Everyone dies, so it's likely that just about everyone will experience some sort of funeral or memorial service, probably in their own immediate family. Traditional funeral services with a casket and burial, however, are becoming increasingly expensive - and that's the way the burgeoning funeral industry wants it.

In Christianity Incorporated: How Big Business Is Buying the Church, Michael L. Budde and Robert W. Brimlow explain how larger corporations are buying up small funeral homes all over the nation, driving up costs, and making one of the most traumatic times in a family’s life even worse:

Industry analysts know that despite the huge expense of an American-style funeral — for many people their largest single expenditure other than a house or car — most people are ignorant of the funeral planning process and... are emotionally ill-equipped to resist the gentle suggestions and assistance of experienced funeral directors... “Customers typically conduct little, if any, comparative shopping and display a high degree of loyalty to firms to which they have been referred or which they have used previously. As a result, the industry tends to enjoy ‘significant pricing flexibility’” — which means firms may increase prices liberally without losing much business, according to industry stock analyst Susan Little.

A common sales tactic pioneered by Loewen is “Third Unit Target Merchandising.” Years of market research and experience have convinced Loewen’s sales planners that most consumers of caskets — usually the most expensive piece of a funeral package — will avoid the two cheapest models on display and buy the “third unit” from the bottom. After acquiring an independent funeral home, Loewen and other consolidators immediately raise casket prices, especially among the lower-end offerings, in order to boost sales revenue derived from the “third unit.”

To make inexpensive caskets as unattractive as possible, corporate homes usually keep economy models out of sight in rooms most consumers don’t know exist; for consumers who insist on seeing caskets cheaper than those on offer in the main showrooms, they are often escorted to dingy facilities to view models offered deliberately in hideous colors and styles (like “grasshopper green” or ugly shades of purple) in order to push them toward more expensive models.

Such tactics would be considered unethical and reprehensible (even if also legal) by most people even under the most benign of circumstances, but there is something especially vile and abhorrent about seeing them used in the context of funerals. There does not appear to be anything wrong with what such people are doing from the principles and perspective of market capitalism; that would suggest, however, that market capitalism is an insufficient basis upon which we can found social ethics and legal mores.

Budde and Brimlow are trying to make the larger point that when churches are responsible for funerals, these problems aren’t as likely to happen because goal of churches is supposed to be to help people. When making a profit becomes the primary goal, then whatever legal means needed to improve the bottom line will likely be used. I can’t deny that they have a point, but trend of corporations taking over roles traditionally filled by churches and small, local businesses will not likely change.

 

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