Letter: Capitalism’s twofold lie (2001)

Letter to the Editors from the January 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism’s twofold lie

Dear Editors,

At the heart of the capitalist economy was, is and always will be deception. Since capitalist production is based on selling for profit, and not to simply satisfy demand, it relies on two such deceptions for each and every exchange of goods or services. In the first place, in order to sell a quantity of products sufficient to overcome the material cost of production, provide for future expansion of production, and to place profit in the pocket of the owner, it is necessary to sell as many products to as many people as possible.

Unfortunately for the owner of said means of production, the product is at no time needed or desired by all the potential customers needed to satisfy this sales requirement. So it falls on the producers to make as many people as possible believe that they need the product, should ignore any other competitor’s offering and purchase the product immediately. Here we encounter the first lie. Since all of the producer’s goals rest in the success of this lie, modern producers enlist the aid of an advertising juggernaut that will stop at nothing to achieve their aim: to make you believe that their client’s product is absolutely vital to your happiness, success or esteem. One cannot doubt the success of advertising in the advancement of the first lie—you need only to look at the people around you, festooned with the latest brand-name styles, falling over each other to be the first in line for the Next Big Thing, and spouting inane jingles and catchphrases designed to securely place the product image in the back of every dollar-spending head.

If it were sufficient to merely dupe you into purchasing the product against your better judgement by convincing you of the overwhelming advantages of your newly-acquired possession, it would be bad enough. However, the producer, in order to maximize his gain, must again deceive you, the poor consumer, as to the value of the product. This second lie is much more subtle than the first. If advertising in modern times could be equated to the repeated bludgeoning of the consumer into submission, pricing would be much more akin to a stab in the back. The producer is placed in a precarious position: charge too little, and you don’t satisfy your profit margin, charge too much and your advertising was all for naught as the customer walks out the door. Enter markups, price discrimination, collusion and so on.

One cannot dispute the success with which capitalism has mastered the twofold lie. Consumers continue to fall for it with every purchase. People would rather pay over $100 dollars to take a family of four to a baseball game instead of buying a weeks worth of groceries. They pay $18 for CDs which cost $1.50 to produce. They pay $35,000 for a four-wheel drive death trap and drive it while talking on their cell phones. No wonder we can’t pick a president! As holidays become more commercialized, advertising becomes more and more obnoxious and pervasive, and life becomes the stuff we do between trends, one must wonder if we will ever wake up and just stop believing the lie!

Tony Pink, 

USA (by email)