Rarity vs Capitalism

[Cwanky 17,602]

For those who haven't had the chance to watch Canterlot Boutique I would advise against reading this topic. 

 

As we've seen with many Rarity episodes and themes, Canterlot Boutique has Rarity facing a similar clash between herself and high culture. More importantly we see a particular focus on the theme of wealth vs success and yes even a major theme of capitalism going on. Much like how there's an underlying theme of the dangers of socialism with Starlight Glimmer, there's a similar but less significant theme of the dangers of capitalism with Sassy Saddles, Rarity's manager.

 

Its not just that Sassy Saddles misguided business strategy is sinister and based on greed, its also how reflective of dysfunctional, corrupt and real business practices can be. Just to name a few of the themes here are some of the more notable ones that tie into globalization also:

 

- high demand for mass production

- superficial celebrity appeal

- quantity over quality

- fixation over profit margins vs the quality of workers 

- the loss of the worker's rights and freedom

 

Its not to say that Sassy Saddles was evil, nor that capitalism, like socialism, is wholly evil, but rather blind misguided applications of these ideals, like anything, can lead to disaster. The Rules of Rarity song sums up this theme regarding Rarity's business model as it relates to capitalism quite well:

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYvSRzkeTOg&feature=player_embedded

 

 

At the risk of sounding overly political, its hard to deny what Rarity says here. She values a creative process, proper devotion, respect, and time to her work and clients with love. It makes her heart soar just to see her clients adore the clothes they wear. By contrast she despises the rigid and grueling work that has no place for creativity.

 

Its understandable too. Rarity after personifies the virtue of generosity, which comes from the heart of the individual. Set against a cold heartless virtue of corporate greed, the 2 cannot reconcile. It isn't the 1st time we've seen such a clash either. Rarity has in the past also clashed with desires for fame and wealth against her better generosity and integrity of her friends. She's also struggled with the class warfare of fitting in with wealthy individuals whether they be the Canterlot nobles, or the cutthroat professionals in Manehattan.

 

Of course we also see this clash of capitalism prominent with Applejack, notably in The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 9000 where we again see the theme of quantity vs quality and profit versus happiness.

 

What do you think then of the show's portrayal of capitalism and greed as it relates to Rarity and the Mane 6? Any notable examples that you see? It is of course, hard to see the Element of Generosity being a money grubber, even if she does get ahead of herself at times. 

[superdogz1999 551]

Rarity's aspect on Capitalism is the friendly owner who is not greedy as we seen in some episodes, sometimes we she her do her businessing on personal projects and projects for her family such the dresses that she made Sweetie Belle in Season 4. She also uses Small Business Model, where the owner would make the product and sell it to make a profit.

[dekutree64 713]

SSCS9K was an interesting one because Flim and Flam were using technology to actually provide a high quality product faster. It was more of a pro-Luddite episode than anti-capitalism. In a way, it was pro-capitalism, because as we're seeing in the real world, when you use technology to reduce the total amount of work needed for a civilization to flourish, the money balance gets thrown out of whack and capitalism starts merging into socialism.

 

Rarity is another example of healthy capitalist business. Work hard doing what you love, treat customers with respect, and you make a good living. Sassy's approach is more like how real world capitalism is implemented, and IMO does have its place too. Rarity could have outsourced the manufacturing of princess dresses, giving the customers what they wanted and raking in the cash under Sassy's business model. As long as she paid the factory workers a decent wage rather than taking most of the money for herself like most real world CEOs do, I don't see a problem. The reason she didn't do it is not because it's evil, but because it's not what she wanted to do. She wanted to personally craft unique dresses and sell them in Canterlot, and so she did. Either way would have been a fine business decision, but only one was a good personal decision.

[Firedog 320]

I think she is more of an example of a good capitalist business than a dangers of capitalism. I think the whole trend making one dress thing is more of a representation of artist giving into what people want for success and along the way sacrificing her real passion. Then learning that pursing her passion will grant the kind of success she wants. It also appears that her boutique is more successful after she removes the whole trend one dress model. I think its more of a following your passion pays off, and trying to take shortcuts doesn't. It more supports capitalism than speaks for the dangers of it. 

 

 

 

UPDATE:

Also would like to touch on how sassy saddles did business. I wouldn't consider her to be evil in her business practices. She simply filled a demand and was doing her job to make her business a success. But she didn't think about why Rarity was passionate about what she did so she ended up learning that artist take great pride in their work and don't always have the success in mind over their creativity and originality. Not to mention that Rarity liked dealing with the costumers so it was like she was taking half of what she loved about her job away. I also wouldn't consider every episode that has to do with greed to be about capitalism. you could just as easily say that about communism. None the less I'm not against capitalism or communism. No country has ever tried either, but in words they both sound pretty good ideas. 

