War Machine XII- The market
What is “the market?”
It is a given that the government of planet earth is a Plutocracy. We all know this. The Plutocracy asserts its authority through wealth, which is generated by “the market.” At one time, this entity was a phantom created by need and desire. People wanted a particular product, merchants supplied that product, and people exchanged their wealth for the product. Today, things are different. “The market” is still created by need and desire, but the conditions that generate that need and desire are created by media advertising.
Need and desire are caused, in other words, not by existential circumstances which cause a sense of separation or deprivation, but by ideological circumstances which cause a sense of separation or deprivation. One must come to see oneself as something which requires the product in question to be a complete unit. This is why all advertising attacks self-image, because the image of a complete person is not the image of someone who needs to purchase anything from your company.
There are many products on the market, but there is only one commodity in advertising: identity. Advertisements don’t sell products, they sell an image of you WITH the product, which creates a sense of separation from the product if you do not own it. This is why post-modern subcultures like hippies, goths, punks, and so on have all become means of consuming music and clothing rather than what they emerged as, i.e. actual CULTURES. Once a group establishes a cultural identity, it becomes a target market.
What does it mean to say that we live in “consumer culture?” It means that we define our identities by our consumer choices. Consumer activism is a sham revolt, propagated by the same corporations which it claims to oppose. This ideology, which asserts that we are morally liable for the crimes committed by the corporations that we purchase goods and services from, assumes that we, the consumers, are responsible for the actions of the corporations, because it is our need and desire which creates the market that they serve in exchange for wealth. This idea is demonstrably false. We, the consumers, did not create the demand for these products. The corporations that sell them created that demand through advertising.
To put it a little more simply, if there was no such thing as McDonalds, people would not wander around thinking “I wish I could get a cheeseburger that will make me dizzy and sick while giving me pimples and gas all at the same time.” They would simply eat whatever other junk food was cheap and available. The human “need” for junk food starts at the toddler level, when sugary cereals, garbage drinks like Kool Aid, and various candies are marketed to parents as rewards for children, so that they can become addicted to sugar and trans-fat at an early age, thus ensuring a lifetime of junk-food purchases. This is not something humans naturally need or desire, but a product with addictive qualities was discovered, and this is the most valuable product for a merchant to have. The product itself creates the need for more of the product. Products that are built to last and not addictive are a lousy deal for the merchant, because once he sells one to one customer, he’s made his money off that person and must move on elsewhere. For the addictive product, the more that you sell to one person, the more that person will need in the future.
The essential selling point is identity. If you see yourself as “the kind of person who” uses the product in question, the sale is made, and the sales will keep coming. Consumers themselves reinforce this paradigm by making judgements about a person’s place in the social order based on their consumer choices. All of this serves the interests of a corporate plutocracy who can posit no goal higher than acquisition toward which to direct their power.
The result is can be seen in the present environmental crisis, as well as the depletion of our planet’s natural resources. When acquisition is the goal and consumption is the means, the “supply,” that is to say, the material and life of the planet earth, is destined to be exhausted.
War Machine .1 .2, War Machine I, War Machine II, War Machine III, War Machine IV, War Machine V, War Machine VI, War Machine VII, War Machine VIII, War Machine IX War Machine X, War Machine XI