique of neoclassical economics, more specifically, the clash of the ―new paradigm‖ (True Cost economics) and the ―old paradigm‖ (neoclassical economics). In evaluating whether True Cost economics is a feasible alternative, I graphically examine how the True Cost solution and the neoclassical market model correct for negative externalities to reveal similarities in the two models. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................. 1 BACKGROUND ON CULTURE JAMMING ............................................................... 5 2.1 TIMEFRAME AND ACTIVITIES ..................................................................................... 5 2.2 SITUATIONISM: CULTURE JAMMERS AND CONSUMER CULTURE ................................ 7 2.3 CULTURE JAMMERS‘ ECONOMIC VIEWPOINTS ........................................................... 9 ACADEMIC RESEARCH ON CULTURE JAMMING ............................................ 14 CULTURE JAMMING AND TRUE COST ECONOMICS ...................................... 21 4.1 WHAT‘S WRONG WITH NEOCLASSICAL ECONOMICS? ............................................... 21 4.1.1 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND: WHAT IS NEOCLASSICAL ECONOMICS? ..................... 21 4.1.2 CRITIQUES OF NEOCLASSICAL ECONOMICS ......................................................... 23 4.2 MARKET FAILURES AND NEGATIVE EXTERNALITIES: WHO HAS TO PAY? ................ 29 4.2.1 DEFINITION OF A NEGATIVE EXTERNALITY ........................................................... 30 4.2.2 NEOCLASSICAL ECONOMICS SOLUTION ............................................................... 34 4.2.3 TRUE COST ECONOMICS SOLUTION..................................................................... 35 CASE 1 .................................................................................................................... 36 CASE 2 .................................................................................................................... 37 CASE 3 .................................................................................................................... 38 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................ 45 APPENDIX: TRUE COST MANIFESTO ................................................................... 49 v LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1: NEOCLASSICAL SOLUTION ................................................................................ 34 FIGURE 2: TRUE COST SOLUTION (CASE 1) ........................................................................ 36 FIGURE 3: TRUE COST SOLUTION (CASE 2) ........................................................................ 38 FIGURE 4: TRUE COST SOLUTION (CASE 3) ........................................................................ 39 vi INTRODUCTION ―Mr. Friedman, it‘s a good day to pie!‖ (Agent Apple, 2004: 48). With this statement, an operative of the culture jamming group the Biotic Baking Brigade (BBB) threw an organic coconut cream pie in the Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman‘s face, as he greeted supporters at a 1998 San Francisco conference on the privatization of public education. The activists explained: We hold Milton Friedman responsible for crimes against the people by organizing this appalling conference […] Friedman serves as the world‘s preeminent neoliberal economist, supporting globalization and ‗free trade‘ policies that have brought the world poverty, misery, starvation, and ecological devastation (Agent Apple, 2004: 48). Friedman is certainly not alone on the BBB‘s ―Tried and Pied List‖. Joining him are, among others, the heads of the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank; the CEO‘s of Monsanto, Enron, and Chevron; as well as heads of state and other political figures such as San Francisco‘s mayor, Willie Brown (Agent Apple, 2004: 4). According to culture jammers, all of the BBB‘s targets are individuals who are powerful, and at the same time irresponsible when it comes to making decisions that affect the social and ecological global environment. The activists believe that the institutional structure in place in the western sphere fosters socially irresponsible actions (Lasn, 2000; Agent Apple, 2004). Activists see incentive structures as favoring individual growth over, and often at the expense of, larger social welfare. As such, culture jammers‘ main fight is against neoclassical economics as it is portrayed by Milton Friedman and his legacy, the Chicago School. Culture jammers target students at colleges and universities, providing them with the tools to ―jam‖ economics departments: A True Cost Manifesto and the Campus Action 1 Kit propose to redeem economics, but only through its downfall. In promoting a new economic standard, one much more ―open, holistic and human scale,‖ culture jammers claim that only a full blown economic collapse has the power to demolish the ivory tower that neoclassical economists reportedly sit in(Adbusters, 2007d: np). Activists accuse neoclassical economists of not accounting for structural factors and altruism in neoclassical market models; in the culture jammers‘ opinion, the self- interested individual guided by perfect rationality does not exist. In order to ―save our planet‖, culture jammers claim that we must denounce neoclassical economics in favor of a model that more accurately deals with social and environmental costs and limits the amount of economic growth possible for a country. Furthermore, activists support new measures of economic growth; such as the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI). The GPI was developed by the think-tank Redefining Progress and utilizes more than a country‘s Gross Domestic Product. In calculating a country‘s stance on the developmental ladder, researchers at Redefining Progress ―[adjust] for factors such as income distribution, [add] factors such as the value of household and volunteer work, and [subtract] factors such as the costs of crime and pollution‖ (Redefining Progress, 2007: np). In order to achieve their goals of environmental and social preservation, the activists aim to implement an economic structure that shifts the cost of negative production and consumption externalities onto the consumers themselves via their proposed ultimate Eco Tax. The True Cost Manifesto and its corresponding economic model seek to include the cost of externalities in the pricing of goods and services in order to reflect the somewhat hidden costs the production and use of goods and services directly or indirectly create. The culture jammers‘ proposed economic model is not a 2 specific model
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