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Quiz
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Where are the talking trees?
a) Japan
b) Cuba
c) England
What does he see more of in Japan?
a) People
b) The government
c) Advertising
What did he try to explain in Cuba to his host family ?
a) Communism
b) Socialism
c) Capitalism
What were the people selling on the street?
a) Banana juice
b) Orange juice
c) Apple juice
How much was the juice?
a) 5 yen
b) 10 yen
c) 15 yen
Transcript
OK, I'd like to talk about consumerism in capitalist and communist countries. I don't know if anyone has
actually noticed but Japan is very, what's the word, "consumerized." Everything is built for the consumer.
You've got huge adverts, you've got talking trees, you've got people with microphones outside the shop
screaming "Ireshaimase" at everybody as they go past. Everything is built for advertising, for consuming, for
buying, for competing, for constantly making newer and better goods so people buy them. A complete reverse
of this is somewhere like Cuba, which is one of the last sort of communist states around, and probably
the only place where communism has actually worked. In Cuba everything is owned by the government
so there's no companies competing with each other for advertising space, sort of trying to out do each other,
and driving prices up, everything's done by the government, any adverts are for the same products owned by
the same people. When I was living in Cuba we tried to explain how in a capitalist society, how consumerism would
work, so I'd like to give you a quick example. In Cuba there are many people selling really cheap orange
juice on the street. Um, they make it from like a, like a cordial, like a powder which they add water to and
they dilute it and keep it cold and they sell it for the equivalent of about 10 yen a glass. Many people
sell this. I tried to explain to my host family, OK, if this was, if we wanted to sell this orange juice
in the street, we would find out the supplier, buy all of it, and then open up shop charging three times the
price as anyone else. No one would be able to sell any because they couldn't naturally get a hold of it.
The Cubans have no idea this would be a good idea. We received questions such as, "Why would you do that?
But that would mean no one else could sell any. That would mean you would get all the money and no one else."
We were like, "exactly!"
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