Discuss: The Gospel of Consumption

Edward Bernays was actually Freud’s nephew. He played a massive role in the shift towards consumerism as a way of life, using his uncle’s ideas.

There’s a brilliant documentary on this called The Century of the Self from the BBC. You can watch it on Google Video last I checked.
It is not to be missed.

What a great article. We’ve diverted so much of the gains in productivity into the pockets of investors and executives, rather than into an increased standard-of-living for all. Now the consequences are becoming clear - power (money is a form of power) really does corrupt.

So basically you want a form of quasi socialism or fascism.

People buy stuff because they want stuff, they aren’t brainwashed and the companies arent forcing them to buy stuff.  The fact is that people dont want to work less because they dont want to make less money.  Because they want to spend money on things they want.  They value the money they can earn and the things they can buy with it more than the time they would be spending outside of work.

Kellogg: this was during the great depression, it was either work less and take less money or some of you will lose your job.  Oh yeah they took measures so that their income wouldnt be completely halfed by killing their lunch hour etc, but this article weighs far too heavily on trying to compromise the current market with this example that doesnt apply to current conditions.  This was during the great depression!  It was a good model at the time and that is why it was praised because it allowed more people to have jobs and still get by.

I agree that materialism is not the highest virtue of mankind, but it is what drives the market, it is what people want.  You cant come in and have the government force people to work less because you think they should not value materialism so much.  That is fascism and hasnt ever worked out too well if we look to history.  You are subjecting other people to your subjective views on what is best for other people. 

“We can create a society”: this is a fascist statement.  No, this means, we can force society to do something.  If you want to make a difference you shouldnt do it through government and force you should do it through persuasion and rhetoric.  We can ENCOURAGE a society that follows your selected virtues, but force we should not.  If you want to have more freetime then you can take a less demanding job and get paid less.  You cant have the same pay and work less, it just doesnt pan out.

Chris Janselor, you have been duped. Do you think our current society was shaped entirely by ‘natural’ forces? Did you even read the article, in which it was made very clear that some rich and powerful people have had a significant influence on our current way of life?

We have choices in our society. There is no such thing as the “free market.” It is warped beyond recognition by vested interests, and this will not change.

1) free market, of course it doesnt exist in perfection, never said it did.  If anything warps it, it is the government more than ‘vested interests.’ People that usually point to the market being skewed by corporations etc, dont realize it is usually through governmental means.

2)natural forces.  The article didnt really point to any factual instances of people showing significant control over the lives of the individuals. It referenced “business and political elite,” who are influencing us ‘By advertising and other promotional devices.’ Doesnt look like they are forcing consumerism on us too much, they are advertising products, thats what companies do. 

It then referenced companies reacting to FDR’s New Deal and tried to link the defense against this as a defense of the gospel of consumption.  Actually they were just trying to defend their business autonomy from the government’s prying hands, thats pretty natural considering the profit incentives of companies and the governments interfering with those.

I love how the third paragraph of the article is totally conjecture without any backing and which then becomes the premise of the entire paper.  He then tries to link this to the idea of creating “new needs” by the big corporations and that this is furthering their evil ends of consumerism.  No actually it’s called innovation and that’s why we have computers to type on.  yeah creating new desires for products is what drives the market, but there is no force involved.

All Im saying is that if you want you can live like they did in 1915 without a computer, or a car, etc, and Im sure you get by just fine without working many hours, but people have come to enjoy the “necessities” that have been created by this evil consumption drive.

Chris - the real question is *why* does the government warp the market? The answer is, in answer to bribes (called campaign contributions) and other perqs such as a revolving door between industry and goverment.

Oh I agree with you.  Government is controlled to a large extent by private interests and their respective lobbying.  But I think the answer is to limit government rather than using government to limit how much we can work or what we can buy.

I think that it is interesting that the belief of voluntary simplicity, or any move towards a simple life is immediately called socialist. It is not right or left it is just different. We need to wrap our heads around an idea that is new. More does not equal better, in fact it may be the total opposite.