The myth of consumer sovereignty (2024)

From the July 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

In his seminal work, Stone Age Economics published in 1972, the anthropologist Marshall Sahlins controversially suggested that hunter gatherers, though conspicuously lacking in those sundry accoutrements of what we call ‘civilisation’ – like money, fast cars, an 80-inch flat- screen TV and a semi-detached terrace in the suburbs – may nevertheless have constituted what he called the ‘original affluent society’.

This was a startling claim, to say the least. It certainly challenged what we conventionally mean by the term ‘affluence’. As Sahlins noted:

‘By the common understanding, an affluent society is one in which all the people’s material wants are easily satisfied. To assert that the hunters are affluent is to deny then that the human condition is an ordained tragedy, with man the prisoner, at hard labor, of a perpetual disparity between his unlimited wants and his insufficient means. For there are two possible courses to affluence. Wants may be “easily satisfied” either by producing much or desiring little.’

‘Producing much’ is what Sahlins called the ‘Galbraithean way’ to affluence – named after the economist, J K Galbraith, who had written a book in the 1950s called The Affluent Society – although Galbraith himself was somewhat ambivalent about the whole subject of affluence.

As he saw it, the age-old problem of scarcity had been largely overcome. The emphasis on increasing productivity and output, he argued, may have been apposite in earlier times when large swathes of the population had little option but to endure grinding poverty. However, this was no longer the case in the post-war era of mass production and consumer plenty. Hence, society’s priorities needed to change – from delivering yet more affluence to dealing with the challenges that affluence threw up – such as glaring inequality and environmental destruction. Amongst other things, concluded Galbraith, this called for more Keynesian-style government regulation of the economy, more investment in the public sector and so on.

As a consumption theorist, Galbraith was very much influenced by earlier writers in that tradition – like Thorstein Veblen, author of The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), for instance. Galbraith argued that the conventional wisdom regarding the role of consumers had become outdated – that is, the idea that the ‘consumer is king’. According to this, whatever the consumer wants, businesses obligingly provide.

For Galbraith, the boot had since transferred to the other foot: it was now the producer who was king and the consumer, the subject. The consumer was, for instance, now more of a price-taker than a price-maker, a tendency that would have been reinforced by the increasing concentration and centralisation of capital in fewer hands. In short, the increasing domination of the economy by giant corporations.

Because of their large size, these corporations were not so much constrained by market competition when it came to setting prices. Nor for that matter, by the single-minded quest to maximise profits. That might well still be the primary goal of small businesses or, indeed, the shareholders of large corporations. However, suggested Galbraith in another book entitled The New Industrial State (1964), the former were in decline while the latter had largely lost control to a specialist planning and technical elite – dubbed the ‘technostructure’ – intent upon promoting technical efficiency and expanding the corporation out of undistributed profits.

In that sense profits still mattered; the corporation would prefer, for example, to finance itself rather than depend on bank loans and this obviously required that it be profitable. But the point that Galbraith was making was simply that the pursuit of profit was not of such overriding importance as it once was and that other objectives had entered into the frame alongside profit-making. With hindsight, however, things have not turned out quite like Galbraith imagined, with ‘shareholder capitalism’ now back firmly in the driving seat.

Dependence effect

For him, all these various developments also gave rise to something that he called the ‘dependence effect’. By this he meant consumer preferences had become more dependent on, or conditioned by, the corporate imperatives of big business. These latter were to increase sales and thereby make the fullest possible use of the large-scale productive capacity they had built up and so reap the benefits of scale economies. In other words, to some extent, these imperatives were technologically driven. While the resulting price reductions might, in the short run, seem to adversely affect the revenue stream of a business and hence its profits, in the long run it enabled the business to undercut its competitors and so capture a larger slice of the market.

However, what this also meant is that more demand for these products had to be created, or stimulated, in order to justify and maintain a high level of output. Price cutting would help in that respect but, in addition, boosting demand necessitated resorting to intensive advertising and ‘salesmanship’. In short, by generally promoting a culture of emulative and acquisitive consumerism.

Strictly speaking, the aim was not so much to satisfy the wants of the consumer as such. Rather, it was to ensure that the consumer remained perpetually unsatisfied and forever in a state of wanting more. In short, it was to promote the idea of ‘consumption for the sake of consumption’ (mirroring ‘production for the sake of production’).

