When it comes to what the big companies feed us in ads: C-R-A-P. Hard to believe that we accept it but I reckon people do; and yet others I am sure do not. But how many are there in each group? It is another very bizarre thing how these companies pay for millions of dollars of advertising. If that was deducted, we would pay less for the item we are buying. I will estimate about 30% expenditure as ratio of total income received. So, on the consumer side we could pay 30% less if there was no advertising.
Marketing, packaging and advertising: all of this is a huge part of the expenditure (for both companies and consumers) and so extra money is paid for all of this and, as said, we accept it and therefore the consumers feel it is a high price that comes with the territory. Capitalism is very exploitative. The advertising helps the companies get a firmer grip on — who? ~ on us. It is we who are the ones they want to have the grip on. Is it “we” and “they”? The companies (guilty) want to have a hold on us and we (innocent) are the ones who pay for this. (Wow. I guess it is not just teenagers who are being “groomed” to join the trassexuals. We have been groomed for capitalism. For many years already.) The whole complex process by which goods are manufactured, marketed, and sold—? ~ we did not choose it.
That consumers did not choose it derails the whole theory. Where is the “free” part of the capitalism system? The whole theory is in question. These are questions they do not ask. Theoretical failure is a reality companies can simply overlook, elide, not accept. They do not discuss this utter failure of “free market” ideas, so who well? Somebody needs to discuss it the fact that entire array of marketing and sales techniques did not happen because thousands of persons chose it. The classic theories that are concerned with market competition are no longer applicable, if these things do not conform to market choice notions. But it occures to me that there is a type of competition, which is to say the competition for the domination of other persons' minds. That is not free market economics at all. If the companies don't let go of this foolishness, it is a dead end policy.
The crap the corporations feed you is the theme we started this essay on. That C-R-A-P is not all that savory and I do not see it for the most part as all that persuasive. There are (artistically) good T. V. commercials as well: sure, locked in an archive somewheres. Something that only advertising agencies collect. They show them in an awards ceremony; but I do not see those ads being seen on the broad market, by the television audience, the ones the advertisers think they are corralling. Those ads may be of a better quality but they are not a major part of the quest for profit --- and so the two roads divide. The choices are made by the companies and made at our expense because of course we pay for it.
There is something scandalous here as the companies debase themselves and show us what they are about. The more money they make the lower they fall, but they are not getting any smarter. No, the American business concerns do not get smarter. (They also claim they are "limber"?) No, the companies are run by whack-ass imbeciles, and so they are no market and it indicates that there are these private individuals who are simply forcing people to listen to their propaganda. This is in the same way as if they selling drugs. (Big Pharma, too, I reckon.) The result of a “drug” (on the street) is that you feel good, but alas it only for a short time. Then it is over. But the profits do not stop, for which there are consequences. Not good ones. They need to ease up.
These are not market consequences. That is no longer relevant, not anymore it isn’t. We become psychologically conditioned — one may say addicted, or not. Call it what you will. But you can say our minds are more or less “addicted” to the products. They aren't selling products; it is domination of others’ minds. They are selling mind domination.
We have trade minds, hive minds, desire minds. In short, we have the modern mind. We make trades; we make ten trades a day. It is that our shopping behavior generates commercial sales. That is our main human activity, and it is no longer the valid free market situation that there might be some justification for, with goods and their price and with the results of supply and demand on prices. That's no longer happening — but we buy a beer, we buy a coffee, we buy dinner. We are always dishing out money. That we give them money is psychological. We want others to like or respect us. Believe me, I think this is so. This is not economics, it is psychology. We don’t have an economic system; we used to have one of those.
This psychology cannot be put into a context of markets anymore. That is not happening. It is not within the market condition. But if it is no free market principle, it is not "humanistic" expression, because those are linked (McCloskey understands it, but she thinks the free market condition still exists). It isn't flexible enough for that, and neither is it balanced or natural. The free market theories exist, but those theories do not describe this. If we go back to the sixties, even when our humanism is fully invested in trade, maybe in the 1960s, still the advertisers do not love us, and yet we go to them for comfort. Why go there for comfort? We pay them. You wanna lay you head on the shoulder of an advertiser? There is a 30% premium on all of what we buy, all the products — “items.” It isn't a functional "market." Well—then what is it? It could be called the American market lifestyle based on the past. The market ideas of the past, however, do not reflect current affairs. We keep on paying the same huge old companies and they just keep raising the prices. Should I call that a “market lifestyle”? Or is the idea of a "market lifestyle" more properly something from the sixties or seventies? It is so trivial ---and, perhaps, that is the scandal.
Capitalism is not a lifestyle. It's a means of production. It has no justification unless it does some kind of good for the community.
In the history of economic thought, all of the good ideas have been lost. And what are we left with—? ~ terrible corporations, terrible economics.
[p.s. no idea how to maximize functionality of sub-stack post or advertise or something but I will just post a new one as I try to migrate here… Unfortunately I also felt I needed to edit after a week, which is not very slick. Is it.] (note that this was edited, and improved, on 9/26/2023)