The Economics of Comfort
At the core of the hospitality, travel, and transportation industries—from the hotel groups like the Hilton to Airbnb, Amtraks to airlines, Megabus to the MTA/Metrobus, and Ubers—is the commodification of comfort.
Two weekends ago, I was traveling back to the East Coast and, in being at and seeing human behaviors exhibited in airports and taxi pick-up areas, what I observed really made me wonder: at what point in history did humanity decide that comfort was a commodity, an experience and sensation reserved for only those who could afford it? Who woke up one day with this idea and said, “ah, yes, a most glorious day to commodify the physical and psychological states of safety and wellbeing so as to monetize on one aspect of the human existence?”
Initially, I reached right for capitalism to cast blame but I think the commodification began well before the early inklings of what we call modern day capitalism. That said, it doesn’t absolve or excuse capitalism from exaggerating (read: making worse) the commodification of comfort; let there be no doubt that capitalism is an accomplice.
Hop into a time-machine with me and we see that the commodification of comfort was present during slavery in the US (and anywhere slavery existed, for that matter). Turn the dial back a bit more and we see a prime example of comfort commodified: the British Monarchy. Dial it back once more to feudalism (and not just in Europe but also in Japan and China) and I’m sure elsewhere too but I’m not a historian. Before that, and expanding our scope beyond what we call modern day Europe, you’ve got ancient Egypt, the Indus Valley, and the Aztec, Inca, Olmec, and Maya. Like the British Empire, these civilizations had a social hierarchy, of which a king or the ruling class sat at the top (think Brahmans, pharaoh, city king, and emperors).
This socio-political party, this bourgeois, sat at the top the social hierarchy as a result of, what we call in philosophy, divine right or divine command theory. The application of this theory of morality varies slightly—while both are rooted in religious belief systems, for the Indus Valley, there’s the concept of nirvana and moving up the caste system through the accumulation of good karma over several lives whereas the root of the British Monarchy is that a god of christianity and/or catholicism appointed their first king and established what we call the royal bloodline (AKA, blood right). Ancient Central and South American civilizations also had a social structure akin to this.
Given that so many of these ancient civilizations and societies had similar social hierarchies without any interaction with each other (either due to geographical distance or existence in different eras of time), the question begged becomes: is the commodification of comfort a result of the divine right/command theory? It seems plausible to conclude that the commodification of comfort is the natural result.
Before I continue, let me make clear the link between a civilization’s social hierarchy/structure and the commodification of comfort because you might be asking, “well, how does divine right/command theory lead to commodifying comfort?” My answer is not so much analytical as it is empirical; if we observed historical record of how trade was conducted and economy operated in these civilizations, we see that the wealth flowed upward from the plebes and slaves and women (all of whom were not legally seen as citizens with rights) to the upper class priests and kings and men. Those at the bottom who toiled away doing hard labor or had mastered their craft and had artistry were taxed, required to tithe, or just had the very little wealth of theirs straight up seized and repossessed on a whim (usually based on want and desire). Those at the top? They led lives in nice castles and edifices void of hard labor, hunger and starvation, and uncertainty; they lived life lavishly—they were comfortable.
I also want to note here that it seems reasonable to assert that a social order and hierarchy informed by divine right/command theory inevitably results in and perpetuates classism and elitism.
Now, you might also be thinking, “but we don’t subscribe to or operate based on divine right/command anymore. How is divine right/command even relevant these days?” You’re right; we are much more democratic these days, which is fundamentally different in nature from divine right/command structures (more authoritarian or aristocractic in nature). However, divine right/command is, in my opinion, still very relevant in that while the foci off which the theory operates have changed, its bones are still very much in place. What do I mean by that?
Classic divine right/command theory argues that Joe Shmoe is appointed king because some deity appointed him as king and rightful ruler of Shmovania — a statue bled when he was born or he had a prophesied birthmark and thus his bloodline is royal or something along those lines. What might its modern cousin look like? In very simplistic terms, replace “god given right” or “blood right” with money, wealth, legacy, and nepotism. Hence, my earlier comments about how capitalism exacerbates the commodification of comfort — quite literally, cash is king. I’ll also add that the commodification of comfort is staunchly rooted in the adoption of classist and elitist attitudes combined with capitalist infrastructure.