Galbraith argued from what he called a commonsensical premise that the more amply a person´s wants are supplied the less urgent will those wants become. However:

‘If the individual’s wants are to be urgent they must be original with himself. They cannot be urgent if they must be contrived for him. And above all they must not be contrived by the process of production by which they are satisfied. For this means that the whole case for the urgency of production, based on the urgency of wants, falls to the ground. One cannot defend production as satisfying wants if that production creates the wants.’

In other words, the institutions of modern advertising and salesmanship ‘cannot be reconciled with the notion of independently determined desires, for their central function is to create desires—to bring into being wants that previously did not exist’.

Predictably enough, Galbraith´s arguments were excoriated by hostile critics like market libertarians for whom the concept of consumer sovereignty was something sacrosanct. It was key to their model of competitive market economy that works to maximise economic welfare in strict accordance with the wants of rational actors expressed through the market. Since these are essentially both rational and sovereign it was not for anyone else to question or frown upon such wants – whatever might be the social or environmental costs of satisfying them.

Any suggestion that consumer preferences might be moulded by institutional forces emanating from outside or beyond the individual themselves was regarded as anathema, an affront to the individualistic worldview of the market libertarians. If individuals were so easily manipulated, what is to prevent them making irrational choices, perhaps leading to some or other suboptimal outcome that might tarnish the good reputation of the free market?

Rejecting the very idea of a ‘dependence effect’ thus committed these market libertarians to the view that our wants (whether urgent or not) must necessarily always be ‘original’ to the individual themselves – or, to use Galbraith’s expression, will always spring from their own inner disposition alone. Suggesting they can be conditioned or shaped by some external force or factor had one further consequence. It could potentially call into question that most sacred of dogmas upon which much mainstream economic thinking hinges – namely, that our wants are insatiable. For if we can be persuaded to buy more we can also be persuaded to want less and therefore to buy less. Clearly, that would not be in the interests of the business community.

Manipulating wants

For Galbraith, that is precisely what this community was in the business of doing – persuading consumers. As he argued, if wants were genuinely original or innate to the consumer then what would be the point in advertising at all. The consumer would seek out and find the product that might satisfy their particular want of their own accord. The fact that the product is so relentlessly publicised strongly suggests that the purpose of the advertisers is to expand the consumer´s wants or even to supply them with completely novel wants that they did not even realise they had.

Naturally, this has prompted a counterargument from Galbraith´s critics that advertising can be justified on the grounds that it is merely alerting us to the existence of useful products we might otherwise have overlooked. However, this counterargument strikes one as being somewhat disingenuous.

To begin with, there is the sheer scale of advertising to consider. It seems absolutely disproportionate to what the market libertarians claim its purpose to be. It does not seem credible, to put it mildly, to suggest that businesses, ferociously competing against each other for a bigger slice of the market, would spend such vast sums of money merely to provide a public service, as it were – of informing the consumer of the availability of these products and thereby enabling them to better satisfy their wants.

Galbraith might have been naïve if he imagined that advertising could somehow be pruned back to a bare minimum in a competitive market economy. But his critics were no less, if not considerably more, naïve in their understanding of what advertising is about. Its purpose is, very clearly, more to persuade than inform. This is evident in the very of techniques of advertising itself. These involve repetition, reinforcement and the copious use of emotional associations, fantasy, irony and downright innuendo. Such techniques are demonstrably manipulative in style, often preying on people’s vulnerabilities and sense of self-esteem.

In the early days of advertising there was, arguably, rather more in the way of factual or informational content to adverts but those days have long gone. The dark arts of the advertisers have evolved way beyond that since then. Advertising today, suggests Andrew Simms, is about mind control. Like air pollution it seeps into every nook and cranny of our lives. Indeed, it is reckoned that the average American citizen is exposed to anywhere between 4,000 and 10,000 adverts every single day:

‘Advertising works by getting under your radar, introducing new ideas without bothering your conscious mind. Extensive scientific research shows that, when exposed to advertising, people “buy into” the materialistic values and goals it encourages. Consequently, they report lower levels of personal wellbeing, experience conflict in relationships, engage in fewer positive social behaviours, and experience detrimental effects on study and work. Critically, the more that people prioritise materialistic values and goals, the less they embrace positive attitudes towards the environment – and the more likely they are to behave in damaging ways.’