Edited September 14, 2015 by Firedog

[碇 シンジン 27,433]

It is a beautiful example of  her lovely nature of art and a creation of the dressmaking process she puts her TLC on every beautiful crafted dress she making <3<3 she doesnt care about money <3<3 she cares about the smile on the customers face when they see the lovely piece of art she created guided by her inspiration and talent of beauty eye of fashion lovely gowns and fantastic dresses.

 

each of her dresses is like an painting you can only perfect it once  and feel good about it  second time doing the same kills off the joy and creativity of the artist <3<3<3 the art must come from the heart <3<33<3<3  i love RArity<3<3<3

 

SHe is so perfect beautiful and lovely <3<3<3

 

[AlbaTross 1,586]

I think the series is full of subtle jabs at capitalism, and I agree with most of it. In this case the creative process would have taken a backseat to mass production, and Rarity didn't want that. In this case I don't think the message is so much anti-capitalist as it is about standing by your own convictions and living your dream rather than compromising for wealth and fame.

 

I'm having a conversation with a friend on our personal forum about whether Rarity and Rainbow Dash are held back by their friends, and while it's a different discussion it is not entirely unrelated. In Rarity's case, she could easily move permanently to Canterlot and achieve all the bits and fame she desires. Much like how she doesn't want to compromise on her vision for her products, she also refuses to leave Ponyville behind so some could argue her friends tie her down. However, it also occurs to me that friendship is still the most important thing to her, and though she might have to be creative in how she advances her dream in light of wanting to stay with her friends as opposed to not seeing them for months or more at a time, she would much rather do that because she has stumbled across the most important thing in life that capitalism likes to cast a shadow on through alienation, and that is friendship. Likewise, she also won't let capitalism force her to stray from her dream of creating dresses her way.

[Truffles 2,033]

Its not to say that Sassy Saddles was evil, nor that capitalism, like socialism, is wholly evil, but rather blind misguided applications of these ideals, like anything, can lead to disaster.

...

What do you think then of the show's portrayal of capitalism and greed as it relates to Rarity and the Mane 6? Any notable examples that you see?

 

Firstly, this is a really thought-provoking topic! Thanks, Cwanky!

 

The show has done a pretty good job of not painting capitalism, socialism, and greed with broad strokes. The examples I see are in the following episodes:

 

The Cutie Map

SSCS9K

Canterlot Boutique

Leap of Faith

Secret of my Excess

Just for Sidekicks

Princess Spike

 

As you can guess, pretty much any episode that has Spike going rogue is about the pitfalls of being too greedy. And although these aren't necessarily related to capitalism, they're worth noting because greed always starts with an individual and not a corporate entity (i.e., somepony has to make the decision in the company that leads to it becoming greedy). If Spike started his own business, it would not surprise me if the show revisited the evils of capitalism using him as the bad guy and having to learn a lesson...again...about greed... 

 

Leap of Faith is worth noting because, like Spike, anytime Flim and Flam are seen being bad (which, so far, is always...) is because they're being greedy. In this instance, it's also not quite black and white - while the tonic they were selling was a sham, it's placebo effect did help granny see she was still able to do things. It's a gray area when it comes to how much deception is OK in order to make somepony's life better. I don't know the answer to that, though the episode did end with it seeming like a bad thing, though that's partially because the focus was on honesty and not their business model.

 

The others have been well-covered already, except I do have one additional comment on SSCS9K:

 

SSCS9K was an interesting one because Flim and Flam were using technology to actually provide a high quality product faster. It was more of a pro-Luddite episode than anti-capitalism. In a way, it was pro-capitalism, because as we're seeing in the real world, when you use technology to reduce the total amount of work needed for a civilization to flourish, the money balance gets thrown out of whack and capitalism starts merging into socialism.

 

While I agree it was pro-Luddite, I wouldn't go so far as to say that it wasn't anti-capitalism: Keep in mind Flim and Flam could only produce their product with a source of materials (apples), and instead of trying to fairly negotiate with AJ, they tried to steal them from her. First by asking for some percentage of the apples outright for free, then trying to weasel the Apples out of their entire farm with a silly contest (which BTW was really stupid of the Apples to agree to and is one of several reasons why I dislike that episode the most... But I digress.)

 

The type of capitalism Flim and Flam were exercising was the kind you see in real life where some big corporation opens a factory or mega-store in a third world country or small town, uses the resources at that location and exploits the workers, and once it is used up, discards it and moves to the next location.

 

I could also point out that Pinkie is unusually greedy in that episode as well, and she ends up getting away with it...  -_-

[Sidral Mundet 1,666]

Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 9000? I thought it was 6000. You know what this calls for!!

