The death of Reg Varney has rightly led to many tributes. However, his largely pernicious - albeit inadvertent - contribution to economic and political history should not go unnoticed.
His portrayal of Stan Butler did much to perpetuate the image of the 1970s worker as a bone-idle work-dodger; we forget today just how enormously popular On the Buses was. And this in turn might subconsciously have contributed to the popularity of Thatcherism. How many of those who, when asked by Tories in 1979 whether the working class had become too big for its boots, conjured up a picture of Stan Butler and so voted for Thatcher?
There’s more. As Andrew reminds us, Reg Varney was the first man in the world to use a cash point machine. In doing so, he might have kicked off two effects.
One is a tolerance of inflation. One of the drawbacks of inflation is that it forces us to economize on holding cash, as inflation erodes its value. We therefore make more trips to the bank, incurring what economists call shoe-leather costs - costs which are more significant than you might think. It was for this reason that Mr Varney’s less illustrious near-contemporary Milton Friedman thought that the optimum rate of inflation was negative.
However, the invention of the ATM helped make it much easier to get cash out of the bank. This fall in shoe leather costs for technological reasons offset part of the normal cost of inflation, which helped make people less intolerant of it.
Is it really a coincidence that inflation began to rise as the cash point machine, as popularized by Mr Varney, became more widely used? I think not.
There’s a second effect of its spread, however, which has only become appreciated in light of the rise in behavioural economics.
The easier availability of cash has reduced one constraint on our spending. Before Mr Varney used the cash point, impulse buying of good or sessions down the pub were constrained by the fact that cash was hard to obtain. After that fateful day, however, the constraint came down. If you think of consumers as rational far-sighted maximizers the effect on spending should have been minimal. But if people lack self-control, the spread of the ATM would have raised spending.
Maybe, then, Mr Varney is partly to blame for the low savings ratio.
His impact upon the economy has, therefore, been arguably quite malevolent. But then, he is not the only great TV character of whom this can be said.
His portrayal of Stan Butler did much to perpetuate the image of the 1970s worker as a bone-idle work-dodger; we forget today just how enormously popular On the Buses was. And this in turn might subconsciously have contributed to the popularity of Thatcherism. How many of those who, when asked by Tories in 1979 whether the working class had become too big for its boots, conjured up a picture of Stan Butler and so voted for Thatcher?
There’s more. As Andrew reminds us, Reg Varney was the first man in the world to use a cash point machine. In doing so, he might have kicked off two effects.
One is a tolerance of inflation. One of the drawbacks of inflation is that it forces us to economize on holding cash, as inflation erodes its value. We therefore make more trips to the bank, incurring what economists call shoe-leather costs - costs which are more significant than you might think. It was for this reason that Mr Varney’s less illustrious near-contemporary Milton Friedman thought that the optimum rate of inflation was negative.
However, the invention of the ATM helped make it much easier to get cash out of the bank. This fall in shoe leather costs for technological reasons offset part of the normal cost of inflation, which helped make people less intolerant of it.
Is it really a coincidence that inflation began to rise as the cash point machine, as popularized by Mr Varney, became more widely used? I think not.
There’s a second effect of its spread, however, which has only become appreciated in light of the rise in behavioural economics.
The easier availability of cash has reduced one constraint on our spending. Before Mr Varney used the cash point, impulse buying of good or sessions down the pub were constrained by the fact that cash was hard to obtain. After that fateful day, however, the constraint came down. If you think of consumers as rational far-sighted maximizers the effect on spending should have been minimal. But if people lack self-control, the spread of the ATM would have raised spending.
Maybe, then, Mr Varney is partly to blame for the low savings ratio.
His impact upon the economy has, therefore, been arguably quite malevolent. But then, he is not the only great TV character of whom this can be said.
Olive - Reg's sister in OTB - was pretty unattractive.
Except before she got the job she was a stripper in a club and very succesful too. It would appear she had to put on about 20 Kgs to do the part.
Posted by: kinglear | November 17, 2008 at 03:22 PM
IIRC Reg's character wan't the lazy one, it was his Brother-In-Law who was laways looking to skive and work an angle.
You could also say that the Inspector was also bad for the perception that all superfisors/forman/managers are incompetent.
Posted by: The Great Simpleton | November 17, 2008 at 05:28 PM
The ATM really touched the right spot in the realm of consumer behavior that stimulated easy and efficient spending - not to mention credit cards. But spending is also good for the economy - especially those at the receiving end. Now if only we could spend more but pay actually less for something relatively of high value.
Posted by: Bruce - MyEmployee | November 17, 2008 at 07:04 PM
"His portrayal of Stan Butler did much to perpetuate the image of the 1970s worker as a bone-idle work-dodger"
Not forgetting the contribution made by the film: I'm all right, Jack, to the later reforms of industrial relations by the Thatcher governments:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAii8tPrwtQ
But the academy award for stardom must undoubtedly go to:
"Derek Robinson, or 'Red Robbo' as he was dubbed by the media, became synonymous with the strikes which crippled production at the Longbridge plant in Birmingham in the 1970s."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/693309.stm
Posted by: Bob B | November 17, 2008 at 07:48 PM
Economic woes in terms of Reg Varney. Hmmm. Interesting theory.
Posted by: jameshigham | November 17, 2008 at 09:26 PM
He might have been part of the 'short people are in command' ie he was the driver. And tall people do the running around ie the conductor.
Though napoleon wasn't a bus driver as far as I knw.
Posted by: john cramer | November 18, 2008 at 04:14 AM
There was also "A Home of Your Own," which featured inept workmen, and had been released a few tears earlier. Despite being a comedy, it was apparently shown in Germany as a straightforward documentary of British industrial relations.
Posted by: Hilary Wade | November 18, 2008 at 09:53 AM
I do so look forward to all those hilarious movies that will surely be made about the credit crunch, the incentive bonuses for wayward bankers and the failing financial institutions.
I mean, George Bush seriously believes that Free Market Capitalism - with regulation, of course - is the best way to go while they discuss whether to nationalize American motor manufacturers to save them from bankruptcy. Early news broadcasts suggested growing concerns on the part of Republicans about creating all those moral hazards that will afflict the American automotive industry but which, somehow, didn't inhibit pouring billions of American taxpayer Dollars into failing banks and the nationalization of AIG.
Poor guy, he obviously lacks a sense of humour.
Posted by: Bob B | November 18, 2008 at 11:56 AM
I've tried but can't understand why Free Market Capitalism hasn't solved long ago the problem of the pirates off Somalia.
Remember all that stuff about whether insurance and shipping companies banded together to provide maritime lighthouses as private ventures to signal harbours and hazards following Coase's seminal paper on: The Problem of Social Costs?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lighthouse_in_Economics
Safe passage for merchant ships on the high seas without the threat of capture by pirates is surely a Public Good? Right?
With the manifest failure of governments to curb piracy off Somalia so far, how come insurance and shipping companies haven't stepped in and got together to provide a solution just like Coase said they would in his seminal paper: The Problem of Social Costs (Journal of Law and Economics, October 1060)?
http://www.sfu.ca/~allen/CoaseJLE1960.pdf?
Could it be that Coase was wrong about private provision of Public Goods?
Posted by: Bob B | November 19, 2008 at 12:12 PM
"An anti-piracy watchdog has welcomed the destruction of a suspected Somali pirate vessel in the Gulf of Aden by an Indian navy warship."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7739171.stm
But wasn't that just another example of outrageous state intervention in a situation which should have been resolved by Free Market Capitalism? (-;
Posted by: Bob B | November 20, 2008 at 02:43 PM