More ominously, Simms goes on to refer to the findings of neuroscience on the effects of advertising on the human brain: ‘advertising goes as far as lodging itself in the brain, rewiring it by forming physical structures and causing permanent change. Brands that have been made familiar through advertising have a strong influence on the choices people make. Under MRI scans, the logos of recognisable car brands are shown to activate a single particular region in the brain in the medial prefrontal cortex. Brands and logos have also been shown to generate strong preferences between virtually identical products, such as fizzy drinks – preferences that disappear in blind tests. Researchers looking to assess the power of advertised brands concluded that “there are visual images and marketing messages that have insinuated themselves into the nervous systems of humans”’ (Guardian, 11 October 2021).

If we accept that the purpose of advertising is more to persuade than to inform then this puts our market libertarians in an essentially untenable position. It means having to concede that our wants are not necessarily those that are original to ourselves and that, consequently, we are not at all like the sovereign individuals depicted in individualist mythology, driven by impulses that arise entirely within ourselves. It means having to acknowledge that we are, indeed, social animals capable of influencing and being influenced by others.

Given the manipulative nature of advertising it follows that weakening or removing its influence would result in a situation in which consumer wants would indeed more closely approximate those of our hypothetical sovereign individual. Therein lies a delicious irony – the fact that market libertarianism through its endorsement of the practice of advertising would appear to be in league with those very forces that threaten our individual sovereignty and our ability to rationally think for ourselves.

Untenable position

Faced with the incontrovertible evidence that advertising does indeed contrive to expand our wants or introduce new ones, some market libertarians have adopted a somewhat different tack than that of outright denial. This might be described as an exercise in damage limitation.

A case in point was the prominent free market supporter, Friedrich von Hayek. Hayek contended that it was a gross exaggeration to suggest corporations could determine consumer preferences through the power of advertising alone. That is undoubtedly true although it misses the larger point. The inculcation of consumerist values in the population is not something for which any one particular agency or institution can be held solely responsible. It is woven into the very fabric of life under capitalism.

It arises from the system´s competitive dynamic and its built-in disposition to grow without limit. The relentless accumulation of capital that competition compels finds its correlate in the no less relentless drive to boost market sales by means of which the economic surpluses to finance that accumulation can be realised.

Robin Cox

The Battle for Your Mind (2001)

From the February 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Does happiness reside in a bottle of perfume? Is your only concern the sweat under your arms? We take a look at the world of advertising

In 1969 the American Association of Advertising Agencies estimated that approximately 1,600 advertisements were aimed at each individual every day. That may seem a ridiculous number at first but the individual is not aware of most of them. The average person is likely to take momentarily notice of about 60 to 80 commercials a day with only 10 to 13 making a conscious impression. The number of advertisements hitting each individual today is certainly higher. You can now find advertisements regularly covering taxis, buses, toilets, envelopes, phone boxes and golf balls. In order to maintain sanity amongst this constant bombardment each individual has to erect a sort of sensory screen that can detect the oncoming signal and reject it.

On rare occasions advertisements are clever, entertaining and creative. Advertisements of this variety are few and far between, but they do exist and it would be incorrect to say that all advertising is “bad”. However, success in advertising is dependent upon the ability to manipulate the emotions, thoughts, and intelligence of the target audience to achieve the desired reaction—to get them to buy your product or service over that of your competitors. Typically, ads concern themselves with fantasy; a constructed world usually beyond the reach of our everyday experiences. They offer a vision of a world where happiness resides in a bottle of perfume, where your only concern is the sweat under your arms, and where a a low calorie drink could change your life (as part of a well-balanced diet of course).

Advertising has conditioned generations to accept it as an inescapable part of the landscape, as ubiquitous as night and day. There was a time, however, when advertising was widely considered an unwanted distraction. For example, editors initially thought ads were an intrusion upon the reader and would segregate all the adverts to the back of their magazine where they were out of the way.

“Fluff”

The roots of mass advertising lie in magazines and took off over 100 years ago when industries began producing vast amounts of consumer goods. Since broadcasting didn’t exist and newspapers were largely local, magazines were the only national advertising medium. The fact that you could produce high quality colour graphics on heavy paper, unlike newspapers, meant that magazines were much favoured by advertisers.

As soon as advertising revenue became important, at around 1890, ad agencies insisted that ads be moved from the back of magazines to the front. Inevitably, it wasn’t long before major advertisers were demanding that their ads appear opposite the opening pages of major articles. But it didn’t end there. Editors were soon selecting articles based not only on the basis of their expected interest to its readers but for their influence of advertisements.

