A week ago

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 20 March 2007 14:12:54

I had a terrifying thought.

To anyone who's read many entries on this blog it probably doesn't need to be spelt out, but I'll do it all the same: I'm somewhat left-wing in my views. In particular I strongly (ferociously, even) believe in the trades union movement. It even takes on a moral dimension to my mind, at least in the sense that if you have signed up as a member of a union and then that union takes a decision (e.g. to go on strike) then you have a moral obligation to act out that decision - not just go along with it or tolerate it, but to put it into practice. The union is, after all, its members, no more no less. A union whose members decide that they'll opt in for some things and not for others is not, by definition, a union.

So, anyway, unions are something I believe in. They are something I see as a cause for good. Like most such causes, of course, from time to time they are used for less worthy ends and the power they have can be, and is, abused, but that's like dismissing all of Christianity because of the actions of George Bush.

All of this is by way of explaining why it was such a terrifying thought to realize that Tescos and their ilk are, effectively, unions. Their strength, after all, comes from numbers in just the same way as unions. It's slightly different because we don't sign up to one supermarket in just a committed way (or perhaps this is where I'm wrong - perhaps I'd understand my fellow union members better if I assumed their approach to the union was that of a shopper to a supermarket), but still the number of shoppers a supermarket has is directly proportional to that supermarket's bargaining strength.

Broadly speaking that strength is then used to obtain lower prices for us shoppers, in the same way that, ideally at least, the union uses its collective strength to obtain higher wages for its members. So it represents a rather perverse streak of human nature that we resent these lower prices by siding ourselves with the farmers and other manufacturers who are being squeezed by the supermarkets supposedly in order to get these prices down.

Such perversity is, certainly, a feature of human nature, and is more usually cast as that very desirable
quality of empathy. It is certainly a very pleasant facet of human nature that we can, all too infrequently, look at others and try and better their life while sacrificing our own. But you can hardly blame the supermarkets for being at least puzzled if not downright annoyed at this perversity.

Of course there are other reasons why people dislike supermarkets. The main one seems to be the way they pretend to offer a choice while actually forcing you to buy a certain brand of toothpaste and a certain size of cereal packet etc. Part of this is, undoubtedly, very devious marketing - the big pack being priced in such a way as to give worse value than the smaller pack for example, since most people won't check the prices carefully enough to spot this. But partly it is simply reflecting the wishes of the majority, to the detriment of the individual. I can't get the sort of shampoo I want probably because very few other people want exactly that brand, type and size. And the reality of any kind of union, or indeed any kind of human community, is that compromises are made for the sake of keeping that community together. It's only paranoia fuelled by solipsism that prevents me from recognizing that the reason I can't buy the shampoo I want is because nobody else wants it, and makes me think it's just that the supermarkets want to restrict my choice. (This is a thought that keeps coming to me whenever there is debate over schools admissions policies, or school closures).

So, given all of that, why do I still hate Tescos so?