As a life-long guitarist, and skeptic of capitalism, I have an anecdote: I own a few high-quality guitars. They have served me well for many a decade, and they are still in perfect condition. Why buy any more guitars?
Perhaps the total number of guitars in circulation is enough? Businesses seem to think that there should be infinite growth forever, but that seems ridiculous to me. I don't think capitalism has a good answer to this problem. Obviously the manufacturers wish for people to buy more and more guitars every year or they go out of business. How can we reward them for a job well done now that more aren't needed?
That would be my question, too. People were puzzled when tablet sales came to a crawl, until they started to consider whether people stopped buying them because they were good enough and still worked.
I mean realistically, how many guitars does one need? I'm an amateur bass player. I have a cheap-ass practice bass and, if I get some pocket change, I may buy a $1500 professional bass. I would think that should last me for the next ten years or so. If I become a professional musician, I might buy more, but for your average slob, that's really not tenable.
My personal answer to "how many guitars do you need?" is basically one for each tuning that I use regularly. Unless it's simply changing one string from E to D, re-tuning a whole guitar is a pain in the ass and just being able to swap guitars is a lot nicer. I have one for standard tuning, one tuned like a cello, and one in open D-minor.
I do admit if you're playing a bass guitar this rule isn't as applicable.
My dad loves to tell a story about a Q&A session with Norm Abram of PBS [Edit: This Old House, New Yankee Workshop] fame, which your answer reminds me of. Why does Norm own an entire drawer full of routers?
Well, he used to ask himself the same question. All these companies kept giving him free tools as a promotion. Especially routers. He had dozens of them. WTF do I need all these routers for?
It occurred to him that if at the start of a project you put a bit into a router and don't touch it until the end of the project, all of your routed edges will match exactly. Even if you screw up and have to redo a piece. So he kept enough routers to do that. He still gets teased about it by his coworkers though.
Hey, I also have one of my guitars tuned in fifth ~like a cello From low to high CGDAAe, with custom gauge strings to match the neck tension. One A is wound, the other is full...
CGDAEE. I like the ringing unison of the highest E. I also have a piecemeal set of strings for tensions as well, starting with what I think is a .062 for the low C, and a .010 for the high Es.
How do you do the cello tuning? Assuming you're not using a tenor guitar, it's CGDA on the lowest four, then do you just keep going up in 5ths to EB for the last two strings or do something else?
A high `B` string wouldn't last 10 minutes... I've seen schemes that have a G there, I went for two CGDAAE, which is not too hard a change from the usual guitar tuning (though I ultimately dedicated a guitar to that tuning, as did the GP).
The high end guitars are usually pretty boring, but it's really nice to have one or two. I'd rather have a decent variety, but one or two of those can by a high quality guitar. My favorite guitar is still my 60s Norma (Teisco) with gold foil pickups. Other favorites include 80s Korean Squier with new pickups, 60s Yamaha acoustic, 60s 1444 Silvertone/Danelectro bass. A lot of the new Fender/Squier guitars are really interesting too.
I'd probably buy a nice Les Paul Jr, Tele, or Ric, and it'd probably be my main guitar, but owning 10k+ worth of Les Pauls sounds boring.
Be sure you like finished fretboards before buying a new Rickenbacker. There are unfinished fretboard models--some 620's and some walnut ones--but they are the exception.
I love my 360/6, but all the other guitars you list have unfinished fretboards.
Well, I'll bet you bought at least one of those guitars, didn't you? Welcome to the capital market. If guitar makers can't sell guitars, and do something else instead, then that's no less capitalistic.
It is entirely possible to be a skeptic of capitalism, its application and its effects while engaging in a market in which capitalists provide goods and services. It is also possible to do so and sell your own labour-power (which is what workers do). To say that one's skepticism or criticism is invalid because of participation is equivalent to saying that the feudal serf may not complain about his position: after all, his pick and clothes were provided by his lord. He ought to be grateful!
> I don't think capitalism has a good answer to this problem.
Let me put on my capitalist apologist hat.
It used to be the case that people bought light bulbs regularly. When I grew up, my parents had a cache of incandescent light bulbs - then they started buying fluorescent lights and we replaced bulbs much less often. Now, they're starting to buy LED lights and I don' think an LED has ever 'burned out' on them.
The revenues are down, but as people shift from buying disposable light bulbs to durable light bulbs, they're willing to pay more for better bulbs.
So now manufacturers are competing on building better bulbs / bulbs that are more valuable. It's a really good thing for the world, we're using fewer resources and making a better product.
I don't know much about guitars but I'd bet it's better to make high quality guitars than low quality guitars right now. And you're absolutely right that we're getting closer to the 'right amount' of guitars in the world. At some point, we'll really only need to build guitars to replace ones that we lose.
The capitalist answer to businesses who count on infinite growth is "market correction". Either guitar makers will find a way to stay in business or they'll go bankrupt and free up resources for better use.
Aren't incandescent light bulbs pretty much the poster child of the problems with capitalism's expectations of infinite growth? It is possible to create incandescent light bulbs with extremely long life time, but it doesn't make much economic sense, so no one does.
Choose your own adventure on whether this is a good or bad thing.
I'd defend the light industry as an example of creative destruction, candles and lanterns gave way to incandescent, florescent, and L.E.D.
I have no doubt that someone nerfed their incandescent bulbs to make more money, but that probably made it easier for people to buy alternatives so good riddence.
It's akin to oil - the oil producers had their day in the sun when it was $100 barrel but because it was $100/barrel, people started to talk about how to use less oil or extract hydrocarbons more cheaply.
Now we have electric cars and fracking. Sure, capitalism is the reason OPEC got greedy, but capitalism is the reason we explored alternatives.
If it's an ideology, capitalism is best practiced as 'understanding the questions' than 'knowing the answers'. The questions capitalists should ask are 1) how do I add value? 2) How do I capture enough value to invest in adding more value?
If they think the answer to their questions is "make enough money that it doesn't matter" they're going to walk the same road to hell that Enron, Worldcom, and Saudi Arabia find themselves on.
Musical instruments are one area where "services" are quite valuable. Anyone with enough time and effort could learn to play entirely on their own and maintain (or build) their own instrument, but for many people it makes sense to take lessons and to pay someone to repair or adjust their instrument as needed. This is one reason why guitar shops are at least partially protected from being driven out of business by Amazon: most have a guitar technician on staff who can troubleshoot problems and fix things.
Hush! Don't speak of such things, or before you know it there will be DRM enforced IoT dongles with 4G cellular radios, requiring a subscription plan and annual fee before the guitar pick-ups will serialize their signal to a 1/4 inch patch cable.
Perhaps the total number of guitars in circulation is enough? Businesses seem to think that there should be infinite growth forever, but that seems ridiculous to me. I don't think capitalism has a good answer to this problem. Obviously the manufacturers wish for people to buy more and more guitars every year or they go out of business. How can we reward them for a job well done now that more aren't needed?