As mass advertising grew, “liberal” and “radical” ideas in editorials became a problem. So did serious articles. A reader in an analytical frame of mind was unlikely to be enthusiastic about an advertisement for a trivial product. An article about genuine social suffering would certainly interrupt the “buying mood”. What was the solution? Easy, change the content. Better still, just fill the publication with material that will attract the readership the advertisers want. Before television emerged in the 1950’s, successful magazines were 65 percent ads. By that time, most magazines were fundamentally designed for advertising rather than editorial matter (see Vogue, Talk, Here’s Health, etc). Pick any random magazine off the newsagent’s shelf today and you’ll have a tough time trying to spot the difference between an article and an advertisement. Compare the differences between the styles, content and ideas. Most of the material claiming to be an “article” is in fact product promotion. Some writers call this “fluff”, a term used to describe material which is not news in any real sense but is non-advertising material supporting advertisers (see promotion sections in Vogue, Marie Claire, Woman’s Own, Muscle and Fitness, etc). Advertsiers want “fluff”, to create a buying mood.

One of the best examples to demonstrate the level of influence major advertisers now have over the contents of magazines is Vogue magazine. The January 2001 issue totalled 186 pages. Of those 186 pages, 87 were full-page ads. (In the first 66 pages there are 50 full-page ads.) Another 21 pages could be described as “fluff”, product promotion. The first “article” comes in at page 33. 17 pages consist of travel, food and horoscope sections. That leaves 61 pages out of 186 for article space. Of those 61 pages, 43 are full-page photographs. The main article entitled “Stars In Their Own Eyes” totals 28 pages, 27 of which are full-page photographs with 1 page of text. Richard Shortway, editor of Vogue, has said, “The cold, hard, facts of magazine publishing mean that those who advertise get editorial coverage”.

Another good example is Talk magazine. In the first 48 pages of the premier issue there were 46 full-page adverts! Unlike a few decades ago where editors would segregate ads to the back of the magazine on the grounds that it was an infringement upon the reader, the of bulk of adverting now appears in the opening pages—just where the advertisers want them.

Garbage

Advertising’s greatest effect on the mind is not so much its detail, but the mass conditioning attempted by the same basic themes occurring over and over as we slouch in a chair and uncritically listen to the garbage emitting from the box everyday.

Advertising likes to tell us how to think and how not to think. Some of the criteria we are told to use include how one should judge what is credible and incredible, what is success and failure, and how we should judge ourselves against others. Even though the advertisers are at war with each other for viewers’ and readers’ attention, the same themes keep cropping up again and again. That is because all advertising is born out of the same system, capitalism. Advertising does not exist in a vacuum; it is part of a system. Forget the three R’s taught in the education system; it is the 3 C’s in advertising that count—consumerism, conformity and competition.

Some advertisers aren’t shy to declare their support for capitalist ideas:

• “Business is the engine of society. Without it there would be no jobs. No products. No competition. No advancements.” (A 1996 Microsoft ad)
• “Of all human powers operating on the affairs of mankind, none is greater than that of competition.” (Mead Coated Papers)
• “You don’t win silver, you lose gold”. (Nike)
• “Identify yourself”. (Mitsubishi)

There are many researchers who believe subliminal advertising is being employed by a number of major advertisers to influence the subconscious mind of its viewers and readers. (Subliminal advertising is defined as images and messages that are below the threshold of conscious perception, but which will nevertheless affect the viewer on a subconscious level). The use of subliminal advertising may or may not be a reality. That is not the important thing. What we have to look at the reason for the existence of advertising in the first place, not necessarily the techniques advertiser’s employ.

Hype

The Vice President of Proctor and Gamble made a statement over 20 years ago which is truer today than ever. He said, “We’re in programming first to assume a good environment for advertising“.

In 1965 the Federal Communications Commission held hearings to determine how much influence advertisers had on non-commercial content of television and radio. Albert N. Halverstadt, then general advertising manager of Procter and Gamble, was particularly interested in the image of business and business people. He gave the FCC formal requirements for television programs:

“There will be no material on any of our programs which could in any way further the concept of business as cold, ruthless, and lacking all sentiment or spiritual motivation. If a businessman is cast in the role of a villain, it must be made clear that he is not typical but is as much despised by his fellow businessmen as he is by other members of society”.

