This skateboarding economist suggests we need less capitalism and more skateparks : Planet Money : NPR

This first appeared in the Planet Money newsletter. You can sign up here.

“Skateboarding Ethics and the Anti-Capitalist Spirit” was the title of an unusual paper presented at this year’s American Economists Annual Meeting. The title was clearly a reference to German sociologist and economist Max Weber’s famous 1905 book, The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. And I really wanted to know what this economist claims and even more importantly who he is.

This year’s economic conference was held at a hotel in San Francisco’s Union Square area. It was raining heavily on the first day of the conference, so I ran from my hotel to another hotel down the street to see this paper being presented.

I walked into the small conference room in the basement, soaking wet, before the presentation started. “Is this the place where skateboarding newspapers are published?” I asked the room.

Sure enough, the Gen “Okay, here’s my essay on skateboarding,” he said.

This man in the tweed jacket and Vans was Thomas Kemp. He is an economist at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. Kemp has been skateboarding for 40 years and says he still skates as much as he can (he also snowskates, since skating can be difficult in Wisconsin’s winters).

Kempf had been publishing fairly standard economics papers for a long time. Papers with titles such as “The Impact of Water Clarity on Housing Prices in Northwestern Wisconsin” and “Estimating Product Price Elasticity of Demand.”

“When I was in graduate school, I was actually thinking of writing about skateboarding, but I was told, ‘That’s not a good idea,'” Kemp says. But Kemp is now more established. In fact, he is the head of the economics department, so he actively works on the topics he is most passionate about.

Kemp’s transformation began several years ago when he discovered the burgeoning academic literature on skateboarding. “I was just amazed, ‘Wow, people are doing academic research on skateboarding,'” Kemp says. And that’s when he performed a 180 kickflip.

“I literally dropped all my other jobs and started writing my dissertation on skateboarding,” Kemp says.

skate park value

Kemp currently publishes a series of business papers about skateboarding. A paper recently published in the Journal of Economic Analysis is titled “Shred Central: Estimating the User Benefits Associated with Large-Scale Public Skate Parks.” Mr. Kemp estimated the benefits to consumers of the Lauridsen Skatepark in Des Moines, Iowa. At 88,000 square feet, this skatepark is the largest skatepark in the United States.

One of the problems with skatepark economics is that it’s hard to know how much skateparks are actually worth because they’re usually free to use. This is a common problem in public facilities such as parks, beaches, and rec centers. Determining the value of a skatepark is important, for example, to determine whether a community should build more skateparks and how large and elaborate those skateparks should be. Despite the sport’s popularity, with an estimated 9 million skateboarders in the United States, “public resources spent on skateboarding are often diverted from other leisure activities such as softball, tennis, and soccer.” “We are far behind,” Kemp wrote.

Kemp argues that the distance skaters (as well as BMXers, rollerbladers, and other recreational enthusiasts) are willing to travel to get to a skatepark is a good way to estimate the value of a skatepark. Traveling takes time and money, so the distance a user is willing to travel is an indicator of how much they think a skatepark is worth.

In “Shred Central,” Kemp investigates skateboarders at Lauridsen Skatepark and finds that they “travel long distances at great expense to ride in a park of higher perceived quality.” . Based on park usage and distance traveled figures, Kemp estimates the skate park’s user benefits at “$61 per user per day, or about $488,000 per year.” This high estimate of the value of skateparks suggests that there is a shortage of quality skateparks across the country and that community leaders need to build more. I am. Rad!

“Skateboarding ethics and anti-capitalist spirit”

Max Weber, in his 1905 book The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, wrote that Protestant Christianity, especially Calvinism, promoted ethics such as frugality and hard work, which led to the development of capitalism in Northern Europe. He claimed that it promoted the birth and rapid economic growth.

Skateboarders, like Protestants, have their own set of ethics, Kemp argues, that can influence their economic lives. And in Kemp’s view, such ethics can come into conflict with capitalism. For example, skateboarders have been known to skate in front of private property and businesses in search of cool, skateable features. One of the reasons community leaders have been building skateparks is to encourage skaters to skate in sanctioned areas that have less impact on business.

Kemp sees a similar process in stickball and baseball throughout history. During his presentation, Kemp showed a photo of baseball legend Willie Mays playing stickball on the street as a young man. Like skateboarding, many leaders considered stickball a nuisance that disrupted commerce, Kemp said. Children blocked roads and disrupted traffic to play games. They hit balls, dented cars, and even broke windows. According to Kemp, this “stimulus for commerce” inspired local communities to start building baseball diamonds in local parks and institutionalize baseball into a more organized, less chaotic baseball league. It became.

“It seems to me that the movement toward creating skate parks is following a similar trajectory to stickball being incorporated into baseball,” he says. “That said, skateboarding has been around for over 50 years now, and so far skateboarding seems relatively unaffected by that institutionalization. It’s probably just as common to see people skateboarding around town as it is to board.

Kemp was the last person to present a paper during this particular conference session. The papers presented before him were less than pleasant, highlighting the physical and mental health problems plaguing our society, including depression, anxiety, and rising deaths of despair. . The authors blamed economic and health systems that “put profits ahead of people’s health” for exacerbating these problems.

In important ways, skateboarding is a product of capitalism. For decades, commercial companies have been developing and manufacturing better skate decks, trucks, and wheels. They’ve been marketing the sport. They popularized it. Now more accessible. Kemp acknowledges that. But he also believes there is an ethic within skateboarding culture that helps people overcome challenges they may face in a capitalist society.

Kemp says the skateboarding ethic is “an ethic of resilience. You fall down, you get back up and you do it again.” It is an ethic of “self-improvement.” Skateboarders are always trying to do different tricks. Trying to do tricks better and with more style. We’re trying to do that in different places. They are comparing themselves to others. My past self, not necessarily other skateboarders. ”And that’s an ethic that has little to do with competing with others. Skateboarding is a non-zero-sum game, he says. “In other words, if I nail the trick, it doesn’t matter that other skateboarders don’t nail the trick. I’m not competing with them. I don’t win, they win. Either we lose, or I lose and they lose.” No, we all compare ourselves to who we were before and hopefully win. ”

Kemp suggests that skateboarding can help build our resilience. It helps us increase our pride in ourselves. It helps fight isolation and build community. And it helps us exercise, reduce stress, find joy, and break out of the 9-to-5 job.

“Skateboarding teaches us something about living life in these difficult times we’re in,” Kemp says.

Fittingly, Kemp’s presentation took place in San Francisco, widely known as one of the best and most hardcore skateboarding cities in the world. Skaters here are known for “bombing” hills like daredevils, reaching high speeds and pulling off incredible tricks. And the city really started to embrace skateboarding. For example, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art currently has a skateboarding exhibit called “Unity Through Skateboarding” (which my son and wife apparently had a lot of fun with while I was at the conference).

“San Francisco is legendary,” Kemp said. “Obviously, this is a work trip, but if I can, I’ll enjoy skating while I’m here.”