The Conspiracy of They

A lot of people tend to throw the term they around. “They want us to be ignorant.” “They control the media.” And just to clarify, when I say a lot of people, I mean myself. From the frequent talk about they it would seem that there is some mysterious entity known as They who is responsible for most of the bad things going on in the world. This is not the case and when I talk about they, this is not what I mean to imply. Who they refers to can vary depending on the context. They can be the government, the hegemony, or the church just to name a few possibilities. The specific target of the word in a given context is usually not specified because people generally know – clarification is unnecessary. Usually. I often use they to refer to the biggest players in the free market. I don’t often explain why they are a they, so here’s my explanation.

In its most ideal form, capitalism relies on the idea that supply and demand will serve to regulate a free market. Its pretty simple – if people want it, they’ll buy it, if they don’t, they won’t. The problem in practice has been that everyone doesn’t play by the rules. The market is full of misinformation, misdirection and manipulation. If we all had the acclaimed protestant work ethic, capitalism might actually work the way its supposed to, but we don’t. Because of the nature of the market, those with looser ethics will rise higher and faster than those who maintain a strict moral code in business. Those who don’t mind making low quality products save money on manufacturing and they sell more replacements. Those who don’t mind lying to people gain customers who would not otherwise want their products. Those who don’t mind taking advantage of people make more money by jacking up the prices on necessities. In addition to the free markets bias toward the greedy, immoral marketers are helped by each other. For example, it would hurt a drug manufacturer’s business if some wealthy good Samaritan began marketing cheap drugs, so it is in his interest to ensure that only people who share his (lack of) morals are allowed into the market and that others are blocked from entering the market.

That is bad enough as it is, but in recent years we are seeing more and more evidence of an additional tool in the arsenal of unscrupulous capitalists. In the past men have lied about and changed products in order to make more sales. Today they also change the consumers. The free market itself has put them in the position to do this. For the reasons stated above, a class of people who are both smart and immoral has risen to the top of the market. (Dave Chapelle might say “They’re rich bitch!”) In the United States, money is tightly linked to government and power. Politicians are regularly up for sale. Causes with the most paid lobbyists in our nation’s capital are the ones that get catered to by laws. With a small amount of effort, the market’s elite place themselves among the ranks of the most powerful men in the country. With their resources, the market’s elite are also able to spread themselves across the market. Most large companies own significant parts of other large companies. It is said time and time again that all these large corporations are in bed with each other. It is true. My favorite example (since I’m a tech geek) is Microsoft and Apple. They are seen as direct competitors in the computer and software market, but many people forget that several years ago, MS invested 10 million dollars in Apple to keep them afloat. Bill Gates is making money off of ipods and itunes! This is not an uncommon occurrence in the business world. Often it spans industries. A communications company might own a portion of a media company for example. The end result of all this is that the market’s elite class is extremely powerful. Its members have a hand in most aspects of our public lives. They make our food and medicine, through books they control our education, they own entertainment and news media, and they have a lot of control over government and legislation. With this power, they do their best to make us into better consumers.

Everywhere you look, you can find people making the attempt to dumb us down. The radio plays the same music over and over. Television’s pace grows faster and faster, serving shorter and shorter attention spans. The majority of content on television and radio is tailored not to inspire thought. When is the last time a political song got regular play on a major station? We are bombarded with lyrics and images that urge us to have fun, embrace vices, and concern ourselves with appearance. Products are advertised by emphasizing their ease of use, quickness and simplicity as opposed to features and quality. We are being trained to accept shoddy workmanship. We are being trained to be impulsive and shallow. We are being trained to eschew education and knowledge. Educated, thoughtful people with high expectations do not make good consumers. They are less inclined to buy things they don’t truly need or want. Between them, they have a wider variety of interests, so it is harder to target them with specific products. It is far cheaper to make one thing and sell it to everyone than it would be to cater to a bunch of different interests. In addition to making better consumers, trained in this way, we are far less likely to significantly oppose the system and people that sustain and benefit from this process.

They is the elite of the market. The prosperity of they depends upon the ignorance, gullibility, apathy, and addiction of us. However, I do not personally believe that the process is simple. They is not some individual organism or council of fellow conspirators any more than The Average Man is the guy next door to you. There does not need to be some unified council for this to work. They are united by a common goal. The greedy don’t need to confer with the greedy in order to decide on a course of action. The course of action is obvious – whatever benefits the self. Teamwork doesn’t come about because of race, culture, or secret organizations. It comes from necessity. This is not a conspiracy theory because a conspiracy is unnecessary. Smart and greedy is a deadly combination – they don’t just think in the moment. They lay down the groundwork to gain more money and power in the future. The greedy will always do what they can get away with. The problem is that the more they can get away with, the more they will be able to get away with.

The question is how did this current cycle of power gaining power begin. I believe that the problem doesn’t lie in capitalism in itself, but in the scope of capitalism. A few years ago I read a paper by Max Weber (I think it was Max Weber) talking about separation of spheres. I don’t remember the whole paper and I don’t think I agreed with everything he said, but I think his idea of spheres makes a lot of sense. There should be separation of the spheres. The market should be free to some degree, but politics, health, and education should not ever be part of the free market. Influence, medicine and knowledge should not be commodities to be bought and sold. These are the basic necessities to equalization of opportunity. As long as these belong to the market, we will not be starting off on a level playing field. They will continue to gain in power.

The question remains – how can we unseat them. This is a difficult question and hopefully I’ll be putting some ideas out in the future. For now, at least we know who they are.