The manager of corporate communications for General Electric has said, “We insist on a program environment that reinforces our corporate image”.

Far from being content with dominating the pages of popular magazines, major advertisers—BP, Pepsi, Levi’s, Cadburys, Ford, Nike and the rest—have set to conquer the almighty task of controlling the messages that emit from the black box in the corner of our rooms. Without doubt TV is the most effective advertising medium. Viewers don’t have time to examine or judge the messages. You sit and listen as the TV talks at you. Far from taking a passing interest, advertisers want to know exactly what time of day and in-between what programmes their ads will be shown because that will define the audience population they are buying. And there is no shortage of time. A double episode of the highly popular American sitcom “Friends” airs about 18 minutes of ads in one hour, which is nearly a third of the programming time. But don’t be mistaken in thinking the scripts of programmes are devoid of advertising influence. The ad agencies aren’t going to let them off that easily. TV executives (like editors) have surrendered to the altar of profit and are forced into the competition for viewer’s attention. Michael L. Buchenbeth has said: “The scripts are written to build tension before the commercials to hold the viewers attention during the commercials“. The basic strategy in programming is not merely geared towards satisfying the audience’s tastes but what is perceived as the most likely to attract advertisers. Like magazines, the difference between ads and programming becomes blurred. Flick the TV on . . . is it soap, a documentary, the news, an ad . . . who knows?

The motion picture has obvious advantages in immediacy, sound, colour over the still image. There is no end to the image and sound creation and manipulation possibilities; the ads with Steve McQueen in are a good example. However, the problem as far as the admen are concerned is the fact that you can only broadcast one message on one programme at a time. If an audience finds an ad boring, too long or too offensive they’re likely to commit the ultimate sin that haunts every ad agency and TV executive—they’ll switch the TV off.

The correct atmosphere is essential for advertising; which is a buying atmosphere. Short, half-hour programmes that are trivial, non-political and humorous are much favoured by advertisers. Coronation St, Star’s in their eyes, GMTV, Neighbours, She’s got to have it, Friends, TOTP, Blind Date (etc, etc) fit the bill well. Richard Lesser, then Vice President of the Grey Advertising Agency, in an article in Advertising Age (12 December 1957) wrote, “Advertisers for years have been studying the integration of the show and the commercials to see how the two can be married to each other“. It is no coincidence, for example, that Rachael and Monica from the American sitcom “Friends” have never appeared on air with anything less than perfect and immaculate hair since they have advertised L’Oreal hair products. Which ads most frequently appear in-between each episode? That’s right, L’Oreal shampoo ads that feature both Rachael and Monica.

What about the News? The fact that the Newsreaders’ scripts are interwoven with the advertisers’ interests is deliberately ignored. We are supposed to think that the ideas are the independent work of professional journalists detached from commercial bias. If the audiences were told that the ideas represented explicit demands of advertisers, the message would lose its impact. Sure, they can say what they want; as long they don’t conflict with the advertisers’ interests. The major advertisers can actually demand they report along certain lines by threatening to pull out their advertising.

Politics too

Advertising has also been used as a tool in the struggle for political ideas. Politicians, leaders and political parties alike have for some time exploited this effective medium. Political campaigns are increasingly looking and sounding more like advertising campaigns with each successive election. Sound-bites, slogans and style are very important considerations in any campaign now. The fact that a political party needs to spend thousands and thousands on advertising campaigns to improve its image just shows how shallow their message is, or the lack of one. Capitalist parties have long since ran out of anything intelligent to say and their only hope is to either re-hash old ideas or change the packaging they sell them in (see “New” Labour). Of course, the problem does not lie in the fact that they promote their political agenda but rather that they have nothing useful to say. Take away all the style and sloganeering and all you are left with is a bunch people who say very average things about very average politics; not worth voting for (see New Labour, again).

Would advertising still exist in with a society based upon common ownership? No. The inhabitants of a socialist society may well decide to have images and messages in the cities and outer environment but instead of being under the control of a profit seeking minority, they would be under the democratic control of the society, and will therefore benefit society instead of retarding it. When everyone has an equal say in what is produced and free access to it, there is no need to seduce people to choose one product or service over other. Of course, there may be a range of products which serve the same function but people will make choices free from the distortion and manipulation of advertising. The need for advertising only exists when different companies are competing over the same market for a bigger cut of the profit. A socialist society won’t require cities, towns, magazines and newspapers to be plastered with images and messages that serve no useful social function but contribute only to pollute the mental environment. There will be no profit to accumulate, no companies to exploit the workforce and no leaders to follow. Creativity, free from the constraints of profit making, can flourish and can be used to benefit society, and not be wasted on the anti-social aims of advertising agencies. Ideas, concepts and solutions will not be judged by their ability to realise a profit but by their value to its people.

