Matter and Why It Matters

MATTER AND WHY IT MATTERS by Kirthana SUDHAKAR What does the term materialism mean? Through the course of history, the term has had several connotations depending on your cultural background and personal world-view. In the 20th & 21st centuries, most interpretations view materialism through the polarizing lens of money. Meaning that the accumulation of material wealth may be seen as positive or negative depending on one’s perspective. When we take the concept of materialism, and apply it to cities, it becomes more complex and less comprehensive through linear interpretation. For example, take the case of one’s home. The home is the most primitive symbol of well-being. Historically the home and hearth retain the universal symbol of security. When we extrapolate this concept to the linear scale of modern day “materialism”, we enter into the realm of polarity between the “absolute despair” of homelessness, and the “excess” of a $14 million home in Beverly hills. The Alan Watts article titled “A true Materialist society”, delves into the concept of materialism and materiality as applied to all aspects of life. This piece sees the author reinterpreting the idea of materialism through the lens of Zen Buddhism. Thus, it brings to light some of the problematic subconscious thought processes that “demonizing” of materialism can lead to. This demonizing, if left unchecked, can pervade food habits, body image, clothing, wealth and the home.

A: Show me the money! B: What money? The second reference I’d like to make for this paper is a September 11th Lips Lecture by Saskia Sassen. This lecture addresses the idea of materialism, employing the example of the real estate market in New York City today. Sassen begins this lecture with a definition of what the concept of “high finance” means to her. She takes us through the precedents established to the growth of high finance: the discovery and meaning of “the digital” in the 1980’s; and how technology became a part of our lives in the late 90’s.

“The steam engine right now in our advanced economies, is high finance. High finance is grandly different from banking. The bank sells money, it’s commerce, we all need it, it’s been around for centuries and centuries in one way or another. High finance, one way of thinking it, which gets at what I want to get at, high finance sells something it does not have.

The bank sells something it has: money.”

Expanding on the steam engine analogy, the growth of high finance has exceeded anyone’s imagination. This exponential and explosive growth transformed the global economy; much like the steam engine. She illustrates how this is important in the context of the city, by describing the concept of “dark pools”, as private networks that account for a large majority of money transactions. These mechanisms employ the materiality of global cities. Worldwide real estate assets comprise 60 percent of the world’s material assets (Sassen, Sept 2018). Cities like New York, San Francisco, London and Tokyo, hold high value in the eyes of wealthy investors, who invest in large quantities of real estate. In the context of cities, Sassen sheds light on how the polarizing concept of materialism can be stretched to its limit. In the style of “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”; “Is a house where no one ever lives, still a home?” This brings us to the reason why the awareness of these mechanisms is important. In Sassen’s words:

“The working city is a very special space that has outlived us for many generations. The city is one of the few places today where those without power, get to make a history, a culture, an economy.

Blue Hawaii The institution of maritime law as a protective measure for domestic shipping has a long history in the United States. This dates back to 1789, when the first session of Congress imposed duties and taxes on foreign built, foreign flagged ships engaged in U.S. Atlantic coast trade. After World War I, under an 1817 Act concerning navigation within the United States, a law required that domestic shipping be conducted only with U.S. flagged vessels. Essentially, only U.S. built ships could be flagged, and so, by implication, the Act barred foreign competition. Iterations of this law have been restated through the course of history, with updates and addendums. Hence, although we know of the Jones Act or Merchant Marine Act enacted in 1920, this policy has in fact influenced the global economy for over two centuries. The Jones Act requires that all waterborne shipping between points within the United States be carried by vessels built in the United States and owned and operated by Americans. A 1986 study by Jackson McKetta addressed speculation that the Jones Act has particularly harmful effects on non-contiguous states such as Alaska and Hawaii, which rely heavily on expensive cabotage services to import most of their consumption and capital goods.

Power-play: It’s a dangerous game This brings into question the systems of control that exist today, which create inequalities, disadvantaging certain sections of society. These spatial relationships are often seen in the physical planning of cities where inequity exists. An example is the colonial planning in cities such as Bengaluru, where historically the city was segregated into “white” areas or cantonments, serviced by surrounding shanty settlements for natives. These segregations are still reflected in the physical planning of the city, however, today, the segregation is one of class-based difference. There exists a bias within these structures of power, which, imposed through the mechanisms of policy and planning, has invisible, damaging effects. While the Jones Act may have been intended as a protective tariff, today, the Act has served to prevent the development of competitive trade, and has inflated the cost of living in U.S. territories and noncontiguous regions.

How much for this banana? In Justin Lewis’s paper titled “Veiled Waters: Examining the Jones Act’s Consumer Welfare Effect”, the author proceeds to estimate how the price range of domestic cabotage services would differ if the Jones Act were not in place. He adopts the method of “shadow pricing” which simulates the removal of the Jones Act compliance costs, while adopting measures of market elasticities from the International Trade Commission’s Computable General Equilibrium Model. His findings indicate that without the Jones Act in place, coastal water transport in the United States would be approximately 61 percent cheaper, and that consumers using these services would stand to gain a minimum of approximately $578 million annually in economic benefit. With respect to Hawaii, a 1988 General Accounting Office publication shows that an average Hawaiian family pays between $1,921 and $4,821 more than its mainland counterpart (Oyedemi, W. O., 2011). Representative Gene Ward of Hawaii claimed that Hawaii residents subsidize the Jones Act by about $1 billion per year; and because of the high price of goods due to the Act, this amounts to about $3,000 per household in the state (Frittelli, J., 2013). The need for secure ship-building establishments is one that might have been instrumental in keeping this policy firmly in place today. A second, often undiscussed purpose is to protect American sovereignty over maritime commerce. These interests include crude oil from California, grain from the Midwest, iron ore from Michigan and Minnesota, refined petroleum from the East, to name a few.

So, what do we do? Hawaii has come to depend solely on American vessels in order fulfill all of its material needs, including food and supplies. In light of the shift in food habits created by imported food, it becomes valuable to examine the progression of Hawaiian food traditions. Historically, the culture placed value on the concept of coexistence with nature as a way of life. With the shipbuilding industry dominating employment, and tourism offering a close second, the island has seen a steady decline in agricultural incentives and a shrinking of the practice. Additionally, inflation has led to skyrocketing prices for land and supplies. Based on available data, the cost of living for an individual would be estimated at about $5,000 per month. The real per capita income is placed at $2,823 per month, indicating a deficit of about $2,100 per month (Expatistan, 2018). With locals on a suffocating budget, a dependency on cheap foods is created . Foods such as spam and canned goods often offer the only affordable option, with the cost of fresh produce being much higher. The meal of taro and fish, made traditionally, might not be one within your purview unless mechanisms of material creation are encouraged. The simple act of re-evaluating materialism and building the means for material creation might be the answer to breaking free of the shackles of dependency. One method of doing so would be by encouraging local cycles of production and consumption. Thus shifting the idea of materialism from the amount of money you can earn, rather to the amount of food you can grow, or even, the quality of shelter you can build.