The invisible hand maimed by fashion?
We have been making a textbook on political philosophy this summer and that process has made me think and rethink a host of issues yet again. One thing I would like to share with you is the following.
Even the staunchest socialist will have to admit that most of the human history has economically worked under some kind of market-based ( Read more... )
"The public gets what the public wants."
So if people wouldn’t have wanted Adolf Hitler for their leader they wouldn’t have gotten him... Yes. So true. If people wouldn’t have suddenly wanted to start smoking cigarettes from the 20’s to 80’s they would have never begun to smoke and thence continue buying smoking products. So true. But somehow most individuals collectively stopped wishing to smoke during the 90’s... Were these all individual decisions, emblems of a particular individuals deepest personal desires - or something created by some totally different instances and just given to us from above? I will just bypass the Hypermarket-issue for now as that would take 100 pages...
And that was indeed one of the things I was wishing to say. Yes you’re right that we the people make the decisions and the markets will then supply what we crave for. But what is it that we want and why we want exactly the things we want?
I do believe that the marketing companies have a lot to do with what we feel we need and what we want -they're not the only ones, but powerful indeed. They can create those wishes pretty professionally. Like your own example on the wish to buy the latest fashions and accessories. So people wouldn’t buy them if they didn’t want them? Right. Two brands come to my mind as nice examples straight away: Converse and Lacoste.
My father played basketball in a team during 50’s and coached a junior team after his ankle got bad. He had Converse shoes because they were the American brand which all the cool players fex. ones in “Harlem Globetrotters” used. I started playing basketball during the 70’s and my father showed me his old shoes telling me what they stood for - and bought me a pair of Converses. They were cheap then and basically no one else used them. And no one thought anything about Converse shoes in 80’s or 90’s either. They were junk, sale-stuff from the second class cheap markets.
But today - or at least a year or two ago they were again so hip and cool - and look at the prices! So are the Converse shoes of today so much better by quality or so much cheaper that people have decided to purchase them now, to want them now because of it? No, they are ten times more expensive and will not last even a year - unlike those bought in 70’s... not to talk of those bought in 50’s. I used my dad’s shoes bought in 50’s in our backyard games in 70’s and they were just fine!
So the decisions to purchase the shoes of this brand over the other are not guided by reason: good quality & good price - like Adam Smith’s theory presupposes for free market economy to work (which was the initial concern of my entry) - but on other considerations. Now where do these “wills” and wishes come from? From us as individuals or from the marketing firms and fashion?
Let’s take the Lacoste -case, shortly. Early 80’s Lacoste was the coolest one could have. It was associated with expensive yachts, playing golf (then pretty exclusive sport yet) and high-class living in general (Why? Because they were marketed as such). They cost big money and one could show s/he was something if s/he had a Lacoste shirt - they wore them in Miami Vice! During the 90’s some of the poor wore Lacoste as they were cheap and in those same second class cheap market sale -stuff but not many even of them. No one would have dared to enter a golf-club countryhouse with a Lacoste shirt then! But how is it now? With some big money the brand has been polished and the shirts are wanted again - and will cost decent sums... So have the shirts changed, have they become so much better? Or has it been our minds that have been reset to want them once again with expensive advertising campaigns?
So “the public gets what the public wants”, sure you’re right - after it is told / taught what to want... ;)
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