Axulus
Veteran Member
You are being really vague here. Operate in what way? Always operate in that fashion? In every possible market one can imagine? Perhaps some markets can, and others can't?
-
Features
Time to stop being a consumer...
- Thread starter bilby
- Start date
You are being really vague here. Operate in what way? Always operate in that fashion? In every possible market one can imagine? Perhaps some markets can, and others can't?
maxparrish
Veteran Member
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2005
- Messages
- 2,262
- Location
- SF Bay Area
- Basic Beliefs
- Libertarian-Conservative, Agnostic.
Fear not, it's never too late to learn how urban legends are born - in this case from an author that whose agenda is something other than the truth. This particular do-gooder meme was debunked a few decades ago, but still walks as a Zombie that will not die.
From Rutger's law journal one can peruse a 60 page paper on the myth:
http://www.pointoflaw.com/articles/The_Myth_of_the_Ford_Pinto_Case.pdf
Or one can look at a few points of summary: http://newmarksdoor.typepad.com/mainblog/2005/07/the_pinto_myth.html
And as it turned out, although collision caused rear end fires were higher for the Pinto compared to the majority of other sub-compacts, it was not the worst. Moreover, the Pinto was merely average when compared to all cars. Finally, itt was not hundreds that died from rear-end accidents starting a fire, but 27 deaths over six years.
No one denies that Pinto had a distinctive design problem of concern, as did all the sub-compacts of the era (each with a different safety problem). But the claim that Pinto was a "fire-trap" was false.
Last edited:
arkirk
Veteran Member
"Self regulation " is as American as apple pie from Mrs. Smith. Self regulation has all sorts of reasons it cannot work. An industry will always favor the most profitable policy for itself. You speak of the market as if it were some sort of unified self correction machine when actually it is an economic battleground and consumers often are collateral casualties.
Earlier in this thread, it was suggested that if the government determined what research would be funded, it would lack the imagination and drive only competition can provide. It looks to me like quite the opposite is true. It took an activist and government intervention to make the car makers even bother with seat belts.
untermensche
Contributor
It seems to me that consumerism is associated with irrationality.
We see it in the advertising. Not the cold hard facts but a bunch of emotional imagery.
It is keeping up with Jones's. Buying a car based on it's looks. Getting the latest iPhone when the one you have does more than you need.
It would be a good thing if consumerism was replaced with rational markets. But that would require people who valued rationality. That is not most Americans.
We see it in the advertising. Not the cold hard facts but a bunch of emotional imagery.
It is keeping up with Jones's. Buying a car based on it's looks. Getting the latest iPhone when the one you have does more than you need.
It would be a good thing if consumerism was replaced with rational markets. But that would require people who valued rationality. That is not most Americans.
My points all apply to the claim that corporations aren't in a vast conspiracy and effort to foist unwanted products onto us. They ARE in such a conspiracy and effort. They pay millions of dollars in lobbying fees toward the conspiracy and millions of dollars in advertising to the effort.
Whether consumers hold any responsibility in repelling this conspiracy and effort is irrelevant to the fact that it exists, in spades.
To demonstrate that they are not strictly after a market that already wants and only needs to decide on brand but rather are after people who did not even want prior to hearing from the advertising juggernaut, I point you to infant formula pushed in hospital maternity wards. Breastfeeding is not always easy to start, but once started it is far healthier, cheaper and more convenient than formula. Most new mothers would not want or need formula without having it pushed onto them. The advertisers study their market and push ~hard!~ at that moment when they have a weaker resistance to their unnecessary product, knowing that if they can exploit that moment, they have trapped their quarry (milk production stops).
I would point you also to advertising campaigns to "capture new markets," where by definition the quarry is not in a position of already wanting, but the corporation spends millions (hundreds of millions!) to create a want. The fearmongering tactics of Goldline are classic in this, as are cigarette company ads (ironically, "safemongering"). Yes, Goldline is a goldbug that advertises on conservative radio.
I won't spend time on products like pet rocks, crystal health pendants, fuzzy dice and fabric softeners, I'll just list them.
And again - children's cereal advertised directly to children to create a want.
AthenaAwakened
Contributor
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2003
- Messages
- 5,354
- Location
- Right behind you so ... BOO!
- Basic Beliefs
- non-theist, anarcho-socialist
So this episode from almost 40 years ago that the liberal left can't wait to bring up at every opportunity had absolutely zero impact on future vehicle safety and recall decisions?
This chart below has nothing to do with demand?
It has a lot to do with demand of better cars. Demands that are not by any stretch of the imagination purely economic. Demands were also made for better regulations all along the way all the while the car companies complained that the new regulations would cost them too much money. Nor does that chart negate the conscious decision by the Ford motor company to delay doing anything about a car they knew was dangerous because the cost of settling individual cases was seen as acceptable and the lives of customers expendable.
AthenaAwakened
Contributor
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2003
- Messages
- 5,354
- Location
- Right behind you so ... BOO!
- Basic Beliefs
- non-theist, anarcho-socialist
What video Loren? Did i post a video?
It was a video of a straw-man being erected.
Derec
Contributor
Or overpriced Apple products. A fool and his (or hers, Apple is particularly popular with women) money are soon parted ...
Jimmy Higgins
Contributor
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2001
- Messages
- 46,730
- Basic Beliefs
- Calvinistic Atheist
Yeah, strawmen burn pretty quicky and are prone to catching fire near pyrotechnics.
Derec
Contributor
Indeed. These gold commercials are everywhere. A few years ago they switched to "we buy gold" from selling, but I think they are back to selling now.
