WEBVTT NOTE 9. The People on the Move 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.120 The People on the Move 2 00:00:03.120 --> 00:00:08.000 There are moments in history when the people are on the move, consistent with the logic 3 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:12.220 of history, and no force on earth can stop them. 4 00:00:12.220 --> 00:00:17.440 You can see it in the images of Russians in 1990 pulling down cast iron statues of Lenin. 5 00:00:17.440 --> 00:00:24.700 You can see it in the images of the Romanian people charging Ceausescu's palace in 1989. 6 00:00:24.700 --> 00:00:31.600 And I just saw it last night, at bed, bath and beyond, as the people raided the towers 7 00:00:31.600 --> 00:00:36.940 of K-cups holding coffee and tea to go into the Keurig coffee maker that is the blazing 8 00:00:36.940 --> 00:00:43.660 hot item for the holidays, second only to our new pocket paperback of Human Action. 9 00:00:43.660 --> 00:00:48.700 To understand why the Keurig coffee maker is firing up the forces of history in a progressive 10 00:00:48.700 --> 00:00:54.180 direction, we need to reflect on the dynamics of the relentless technological trend from 11 00:00:54.180 --> 00:01:00.500 From the Collective to the Individual In ancient times, bathing, for example, was 12 00:01:00.500 --> 00:01:06.640 a community activity – one pool of water that all people would visit. 13 00:01:06.640 --> 00:01:10.840 With technological progress came the family tub, in which people would dunk themselves 14 00:01:10.840 --> 00:01:13.020 one after another. 15 00:01:13.020 --> 00:01:18.660 In modern times, we each fill our own bath or take an individual shower. 16 00:01:18.660 --> 00:01:23.340 So it is with phones, which, when first invented, were found one per community in the general 17 00:01:23.340 --> 00:01:24.660 for. 18 00:01:24.660 --> 00:01:27.960 Then there were party lines that several households would share. 19 00:01:27.960 --> 00:01:31.420 Then the phone came to the single-family home. 20 00:01:31.420 --> 00:01:36.640 Finally the process of individuation culminated in the pocket cell phone, with one phone number 21 00:01:36.640 --> 00:01:38.460 per person. 22 00:01:38.460 --> 00:01:42.940 And so it is all over the world, and throughout human history, provided there is the freedom 23 00:01:42.940 --> 00:01:47.020 to innovate, produce and distribute. 24 00:01:47.020 --> 00:01:49.180 It's true with books, too. 25 00:01:49.180 --> 00:01:53.900 There was the Library of Alexandria for the whole world. 26 00:01:53.900 --> 00:01:57.860 Then there were public libraries for whole cities. 27 00:01:57.860 --> 00:02:00.740 Then we progressed to private libraries in homes. 28 00:02:00.740 --> 00:02:06.540 Now we long for the ultimate individuation – libraries on our cell phones and books 29 00:02:06.540 --> 00:02:09.440 we can carry on our person. 30 00:02:09.440 --> 00:02:14.820 This relentless push to fulfill the demands of individualism is the driving force of human 31 00:02:14.820 --> 00:02:17.100 history. 32 00:02:17.100 --> 00:02:20.260 And so it is with coffee. 33 00:02:20.260 --> 00:02:24.020 For too long we've lived with a community form of delivery – whatever collectivist 34 00:02:24.020 --> 00:02:26.940 pot was made for the whole group is what we drank. 35 00:02:26.940 --> 00:02:30.060 Never mind that it is burned from the heating pad. 36 00:02:30.060 --> 00:02:35.220 Never mind that it is too strong or too weak, too dark or too light. 37 00:02:35.220 --> 00:02:38.940 Or that it is just plain gross. 38 00:02:38.940 --> 00:02:43.420 Never mind that the preparation and clean-up requires that we stare at unappetizingly soaked 39 00:02:43.420 --> 00:02:48.900 Coffee Grounds that clog our sinks and stink up our trash – it was what we had, and we 40 00:02:48.900 --> 00:02:51.220 made do. 41 00:02:51.220 --> 00:02:55.700 Then came Starbucks and other specialized shops. 42 00:02:55.700 --> 00:03:00.220 Here we could order what we wanted, and every drink was prepared fresh and according to 43 00:03:00.220 --> 00:03:02.740 our specifications. 44 00:03:02.740 --> 00:03:08.380 We are, after all, individuals, each of us with different tastes, desires and demands. 45 00:03:08.380 --> 00:03:13.360 When given the chance to express our wishes, we take it, and therein lies a great entrepreneurial 46 00:03:13.360 --> 00:03:18.160 opportunity for those who are daring and creative enough and willing to take on the responsibility 47 00:03:18.160 --> 00:03:21.660 for giving history a push forward. 48 00:03:21.660 --> 00:03:27.120 In retrospect, the whole Keurig mania seems perfectly obvious, even inevitable. 49 00:03:27.120 --> 00:03:30.520 We want Starbucks in our homes. 50 00:03:30.520 --> 00:03:32.320 We want endless variety. 51 00:03:32.320 --> 00:03:34.500 We want it to be fast. 52 00:03:34.500 --> 00:03:38.600 We do not want to wake up to the shattering sound of coffee beans in a horrible grinding 53 00:03:38.600 --> 00:03:39.600 machine. 54 00:03:39.600 --> 00:03:44.440 In fact, though we had never thought of it before, we do not want to look at coffee grounds 55 00:03:44.440 --> 00:03:48.440 before or after they become soaked. 