In this particular case, the world I got access to is the socio-economic ecosystem of a luxury high-rise building in downtown Los Angeles, which in accordance with the preferences of both the management structure and the population it serves, usually remains invisible and insulated from public view, much like the piping and machinery that carry out its functions. These buildings operate like small cities, with their governmental panel of building managers and subordinate janitors and technicians, and all of the connected outsourced contractors that perform the various tasks of maintenance and repair which keep the infrastructure running, humming away as their workers dart to and fro throughout the building, performing their duties as the building empties out for the day, as it cyclically inhales and exhales its occupants through the course of the working day.
On the couple of days I was present, there were elevator repair technicians and telecommunications workers present in addition to us plumbers, all swarming about in their own little cliques carrying out their respective duties, on the roof and in the basement, just above and below the perpetually irritated and frustrated occupants of the building.
The generalized and prevailing picture of the entire process was one of a workable dysfunction, not quite progressing to catastrophe, but steady and disruptive enough to constantly anger and concern the well-heeled occupants, who were paying top dollar after being lured by the glossy adds showcasing the prestigious location and surrounding architecture. This particular snapshot can be attributed to one of the most salient geopolitical facts of the century, in particular the steady decline of the current world system's hegemon, as expressed through the very pores of daily economic life in the imperial core.
Keeping in mind the generalized socio-economic trends in the United States in this particular era: the steady financial concentration of political and economic power, the rescinding of the social contract for a vast majority of the population, the plummet in public trust and central political legitimacy, and so on, we can see these broad and salient trends reflected in the daily economic life of a single high rise building, the prototypical living structure of the modern world city, with all of its attendant imagery of the trappings of advanced industrial civilization: the beautiful modern architecture, the sweeping urban landscape views from incredible heights, the massive and grand shopping and dining plazas, the colossal skyscrapers sharply rising from the street, the many delightful amenities in the actual living spaces, and so on.
The mechanics of the actual dysfunction of these things, and the attendant marring of the built up images are quite fascinating if nothing else. In this building, the glossy beauty of its streamlined lobby and hallways hides constant water leaks and shutdowns, malfunctioning elevators, strung out and alienated management, a self-destructively stingy administration and ownership structure, unscrupulous contractors, irate inhabitants and all the like, all perpetually colliding into each other and grinding each other steadily down.
The building is only 8 years old, but somehow it is falling apart: its elevators occasionally go offline, and leaks are constantly springing throughout the piping, damaging walls, ceilings, and floors alike, occasionally flooding whole rooms and floors. These were the limited infrastructure issues I was exposed to as I was visiting for a specific purpose, but there is undoubtedly more out of sight at the moment.
After this lengthy introduction, what I really wanted to get into were the mechanics of the dysfunction, which I'll briefly summarize and put together, abstracting away from them a more general problem and a squinting glimpse at the general direction of things.
I had a clearer view of the plumbing issues, so let's take those apart. Immediately apparent when taking apart copper pipe in troubled areas was the thinness of the copper pipe walls: with thin walls the passing water wears away at the pipe wall and eventually breaks through in a pinhole leak. Once you get a pinhole, the water pressure helps to drill through the pipe, widening the hole and worsening the leak until it starts doing real damage.
This is partially an economic issue. What it looked like was that the developer opted for thinner piping to save money. The less copper material in the pipe, the cheaper the pipe by the foot, and savings can be quite large by skimping on copper. The greater plumbing system also skimped on isolation valves, so that if there was a leak, the entire water system had to be shut down and drained before the leak could be repaired. As a result, the building routinely has leaks and the entire water system is routinely shut off, resulting in the regular scheduled misery of the building occupants.
In response to general economic stress - much of it which can be traced to a greater dynamic we will sketch - the building's administration and ownership also skimps on its duties: it drags its feet to replace to important equipment like water pumps and boilers, opting for cheap alternatives or delays that result in inevitable failures that end up more costly in the long run. It also seeks to invest in cheaper plumbing services in which lower quality fixes, which temporarily solve the problem but create more problems in the long run when inevitable failures of repairs reoccur.
The cheap plumbing contractors at the same disinvest in their own employees, foregoing training and resources, opting to throw inexperienced workers at the problem who are underpaid and overworked, and as a result are apathetic to their own roles and contributions, and who inevitably institute poor and unsustainable solutions. Even the talented and competent contractors are working with poor construction and lower quality building materials thanks to developers cutting corners and manufacturers degrading the quality of their products to save money on their end.
The self-interest of the developer is set against the rest of the system, who opted from the beginning to skimp on construction, taking advantage of an economic policy and incentive structure in which economic actors seek out the most profit with the lowest effort that is legally acceptable (sometimes even not legally acceptable) in the short term, regardless of the misery spread in the long term.
This sets everyone in the ecosystem against each other. Management, which wants a smoothly running building so that the occupants aren't constantly yelling at them, fight with the administration and ownership for proper resources and repairs. They also fight with the contractors over botched jobs, and with the angry occupants who are experiencing regular inconvenience and even misery in their own homes which they have no real control over. And all of these people are fighting the developers and contractors and manufacturers that seek out as much of their socially available resources as possible while giving them as little as possible.
Amazing, we see here an entire constellation of simultaneous degradation based on a common general principle: that of the disintegration of the social contract and the mercenary pursuit of all economic actors in profit and financial concentration as the greater system comes apart and the surplus is used up. And everything simultaneously degrades and with a weakening cyclical renewal until a crucial lynchpin is broken for good.
Seneca frowns from his ancient grave. There can be a silver lining to this dark cloud though: creative processes of renewal can erupt after obstructing and obsolesced structures are cleared, resulting in creative solutions that burst forth into the vacuum as rapidly as the previous order crumbled. New bonds are forged by those navigating a given crisis. That is the hope anyway. It can always get worse.
