The invisible hand maimed by fashion?

[nogrod]

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

Comments

[nogrod]

"The problem is that what the individual wants is not necessarily good for society as a whole. So, do you make available what people want or what you think that they ought to have? And who makes that decision?"

You’re clearly luring me into the question whether a “party” should decide what people should want or not. ;)

No, I’m not referring to Stalinism or Maoism or anything like that as a solution. I’m indeed wishing to see something like a free market outlined by Adam Smith in the 18th century (with the individual consumer weighing the purchase-decisions on quality - including aesthetic quality - and price & some crucial and strong political controls adhering to minimum wages, working conditions and environmental-issues etc.)! Sad to say but we have a “party” that makes those decisions today on behalf of us and those are the advertising firms... Without their guidance we wouldn’t know what to want.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that the commercials just recalibrate every individual’s brain to buy what they are told to. There are a lots of things in between the advertisement and the effect of wanting something in an individual mind. Other people are the most important one. When one thinks or hears that the others want something he tends to want it too - like little kids in the sandbox: when one has a toy X everyone wants it not because they would want it just out of nothing but they want it because someone else has it and values it. That’s primarily the reason why people quit smoking these days - or never start in the first place - as it’s generally thought stupid (which it is). I’m not sure how encouraging I should deem this fact to be. Is it great because the reason will conquer the stupid-ideas or whether it’s just that people do not wish to smoke anymore because they think others think it a bad habit and wish to join the larger group? I mean the grim interpretation is that the tobacco-companies managed to lure us into smoking for 70+ years and were diverted from their success by people actually dying from their products and the others only then realising with this single instance that we should believe other parties than just the advertisement-companies! (Yes, I do smoke myself, have done so from the mid 80’s and see no way of quitting even if I wanted to - and who wants here?)

Gah! There are so many open leads from here. Maybe we come back to them later...

[nogrod]

Individual’s wishes vs. the society’s good as a whole? A common dualism and an important one. But I would just wish to add one more thing. We oftentimes associate the individual in this dualism to ourselves and think of the individual as the good one (looking at ourselves as individuals) and then we refer the society or groups or “masses” to something faceless and abstract - and bad or at least antagonistic to the welfare of the individual. Just look at any Hollywood action movie or American TV-police series to confirm this emotional tie you’ll bring in with it (“24”, “V” - sic!). But from the other point of view the bare-bones of society or a group is only a host of just as important individuals, everyone of them the center of the world to themselves just like the one we have put under our microscope to look at one time and to live with in fiction - or whom we think we are ourselves. Think of the basic usable “villain” in an action film whose duty is just to die when the hero jumps from behind one corner to the other one and guns him down - or better still: the villagers around the Sherwood forest in the tales of Robin Hood! Where is their individuality? How much do we care about them suffering - individually - from the harrassment that comes as a revenge from Robin Hood’s heroism? We may feel general pity on them but still we’re with Robin, not with the villager X or Y who lost everything even if they’re individual persons as well...

The labels from the era of Stalinism and Maoism hangs over our thinking - I mean the ways in which we tend to associate anything that is communal or social as not good, as not us - as not me. Funnily even as many of us abhor anything “communitaristic” in political speech many of us still enjoy the little festivities put up together by a small village or the voluntary work between neighbours in a block of flats to clean the shared backyard or looking after each other’s kids... or to have a voluntarily built up scout-summercamp or whatever - some of us even dare to love some other people! They are all social and communitarian things, those we remember as good things as we were there together and leaned on each other... and trusted on each other, shared things with each other.

[tgwbs]

I think you're right when you say that what we want to buy is what we're told we want to buy. If nobody was there to create fashionable goods and then tell us they were fashionable, nobody would spontaneously create this season's new boots or jackets or whatever.

Even people like me who claim not to be too affected by adverts are, in reality, very affected. If there's a choice between buying a big brand and an equally priced unknown brand, we go for the big brand that we've heard of.

It's also hard to stick to principles because what we want is so affected by what others have, and what others have is affected by what the media tells them they want! Do I need a mobile, for example? I have one to use in emergencies in case anything should happen to me but I don't want to be constantly available - I like my private time. Do I need an iPod because all my friends have one? I can play music at home, and when I'm travelling I like to read.