T. M. Jones

World of buying and selling (1999)

Book Review from the July 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Manipulators by Jeffrey Robinson. Simon and Schuster, 1998, £17.99.

More than 40 years ago an American journalist, Vance Packard, wrote The Hidden Persuaders. In it he revealed how the advertising industry was mass producing customers the same way manufacturers were mass producing goods for the market. Now along comes Jeffrey Robinson to update us on the same theme. Short sentences. Racy style. The blurb is a fair summary of what buyers get for their money. Robinson unveils:

    * The new sciences that are being developed to turn the ads we see into magic bullets which can penetrate our defences.

    * How modern retailers are following hot on the advertisers’ heels with their own sleight-of-hand to snap off any lingering resistance to buy.

    * How we unwillingly contribute to our own commercial seduction.

    * How the worst is yet to come, as the internet and television combine to create a monster whose sole function will be to pick us off, one by one, and make us buy.

A truly scary scenario. One, you might think, that would provoke a call to oppose such a bleak future for homosapiens. Not a bit of it. Robinson’s tone and lack of critical comment amount to saying “Don’t worry about it—it’s the real world—just accept it”.

Most of the book is a series of sound bytes (or sound gnaws, as someone recently called them) about the tragi-comic world of advertising. They range from the disturbing to the tacky. Apparently people are employed to put tiny cameras inside frozen-food compartments in supermarkets to chart the eye movements of shoppers in the hope of determining better placement for high-margin items. My favourite quote is “In the ad biz, sincerity is a commodity bought and paid for like everything else”.

American authors are quite good at writing books about how badly the mass of people are treated and treat each other. Over the years Galbraith has excelled at being a “friendly” critic of capitalism. Don’t expect even that much from Robinson. He doesn’t mention capitalism, let alone say anything against it. The closest he comes to questioning the status quo is his sub-heading “It’s them against us, and the thems are winning”. Enigmatically, the last two sentences of his book are:

“It is not that Big Brother will have won. It is, rather, that we will have become Big Brother.”

To which socialists can only reply “Speak for yourself, brother!”

Stan Parker

Letter: Psychology and Socialism (1960)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Psychology and Socialism

I have read E.W.’s review of Professor Galbraith’s book in the Socialist Standard for December, 1959, with pleasure. But I want to take issue with the central argument underlying the review. E.W. writes: “What is wrong, according to Professor Galbraith, is not the social system but the system of ideas. . . . In that case, phrenology or psychology would appear to be more relevant to the studies of the problem of our times than economics." To lump together phrenology and psychology is tantamount to combining astrology with astronomy, and unworthy of a scientific Marxian. Moreover, such an argument may induce serious readers to reject the legitimate claims which can be made for a truly Socialist society.

I believe the contributions which psychology has to make in the fight for Socialism have not been sufficiently explored. If it is true that the main ills of the world spring from the economic system, this system has not developed independently of human minds. Nowhere outside the human mind can the decision be made that the system shall be changed. The ultimate justification for a Socialist society is not economic but rests on concepts which come within the province of psychology human dignity is the concept that springs to mind first. Scientific psychology has something to tell us about comfort, about equality, and about freedom; these are the three ends stressed at the end of the declaration of principles of the SPGB (These were also the ends upheld by the French revolution, before Marx, except that comfort has now been substituted for fraternity!)

Economists who work on behalf of capitalism have not been slow to utilize the fruits of psychology, usually to evil ends (“subliminal” advertising, “motivational" research into impulse-spending, etc.). Let Socialists also face the facts about the “sales resistance” they encounter when trying to educate people in their legitimate rights and interests, and let us study the problem scientifically.

M. G.

Edinburgh.

Reply

We agree that phrenology and psychology should not be confused: the former seems to contain a larger amount of quackery than the latter. E.W.'s review mentioned them in the same sentence only to show the absurdity of Professor Galbraith’s viewpoint that defects in our system of ideas, rather than in our economic system, are responsible for social problems.

