Permit me to add my two bits-plus worth to the brouhaha over skyrocketing coffee prices in America.
I worked in coffee warehouses where “working in coffee” can mean anything from “bull gang labour, unloading freight cars of 125-pound sacks of green coffee (two men per sack) to stacking cases of 1-pound tins of ground coffee (prior to the advent of fork-lifting machines) in five and/or seven tiers that reached above the rafters (until a tip that fire inspectors were on the way had bull gangs frantically tearing down the top layers).
In between these extremes were stints at loading empty cans on the track at the top of the packing process; and duty at the spout from which the packer keeps pace, like an “appendage of the machine,” with a steady flow of filled and hermetically sealed 1 lb. tins, pumping them with right foot into a carton held against the spout with left hand while the right hand is making ready another carton from the flattened-out pile beside you, then flipping the filled boxes on to a moving track where they are sealed and borne to waiting hands for stacking. All this time, one weather-eye is kept on the onrushing cans in order to pull dents off the line before they enter the spout, jam the machinery and interfere with production-time; while the other one takes note of the diminishing stock of flattened cartons against the time you dash for replacements, getting back to the post in time to keep the process moving. The “coffee nerves” one is supposed to develop from drinking too much of it are nothing as compared to the shakes one gets from packing it!
This sort of familiarity with coffee does not qualify one to explain the economics behind the $3.00 per-lb. —more or less—that coffee brings today at the supermarket. After all, in those times referred to, top grades of the roasted and ground beans retailed at about 40-cents per lb. while one could be served a cup of it, along with a couple of doughnuts, for a thin dime —when one could afford to spend the dime. After Pearl Harbour and the advent of food (and coffee) rationing, prices did advance although with some controls through a Government agency and the problem of getting enough coffee on the white market was considered by President F. D. Roosevelt. He (a non-coffee drinker) advised us to re-use the grounds from each batch, at least once, before discarding!
Why is coffee produced, in the first place? Are growers and processors motivated by the “consuming public’s” love affair with the brew? No question about it. That factor plays a part only in the sense that it enables them to produce profits. That is what any business is all about so coffee growers and processors should hardly care less if the “consuming public” were to lose its taste for the stuff providing some other popular use might be found for their commodity (perhaps it might serve as a land filler or as a fertilizer). And, given the free enterprise mode of production, how can one argue logically against such a principle? How can one, consistently, argue the case for the profit system yet organize and/or participate in boycotts against rising prices? “The consumer is being ripped-off!” they cream. And they call for volunteers for picket duty in a battle to force one group of industrialists to cease taking advantage of a situation that enables them to corner a larger-than-usual share of the profits. They forget that the first duty of an industry is to its owners, or stock-holders and that fat years afford opportunity to recoup from lean years.
Now this is not to turn a cold shoulder to the plight of those who can hardly, if at all, make ends meet as it is without more price-gouging by those who own and control coffee. But boycotts of such items are not organized, generally, by those who cannot afford the high prices. They are the brain children of those who delight in bragging about their large expenditures, trips abroad, etc. Most of us are too busy getting by without joining in such movements. Wage-working people do gripe about prices, search for bargains, frequently strike for higher pay, and even more frequently look to moonlighting to compensate for rising costs of their necessities. All of which does not mean that coffee tycoons, or any other variety, can continue to raise prices at will. There is that other Nemesis that thwarts such a hope—the competition among themselves for a larger share of the market that, willy nilly, eventually leads to a drop in prices.
It should be plain, then, that—like it or not—our system is operating normally, and taking advantage of opportunities to maximize profits is in harmony with sound economics. Would the outraged ones champion a totally different social system than any now existing anywhere, production solely for use rather than for sale on a market with view to profit? Don’t all speak at once!
Harry Morrison
(WSP, Boston)
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