It's All in the Widgets
Douglas Rushkoff - the author of Life Inc. - is a guest blogger.
GM made this short stop-motion animation in 1939 (long before Lego's little people who look like this were ever around), to promote the concept of Free Enterprise. "Round and Round" is a 'what-me-worry?' approach to economics, suitable for anyone who wants to know how it all works without ever finding out why it doesn't all work like that.
This is best visualization of what I imagined to be going through George W's mind when he talked about taxes and business.
See an explanation of this film at archive.org
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I'm almost certain the widget maker was making eyes at the steel man.
Oh Lordy, it's all so depressingly pointless. The only reason anyone wants a friggin widget is to facilitate the production of more widgets. Talk about slaves to the machine. Argh! Make them stop!
Also, the coal miner was totally gouged -- he paid twice as much as the farmer dude.
having never heard of "jam handy" before i was going to make a snarky comment. then i googled him and this guy was Damn Handy at a bunch of things. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jam_Handy
Gareth, you mean this one?
http://youbeenblinded.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/steely-mcbeam.jpg
This looks like it'd be an excellent companion piece for The Story of Stuff. In a profile from this past weekend's NYTimes, one quoted parent decried that, being used by teachers to educate children about the true costs of consumption, as an anti-capitalist screed--Round'n'Round may be the antidote he seeks in his schoolkid's curriculum!
(as if our entire American lives aren't a constant screaming antidote...)
Sorry, confusing syntax: "decried that film", I meant to say.
Oop, blathering on: I see Cory linked to Stuff a year and a half ago. Well, there should be a "Previously" link at the bottom of this post...
I googled 'jam handy' as well. Very interesting.
I think Jam Handy may have cast "the 50's" as remembered by today's troglodytic conservatives.
But the widget maker has figured out he can pay less for raw materials from overseas, so the farmer can't meet the widget makers price. The widget maker finds he is taking in less money, so he figures out he can pay his workers less overseas, and all the local widget makers are now out of work. Luckily, only managers really count and they manage the overseas operations so they can still afford the widgets shipped in from overseas. The people who used to make the widgets still thing they are important because the managers have them, so they go into debt to buy the widgets. Eventually, everyone figures out they don't need widgets they can't afford and the widget company goes to the government for a bailout because they are "too big to fail".
With what little I know about stop-motion, this looks like a high-budget affair for the 1940s. Look at all the lights reflected on each character -- that's a lot of very good light bulbs they're using there! The motion is extraordinarily slow -- seems to me to be the work of a patient and meticulous team who hadn't done a lot of stop-motion.
Anyone notice what's missing from this little parable of capitalism?
Profit.
The money circulates, nothing gets taken out. Perfect message for workers in those uppity post-NLRB unions of 1939...
@6 Intersting link thank you. I have some minor quibbles (see below) but the general message seems to be sound and valid.
My quibbles:
a) The part about computers only needing a new processor once in a while was just awfull. It's simple not that simple.
b) Only 1% of everything bought is still in place 6 months later? She mentioned "harvested", so I gather that she includes food, too. Which would be totally pointless. Also some other consumables are nearly unavoidable, and processed properly, are more eco-friendly than their re-usable alternatives.
it's a great parable of what happened.
well the lumberjack, the farmer and the coal miner all have widgets already. So now what?
Maybe the widget maker should make widgets that break after a while, or maybe they should make new bigger widgets so everyone will want a new one, or maybe they have to expand to a new town with more widget seeking customers..
And then the lumberjack will have chopped out every tree in the community, all the coal in the coal mine will be transformed into air pollution and which will rain down on the cotton farm.
"[raw materials] go into one end of the machine and out of the other end of the machine come nice new shiny widgets". Widgets = poop? Sounds like it to me. Nice new A-Number One poops.
For all of you attacking the principles in this short kids video, remember that it was made over 50 years ago for a relatively young audience. The system they describe worked well back then when our country had a healthy manufacturing base. This was a great system for everyone - goods were supplied, jobs were plentiful, and everyone was happy. The unruly search for even more profit brought about the relatively new phenomenon of outsourcing labor to poorer countries. The old system of production was not designed for our globalized economy. So before you attack it, remember the historical context.
Also, those "widgets" aren't just superfluous consumer goods. As the video states, they can be refrigerators, tools, and other things that you probably wouldn't dare live without.
look more like PlayMobil characters than Legos
Come on guys. I'm with HERSHMIRE on this one. This is obviously a child's film teaching the principles of economics. I think it's a bit harsh criticizing it for being too 'what-me worry?' Despite claims of the economy "just doesn't work like" what is addressed in the video, everything the film proposes is true: the economy is made of buyers and sellers that all interact financially. I believe this is the film's takeaway message.
Teach that to an intelligent child (i.e. not George Bush) and he will grow up to realize what a complicated system this simple statement entails. I think we can forgive them for sidestepping the capitalism-socialism debate, a study of toxic securities, a brief rehash of the Great Depression, or whatever other issues we adults identify as being important economic considerations.
Howdy,
How silly to point to a flash video, when there are actually usable versions of the video available from archive.org??
Direct ogg theora video link:
http://www.archive.org/download/Roundand1939/Roundand1939.ogv
Main page for the film, where you can choose your format:
http://www.archive.org/details/Roundand1939
Hey, Douglas --
If you found a way to add a link to the source of the film -- the detail pages at the Internet Archive -- many of the questions that people are posting might find an answer, and the films would gain instant context.
Rick Prelinger