Never.
I think so. If somebody is in a market for a car I can see them being influenced in part by advertising to consider a model they might not have considered before. But I can't see too many people consider buying a car just because of a clever ad. So the biggest effect of advertising should be shifting demand between competing products, not creating new demand.
However, marketing in general can cause certain brands (like Apple) to obtain "status symbol" cachet in excess o fits actual merit.
Derec
Contributor
What's wrong with considering looks among other features?
All things being equal, why is it irrational to prefer a good looking car to an ugly one?
Buying a beautiful car that is poorly built, doesn't meet your needs or that you can't afford is certainly irrational, but choosing a car (or any other product) that appeals to you aesthetically is certainly not.
So to the conservative or libertarian atheist an invisible sky daddy directing the affairs of men is a bunch of malarkey but an invisible hand guiding the affairs of men is perfectly legit.
:hmmm:
That's your choice, but remember what Mark Twain said, "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little influence in society."
I seldom wear a shirt, so between the two of us, we're nearly naked. It all evens out for people in cold climates who have to layer.
A free market can self regulate, but no one wants to allow it after they've seen it in action. Anytime it's cheaper to steal something than to produce it or buy it, the unregulated free market becomes the domain of pirates. It's only a short time before producers and consumers(always a lot of overlap in those categories) band together to create regulations(laws) and regulators(police) to efficiently prevent the pirates from stealing other people's stuff.
If one looks closely, one will see it's, always the pirates who complain loudest about regulations. Some things never change.
Derec
Contributor
It's a metaphor for the totality of market forces.
And of course this metaphorical hand is amoral which means that some government regulation is necessary to ward off undesirable actions of the invisible hand. On the other hand, government can also overregulate or regulate incompetently which is also not good.
Since advertising has been mentioned, strict advertising rules in many countries are an example of such overregulation. For example, you apparently can't show cars driving fast in England (looks like even 60 mph is "too fast"), New Zealand banned a moderately racy Carl Jr./Hardees hamburger ad and Swedish new lefty minority government wants to ban "sexist" ads, where "sexism" is defined in a predictably 2nd wave feminist fashion (any hint of sexualized female form is haram, but I doubt very much commercial showing sexualized scantily clad men will be affected).
I didn't say you posted a video. I'm saying the video that made the case was faked.
coloradoatheist
Veteran Member
Was that the Pinto or a different car?
untermensche
Contributor
The whole car buying process is full of irrationalities.
The advertising is little but emotional imagery and appeals to emotional desires.
Every year for some unknown reason the style must change. It is not enough to make functional improvements to an already aesthetically pleasing design.
Then when you go to buy the car for some reason the price is not fixed. What you pay depends on external knowledge and negotiating skills.
One irrationality on top of another.
The new car market is not a rational market.
maxparrish
Veteran Member
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2005
- Messages
- 2,262
- Location
- SF Bay Area
- Basic Beliefs
- Libertarian-Conservative, Agnostic.
You are channeling the old criticism (informed by Veblen) known as "The Dependence Effect", proposed by economist J.K. Galbraith in his 1958 book "The Affluent Society". At one time this book was frequently included in the required readings for intro Economic students. Like many trendy ideas, the popularity of the dependence effect was a product of it's age; whereas prior criticisms of capitalism by the left had been on its failure to produce plenty for the average man, the undeniable post-war affluence and creation of a broad middle class spurred folks like Galbraith to attack capitalism from another direction, for it's providing and encouraging the masses to buy far more things than he thought people needed.
These days most folks don't feel all that "affluent". Outside of the occasional housing co-op or rural commune, folks today are far more concerned with an anemic economy, security, and a lack of wage growth than with the sin of over consumption. Hence, this complaint seems rather antiquated.
Anyway, in 1961 economist Friedrick Hayek wrote a reply, The Non Sequitur of the "Dependence Effect" in the Southern Economic Journal that, to my mind, remains as the conclusive rejection of the Dependence Effect. Hayek pointed out many flaws, not the least of which was its meaningless conceptualization.
It is perfectly true that man has very few "innate" needs, perhaps as few as food, sheltering, and sex. And it is also true that most wants come from a desire (a want) to enjoy various objects and/or activities, such as music, reading, socializing with others (e.g. the Internet), theater, tasty food, drink, sports, recreation, etc. None of these things are essential to our basic existence...but they do make life far more pleasurable.
And none of these things would exist if we did not have culture ("learned and shared behavior") to both create and display folks enjoyment. Most of us would not have tried Jazz or Classical music, or read novels, or gone to a movie, or tried snow skiing, or gone to trendy restaurants if we had never been exposed to them by others (friends, fellow workers, media, news, etc.). "Learned and shared behavior" is the basis of all human culture and of civilization itself, and it requires no 'corporate conspiracy'.
Most wants for goods and services are not just for basic needs, nor are most on the extreme end due to purely a desire for "conspicuous consumption" (and to the extent they are, most are not created by advertising) - most wants exist because they are for something we find enjoyable and/or useful.
PS - Need more proof? In totalitarian communist societies western media and business advertising was banned and communication with Westerners was non-existent for the mass of their citizens. Yet, among others, Soviet citizens hungered for all those products and services you claim as being manufactured by corporations. Despite being saturated by communist brain-washing, they sought out (and black marketed) nylons, lipstick, levi jeans, rock and roll records, etc. ... and a few of the lucky ones even obtained a western automobile.
So much for the evil corporate conspiracy narrative...