Okay, the academic part is over. So, why am I bringing this up? Well, to start, this is probably the only hobby I have (so if you read this or my other posts, thanks). And second, because I had what felt like one of those out-of-body moments of elevated enlightenment where the protagonist has a realization that you see on the big movie screens. For me, my scene was sitting at Gate A5 in the Salt Lake City airport with a venti peach green tea lemonade from Starbucks in hand while the gate agent was calling first-class to board, then business class, then main cabin. I had the realization of how preposterously wild it is that we just casually accept arbitrary structures of segmenting ourselves in so many environments—airplane cabins, hotel rooms views and floors, an apartment complex’s price-points based on which floor you live on or what view you have, taking the MTA subway or calling an Uber (and even then, UberPool or UberBlack?).
Like… what? We don’t bat an eye at all at how we just accept exchanging fiat (throwing money at, swiping/tapping your credit card) to have access to the experience and sensation of comfort, as if we believe this is how life was meant to be. We’ve come to (or have been at for a while now) a point where, while we may not actively believe it, our day-to-day actions and complicity reinforce the notion that the experience of comfort, of safety, of being stress-free, is something that not all persons should experience.
And why is this—the commodification of comfort—problematic? Because it essentially says that comfort, that security/safety, that lack of stress/anxiety from your physical environment are not experiences and states of mind meant for everyone — that these are things not all persons have the right to experience. If money must be thrown in exchange for these life experiences, then the logic behind this is that they are things to be earned. Safety, comfort, stress-free-ness and mental calm—these are things to be earned? Do we really believe in and subscribe to this idea that people, that you, must earn—that you must prove yourself worthy of—safety and comfort from harsh or displeasing physical environments?
When we look at the commodification of comfort and its associated attitudes and mentalities, it’s a bit resemblant of the chicken and the egg dilemma—which came first? Did commodifying comfort engender classist and elitist mentalities, stroking the egos of “upperclass” people convincing them of their superiority to others? Or was it the other way around, where inflated classist and elitist egos began to commodify comfort so as to maintain and build or hoard social capital and influence? It’s disconcerting, for me (and maybe for you, too), to see how commodified comfort has become—that it’s almost a luxury out of reach for so many—because it effectively puts systems ahead of people, peddles and prioritizes conceptions of success and the gamification of life; because it doesn’t make experiential sense.
What do I mean by experiential sense? My starting premise is nuanced—our existence is substantively the same (or similar) but procedurally varied. By this, I mean that the cycles of our physical, mental, and psychological growth and development are, in essence, the same: we’re all reliant in the beginning, unable to do anything for ourselves before we begin to grasp the world, become self-aware and intelligent; we all go through phases in which we question and wonder about our identity, purpose, raison d’etre. We all experience great love and loss, anger, happiness, the whole spectrum of emotions; we all feel the external pressures and expectations on us, on what it means to succeed or be a good person. Substantively, we have the same lifecycle.
Procedurally, we vary in that we are born into the world with no control of who we are or our circumstances; we do not decide if we are born white or black, rich and in the Western world or poor in the global south, with extraordinary intelligence or subpar mental acuity, or with physical prowess or an anatomy with more than average limitations. It is this procedural factor that, I believe, more so determines one’s proximity and access to comfort: one born into a wealthy family from old money will empirically struggle significantly less than one born into poverty, crime ridden neighborhoods, and unsafe living environments.
So, I’m trying to make it make sense. And there’s a very real chance that there is no making sense of any of this; if this is the case, then I hope that my writing serves to provoking your thoughts and be somewhat of a commentary on society and economy. Do we not all deserve to experience comfort, to experience protection from things that will harm our lives from a qualitative (and quantitative, too) aspect? Is comfort not befitting of us all?
I worry about the very tangible social harms of both subscription to and complicity with this quotidien, passive it-is-what-it-is yet staunch, capitalist view that comfort is a luxury, an exclusive if not elusive physical, emotional, and mental state reserved only for those who cough up the money. Commodification of comfort extends and invites itself into other spaces, engendering and reinforcing socially divisive attitudes like “us vs. them”, “the haves and have-nots”, and false, performative meritocracy (which doesn’t truly exist in capitalist structures). The results of commodifying comfort bleed from the socioeconomic sphere into the sociopolitical sphere with real-life consequences in the domains of urban and city planning, real estate, public policy, public health policy, public education, assistive services like welfare and social security, healthcare and more.
I’ll end with this: I think the most fatal of flaws of humanity (beyond deferring to capitalist mechanisms to dictate societal development) is its short-sightedness, its inability to see the long-term due to impairment from its vigorous hedonistic pursuits. To commodify, commercialize, and monetize aspects of the human experience? Wild.