 

 

Now as to the real topic, I doubt this is a serious critique on capitalism, similar to how many fans were proclaiming Starlight was a communist.  More so Sassy was a person who put the end goal in front of passion and the results suffered from Rarity's perceptive and the basic moral being don't lose sight of your passions sort of deal.  If they were going to do a more major study of capitalism then they probably would have addressed that Sassy's methods had some validity to them. 

Edited September 15, 2015 by Sidral Mundet

[dekutree64 713]

I'm having a conversation with a friend on our personal forum about whether Rarity and Rainbow Dash are held back by their friends, and while it's a different discussion it is not entirely unrelated.

Yeah, I do think that's a significant issue needing dealt with. Rainbow's situation is even more troublesome than Rarity's. Wonderbolt Academy seems like it was originally written to solve that, by eliminating her desire to join. But then at the last minute they reverse the whole thing, so the conflict remains unresolved.

 

Rarity's solution of making dresses in Ponyville and selling them in Canterlot is a good compromise. The only problem is that she doesn't get to see the customers' reactions. It would be great for me, since I'm satisfied just by making things, and selling them is an unpleasant necessity to keep doing it. But Rarity enjoys it, so the loss of that aspect may hurt her in the long run.

 

I wish they would have just moved the whole group to Canterlot. I wrote some posts about it a couple years ago. Applejack is the only one who would really have a hard time with it. She'd probably have to run a store instead of directly growing the food. Fluttershy could take over maintenance of the castle garden, Pinkie could open her own party planning business, Rarity and Rainbow would have their dreams, and Twilight could help Celestia and Luna with royal duties, teach at the school, fight monsters, and whatever else she wants. But now that Twilight has a giant castle tree rooted into Ponyville, Rarity and Rainbow are pretty much stuck being separated from their original goals.

Edited September 15, 2015 by dekutree64

[Justin_Case001 4,907]

I've always been impressed with how the writers are able to fit a lot of real world themes into the show, which can spark conversations like this.  I always thought Rarity was a very good role model for professionalism and small business ownership, putting her customers and the quality of her products above the money.

 

Rarity could have outsourced the manufacturing of princess dresses, giving the customers what they wanted and raking in the cash under Sassy's business model. As long as she paid the factory workers a decent wage rather than taking most of the money for herself like most real world CEOs do, I don't see a problem. The reason she didn't do it is not because it's evil, but because it's not what she wanted to do.

Here's a funny (and horrible) idea.  Rarity's outsources her dress manufacturing to the impoverished Griffon Empire, and in another episode, we see Gilda sewing Princess Dresses in a sweat shop.  How would that be for a more realistic pony show?  Lol.  Acutally, though, to make it much more realistic, Rarity would outsource her manufacturing to a legit factory in Manehattan where the workers are well treated and paid, and then THAT factory, unbeknownst to Rarity, and without her permission, outsources THEIR manufacturing to the griffon kingdom, where griffons are basically used as slave labor to make Princess Dresses in a factory with no safety regulations, no building codes, no fire extinguishers, etc.  All the while, Rarity and Sassy will be promoting their dresses for suspiciously dirt cheap prices.  THAT would be a realistic pony show.

[Steel Accord 6,660]

Well I think you brought up all the important points. Rarity IS a business owner and Sassy was trying to run a business. What she failed to realize was that Rarity's business model could turn a profit as easily as her own meticulous plan. Of course, we find out she was under a self placed pressure from getting fired from her last job so she wanted to be absolutely sure the boutique would be successful.

 

In other words, Sassy was using the "safe and sure" Mcdonalds brand of mass produced, wide appeal business to Rarity's more individualized, niche appeal, which has inherent risk. Of course a part of me wondered why Rarity simply didn't say "you're fired" halfway through the episode as she was Sassy's employer but I'm glad she didn't, otherwise Sassy very well COULD have become a rival evil character.

 

It's funny because I often use Rarity as an example when defending the free market. In a way, she has taught me more about it than an economics class and indeed has put into practice what Adam Smith opines upon in Wealth of Nations on the more localized level.

Edited September 15, 2015 by Steel Accord

[sweetolebob18 728]

Well, Adam Smith's capitalism is based on several ideas

1) Everyone knows their own business best & money is the best way to get people to do things

2) There are few barriers to starting a business & little social cost to ending one

3) Therefore, everyone working for their individual good adds up to the collective good

 

This is a perfect description of how E Bay or a flea market works.  IRL, it ain't always that simple.  Mass marketing would bring in more money but destroy Rarity's job satisfaction for matching the perfect dress to each customer.  A classic problem of capitalism -immediate profit vs long term social/environmental costs.

 

As to the side issue, IMO Dash, Rarity, & to some extent Twilight (she should be a professor at a major university) are being held back by staying in Ponyville.  Pinkie & Fluttershy are not.  You would have to fight a major land war to get AJ & her family off Sweet Apple Acres

 

For a new side issue, is it just me or does Sassy Saddles look like a drug addict about to go berserk?