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I tend to agree, but there's a missing element in this economic model, though one that others have mentioned (cf. sunahsuh's comment): marketing. If you look at
by mvzink 15y ago
I tend to agree, but there's a missing element in this economic model, though one that others have mentioned (cf. sunahsuh's comment): marketing. If you look at Marx, or even Smith, it's clear that the wants and demands of the consumers are not always organic, but are often fabricated by the companies themselves. Smith thought this was cool, Marx thought it was evil; in any case, you are right to some extent, but few people go out of their way to buy something they haven't been told they want.
- rglullis 15y agoI'm not so sure Smith thought it was cool: "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary."
- mvzink 15y agoIt's possible you're right, but that quote is irrelevant. That's about monopolies, specifically in the form of trade associations. Smith thought any kind of monopolies—trusts, unions, import duties—were bad, that's for sure. I was talking about fabricated demand, which I don't have a quote for because I don't have my notes or copies of Wealth of Nations or Theory of Moral Sentiments with me at the moment. But my basic argument, even if he didn't explicitly treat the subject, would be that fabricated demand is an accumulation of capital, thereby increasing national opulence, which Smith holds as the highest good.
- JonnieCache 15y agoThe person responsible for this, and much of the modern world, is Edward Bernays, the "father of public relations". He got most of his ideas from his uncle, Sigmund Freud. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
- rakete 15y agoEveryone interested in Bernays and how modern Marketing and Public Relations came into existence (and how they are used to control/manipulate us) should take the time and watch the four part BBC documentation 'The Century of the Self' by Adam Curtis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyPzGUsYyKM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyPzGUsYyKM
- polshaw 15y agotwitter and ipad strongly come to mind here. (whored by the media vastly more than they marketed themselves).
- flomo 15y ago> marketing Exactly. When I was a child, Lego held the patent on the plastic brick and therefore could sell bland collections of 4x2s at enormously inflated prices. When the patent expired, the market was flooded with clone bricks at greatly reduced prices. Lego floundered a bit before figuring out their value was no longer technology but instead "brand recognition". Since then Lego has been primarily a marketing-oriented company. In fact, "bricks" aren't even close to their main product anymore and only really exists as a branding element at this point. It would be great if some Chinese company sold huge tubs of quality bricks for a penny each. But it's not going to be from Lego.