Tag Archives: comics

Even Lucy Van Pelt knows the value of getting into real estate

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To close a scene of A Charlie Brown Christmas, Lucy Van Pelt explains what she really wants for Christmas:

A Charlie Brown Christmas

Lucy: Don’t worry. I’ll be there to help you. I’ll meet you at the auditorium. Incidentally, I know how you feel about all this Christmas business. Getting depressed in all that. It happens to me every year. I never get what I really want. I always get a lot of stupid toys and a bicycle or clothes or something like that.

Charlie Brown: So what is it you want?

Lucy: Real estate.

In addition to the words of Lucy, I recently heard a famous person describe their interest in real estate this way: “they aren’t making any more of it.” I have heard some variation of this numerous times in life. Since there are limits on how much real estate can be had, this can push prices up in places where there is high demand and limited property. (Of course, humans are pretty good at finding ways to create more real estate – think in-fill in many coastal cities – or finding financial opportunities out of what exists.)

If you have resources, real estate can be a good investment. Not only might you be able to use the property while you own it or gain money from its particular use, its resale value could be good. But you have to start with real estate or have the capital to get into real estate to reap the rewards down the road. Not all real estate is desirable – see a recent overview of some such properties in the Chicago area – even as many Americans assume that purchasing a home will pay off in the end.

And perhaps this hints at Lucy’s frustration. She keeps getting Christmas gifts for kids when she really wants to get ahead. Real estate would be a unique but wealth-building present. Forgot those ads with a car in a bow in the driveway: Lucy wants a property deed under the tree.

Societal goals: avoiding society through online shopping

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The comic Take It From the Tinkersons recently had a strip hinting at a major consequence of online shopping:

While this might be a bit of hyperbole, there is some truth to this. Is one of the appeals of online shopping the ability to avoid society and social interactions? Even shopping at your local big box store requires rubbing shoulders with other shoppers and a brief interaction with a cashier (even with self-checkout, you still have an overseer).

At the least, online shopping provides evidence of the significant shift that happened in Western societies in the last few hundred years. The earliest sociologists were very interested in the switch from tight-knit village or agrarian life to the less connected and varied urban life. Marx saw tremendous consequences for labor and the individual within an economic system rooted in burgeoning cities. Durkheim compared mechanical and organic solidarity, a shift toward a complex division of labor where individuals now depended on others to do essential tasks for their lives. Tonnies contrasted gemeinschaft and gesellschaft, more direct social interactions versus indirect social interactions.

Online shopping of the sorts we have today may only be possible in a highly complex and individualized society such as our own. The process of moving a product from its production point to a warehouse to your home or business through online clicks is quite complicated and amazing. Yet, it really does limit social interactions on the shopping end. As private individuals, we can now make choices and receive our products away from scrutiny. It would be an error to think that this private purchase is now removed from social influence – with the spread of media and influence of social media, we may be influenced by generalized social pressures more than ever – but the direct social experience is gone.

This could have big implications for social life. Will buying habits significantly change now that immediate social interactions and social pressure is removed? Will we become used to such social transactions not involving people that we will be willing to remove social interactions from other areas? There will certainly be consequences of increasing online shopping and public life – even if it is related to individuals consuming products in a capitalistic system – may just suffer for it.