56 00:03:48.440 --> 00:03:53.360 When you first observe the K-cup that Keurig uses, your thought might be, this is ridiculously 57 00:03:53.360 --> 00:03:58.680 inefficient – why would anyone take a tiny amount of coffee and package it in plastic 58 00:03:58.680 --> 00:04:04.300 with a complicated internal filtering system, and waste foil to cover the top just to produce 59 00:04:04.300 --> 00:04:05.920 a single cup of coffee? 60 00:04:05.920 --> 00:04:08.320 But you know what? 61 00:04:08.320 --> 00:04:13.160 History is not about some outsider's view of what is or is not efficient according to 62 00:04:13.160 --> 00:04:22.080 some preset calculus – history is about the ideas and preferences of real human beings. 63 00:04:22.080 --> 00:04:26.880 K-Cups also owe their success to a software-style model of development. 64 00:04:26.880 --> 00:04:31.920 Keurig developed the hardware and sold it – and its K-Cup patent – to Green Mountain Coffee 65 00:04:31.920 --> 00:04:33.480 Roasters. 66 00:04:33.480 --> 00:04:39.480 The company might have then decided to cash in on its monopoly privileges, but GMCR seemed 67 00:04:39.480 --> 00:04:44.820 to understand that there are more profits to be made through liberality than restriction. 68 00:04:44.820 --> 00:04:49.760 It licensed many different companies to produce the K-Cup firmware, so that now there is a 69 00:04:49.760 --> 00:04:56.160 gigantic market for these things, and even a market for contraptions to display them. 70 00:04:56.160 --> 00:05:01.240 When the patent expires in 2012, the price of the K-Cup will probably fall, but the blow 71 00:05:01.240 --> 00:05:06.860 to GMCR will be minimal, as this blogger argues, because so many are already competing for 72 00:05:06.860 --> 00:05:09.020 market share. 73 00:05:09.020 --> 00:05:14.940 Note too that the mainstreaming of the K-Cup came only after this liberalization – only 74 00:05:14.940 --> 00:05:20.680 as recently as 2007, when you only found these coffee makers in upscale law firms was the 75 00:05:20.680 --> 00:05:25.300 company still hammering knock-off cup makers with lawsuits. 76 00:05:25.300 --> 00:05:28.380 When the patent expires next year, all bets are off. 77 00:05:28.380 --> 00:05:33.620 I fully predict that the next generation will never see another coffee ground, never have 78 00:05:33.620 --> 00:05:39.060 to deal with grungy wet filters any more than people who eat bacon today have to watch pigs 79 00:05:39.060 --> 00:05:41.960 being rounded up and slaughtered. 80 00:05:41.960 --> 00:05:46.340 The division of labor will kick in, so that consumers have only one job to do – drink 81 00:05:46.340 --> 00:05:50.500 great coffee according to their own individual preferences. 82 00:05:50.500 --> 00:05:56.420 It's expensive, you say, even three or five times as much as buying grounds and beans 83 00:05:56.420 --> 00:06:04.660 In bulk, so it is – cell phones are expensive, baths are expensive, toilet paper is expensive 84 00:06:04.660 --> 00:06:09.340 and so is shampoo, deodorant, beef, clothing from the department store. 85 00:06:09.340 --> 00:06:14.380 Some things that make life wonderful are worth paying for. 86 00:06:14.380 --> 00:06:20.500 That's the whole point of the material world, isn't it – to make life wonderful? 87 00:06:20.500 --> 00:06:25.400 Here's the best part – consider how this celebratory episode in capitalist decadence 88 00:06:25.400 --> 00:06:27.640 has been marketed. 89 00:06:27.640 --> 00:06:32.100 We are led to believe that this technology is European – fashionable people somehow 90 00:06:32.100 --> 00:06:39.380 love burned-out, low-growth economies – when in fact the company that owns it is American. 91 00:06:39.380 --> 00:06:44.540 And notice that all of the marketing vaguely hints at a PC sensibility – the word green 92 00:06:44.540 --> 00:06:46.540 appears everywhere. 93 00:06:46.540 --> 00:06:53.240 Paul Newman – don't we just love everything this guy makes – sponsors his own K-Cups. 94 00:06:53.240 --> 00:06:58.600 People on the packages are doing things like standing around trees on green hills. 95 00:06:58.600 --> 00:07:04.240 Surely this ridiculous excess is all very eco-friendly – surely it is! 96 00:07:04.240 --> 00:07:09.160 The genius of capitalism is never more on display than in the last few years, when we've 97 00:07:09.160 --> 00:07:15.840 seen how the private sector can even sell anti-capitalism and make the big bucks. 98 00:07:15.840 --> 00:07:21.000 Prepare the landfills for mountains of used cake-ups, because that is what is headed our 99 00:07:21.000 --> 00:07:22.400 way. 100 00:07:22.400 --> 00:07:26.520 From when they are full, we can cover them with dirt and start again – and do this 101 00:07:26.520 --> 00:07:30.980 again and again until the invention of the Keurig coffee maker recedes into memory as 102 00:07:30.980 --> 00:07:35.800 just another landmark in the long struggle to leave the state of nature and climb to 103 00:07:35.800 --> 00:07:39.620 ever-higher stages of the great chain of being. 104 00:07:39.620 --> 00:07:44.440 At each stage, we can easily observe the path from the collective to the individual, and 105 00:07:44.440 --> 00:07:50.900 also revel in the lovely irony that it is precisely our uniqueness that unites us all 106 00:07:50.900 --> 00:07:58.180 in the Common Cause of Defending the Freedom to Buy and Sell, which is the driving force 107 00:07:58.180 --> 00:07:58.820 of history.