Dope

The Odd, Old decencies

Lefty nostalgia always makes Limited Inc nervous. It makes sense that it is rampant: another defeated ideology compensating for losing the future by claiming the past. Alas, these consolation prizes don't bring much comfort. That said, I am as wet eyed about the world we've lost as any old Wobbly. I've been reading Richard Lourie's biography of Andrei Sakharov for a review, and I was struck by one passage. When Sakharov met Brezhnev, who was, at that time, the Commisar for military research, Brezhnev told him a story. In his father's opinion, Brezhnev said, the people who invented new weapons should be hung from gallows on hills, pour encourager les autres. Brezhnev, of course, didn't follow his Dad's advice.

Still, Brezhnev's daddy was just displaying sans culottes common sense, if you ask LI. The feeling of a value beyond the value of political or economic power -- well, it dies a little every day. But we still catch glimmerings of it in the damnedest places.

Which leads us, by a cerebral by-way that might not be entirely clear to the rest of you, to today's news about Avon. It seems that they are firing 3500 people. These people are the packers in their plant. They aren't the Avon ladies themselves, who number, worldwide, something like 3.4 million people. To each of whom, when the order is written up, an individual package is sent off. WNET did a nice piece about Avon a while back, calling it the Company of Woman. I particularly liked the quote from Andrea Jung:

For all the effort Avon is putting into the U.S., the most dynamic growth is taking place overseas. Jung claims, "One of our fastest-growing regions of the world has been the entire Eastern European region. We've grown at 43 percent in dollars compounded over the last several years, with 45 percent more reps every year. We call it Avon heaven. Down the road I think China's an enormous opportunity."

I know all about Avon Heaven, since my mother and grandmother were part of the Avon work force. Sobel, in his history of the Great Boom, as he calls the last fifty years in America, rightly points out that the effect of franchising in American culture hasn't really been publicized. It isn't just the potential owners of small shops who took, instead, the franchising route, but also housewives, or in my Mom's case secretaries, retirees -- the great American muddle. My grandmother persevered long after my Mom had abandoned Avon heaven. So my memories of her, my grandma, are fused with the sickly sweet smell of Avon perfumes, or the sheer wierdness of soap on a rope. My grandmother was a connector because of these products.

The Avon Lady reversed the old trope of the travelling salesman, his bibles or cleaning products in his briefcase, his penis some fabulous cuckolding engine. Yes, in the old days we were all just a doorbell away from a dirty joke. In place of that mythology, the Avon Lady instantiated another one: that of the harem. Briefly, all too briefly, the split level suburban ranch (2 ba, 3br, covered garage) was transfigured into some female tropic.

And, not incidentally, my grandmother earned enough to handsomely supplement the inadequate pension her husband received from Smith Corona.

It has to be remembered about capitalism: it is a way of life. It also has to be remembered that, just like the revolutionary tribunals that accompanied its birth in the West, capitalism is very prone to irrational capital punishment, condemning ways of life to sudden extinction, eroding our sense that any way of life is grounded, or an intrinsically good thing. Human nature at its finest, the economist says. MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN, as Adam Smith once said. I don't know. I'd like to consult Leonid Brezhnev's daddy on the question.