I caught a part of what
seemed like an interesting discussion on the radio yesterday lunchtime - about the
number of Hand Car Wash businesses springing up all over the country. The discussion,
hosted by Jeremy Vine, was between two economists - professor Mike Haynes from
the University of Wolverhapton, and Duncan Weldon, the BBC's Newsnight
economics correspondent - and they both seemed pretty stumped as to why Hand
Car Washing services are taking off with such prominence when by now machines
should be doing all the work. I don't know why they were so confused - the
answer seems to me quite obvious - but before we get onto that, let me briefly
explain why such an issue is interpreted as a problem.
On first inspection, generally
what's happening with Hand Car Wash businesses is the opposite of what happens
everywhere else - as we usually tend to see technological progression instead
of retrogression. For example, you wouldn’t see us ditching our washing
machines to return to washing our clothes in the sink; you wouldn't see us
choosing to cut our grass with shears instead of using the lawnmower; and you
wouldn't see us ditching the vacuum cleaner in favour of using a dustpan and
brush to get bits off the carpet.
Similarly, with the
current technology of car wash machines in garages, technology should have brought
about the gradual diminution of the culture of washing cars with a bucket of
soapy water and a sponge. Further, although there are a few vehicles for which
car wash machines are unsuitable (mine being one), from what I can make out car
wash machines use less water and are no more expensive than rates charged by
Hand Car Wash businesses.
Consequently, then,
drivers ought to have very little need these days for five or six guys washing
their car - but yet we find the opposite is happening - Hand Car Wash
businesses are thriving, with new ones springing up all the time, giving
hundreds of (usually) migrant workers plenty of opportunity to work hard and
make a living.
Given the foregoing, in
terms of rational behaviour, what's happening shouldn't be happening - and this
is because of something in economics called the
increase in the capital intensity - which is basically a measure of output,
productivity and growth, where machines are more efficient for the economy than
the equivalent manual work of low paid workers.
The economists seemed
stumped as to why drivers are choosing men over machines. I have a few suggestions
that I think probably explain it - and they are all to do with how hand washes
have various advantages over machines:
1) You can sit in your car
and not have to bother going into the garage to buy a machine token.
2) Machines do not wash
every part of the car body in the way that humans are likely to.
3) Machines probably come
with the increased risk of body damage.
4) Many drivers probably
feel that in using hand washers they are supporting low-skilled migrant workers
instead of giving money to larger corporations.
Number 4 is flawed, of
course, because the people who lose out to the competition are the workers
involved in making and maintaining those machines. But numbers 1-3 are pretty
sound, and number 4 is also interesting because I would hazard a guess that
many drivers would feel they have an incentive to pay migrant workers instead of handing over money to larger firms like Shell, Esso and BP. Here's
why. Migrant workers making a living are people that are much less likely to
commit crime or claim benefits - and even if it's only at a subconscious level
I'll bet that's a factor in people's decision to buy their labour. All in all,
then, I don't see the increasing rise of Hand Care Wash