It is true that man’s economic system has not developed independently of his ideas, or without men themselves working on it, through their ideas and actions. But these ideas and actions are themselves largely limited by the physical surroundings in which man finds himself and cannot operate outside those surroundings. Man's physical and economic conditions are, at any one time, developed from earlier conditions and his knowledge, built from earlier knowledge, is derived from those conditions. Thus, although the decision to change society into Socialism can only be made in human minds, that decision will not occur to the minds until the economic and social contradictions of capitalism have accumulated the evidence which makes that decision desirable. When that happens, men's conceptions of dignity, freedom and comfort will be different to those which are generally held today—and the material conditions of capitalism, not any brilliant, abstract ideas, will be responsible for the change.

The raw material with which Socialists must work is the social consciousness of men. But this consciousness can only be understood by reference to society’s economic organisation. The effects of this organisation also limit the success of the advertising men (psychological approach and all), for the most skilful advertising can do little to save an industry which becomes caught in a slump. Similarly, what M.G. calls “sales resistance” to Socialism is in fact working class acceptance of their material state under capitalism. To change this, Socialists employ all the persuasiveness they can muster. But our propaganda would fall without the supporting evidence which the material conditions of capitalism —its wars, poverty, insecurity — are constantly providing.

Editorial Committee.

We invite our readers to send letters of comment and criticism. Please keep your letters as short as possible.

Voice From The Back: More Profit Means More Hunger (2008)

The Voice From The Back column from the June 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

More Profit Means More Hunger

“This year global production of biofuels will consume almost 100 million tons of grain – grain that could have been used to feed the starving. According to the UN, it takes 232kg of corn to fill a 50-litre car tank with ethanol – enough to feed a child for a year. The UN last week predicted ‘massacres’ unless the biofuel policy is halted. Jean Ziegler, the UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food, said biofuels were ‘a crime against humanity’, and called for a five-year moratorium.” (Independent, 16 April) The UN can issue all sorts of pious resolutions, but if is more profitable to produce bio-fuels than food, then that is what capitalism will do.


The Name is Bond – Capitalist Bond 

Capitalism pervades everything in modern society. If you buy a football shirt it will advertise a beer or a soft drink. Formula 1 car racing would be impossible if advertising logos didn’t cover every space on the cars and the drivers. It is in the entertainment business though that this pervasive influence is growing at an astonishing speed. “The name is Bond, James Bond. And he likes his Martinis shaken, not stirred. That is, as long as they are Smirnoff. Product placement is playing an increasingly important role in Hollywood blockbusters. The last Bond film bore a string of high-end sponsors, such as Omega, Sony, Ford and Sony Ericsson. Television shows have also lured advertisers, often preferring product placement or sponsorship over traditional advertising. . . The expectation is that television advertising will become more about the 30-minute sponsored advertisement than the 30-second shot.” (Times, 21 April)


Dignity? No Way

“Eight out of 10 nurses say they have left work distressed because they have been unable to treat patients with the dignity they deserve, a poll suggests. The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) poll of more than 2,000 UK nurses cited washing and privacy as key issues.” (BBC News, 27 April) The NHS is provided for members of the working class. They are the class that produce all the wealth of the world but being poor can ill afford the best of housing, food or even medical care. Dignity for the only worthwhile class in capitalist society is an impossibility.


The Killer System

Supporters of capitalism claim that it is the most efficient way to run society, but that is a claim that rings hollow to millions of hungry people today, as even one of capitalism’s stoutest supporters is forced to admit. “Giant agribusinesses are enjoying soaring earnings and profits out of the world food crisis which is driving millions of people towards starvation, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. And speculation is helping to drive the prices of basic foodstuffs out of the reach of the hungry.” (4 May)


Primitive Accumulation

“In the semi-arid forests of the Chaco region of Paraguay, where summer temperatures top 40C (104F), the continent’s last uncontacted Indians outside of the Amazon basin are on the run, their traditional forest home increasingly encroached upon by ranchers. … These formerly nomadic tribes people struggle to maintain a semblance of their traditional way of life in camps on the edge of the agricultural colonies that invaded their territory.” (Times, 6 May) This process called by Karl Marx the so-called primitive accumulation of capital was dealt with him in his Das Kapital (1867) mirrors what had happened in Europe at the beginning of capitalism. “In actual history it is notorious that conquest, murder, briefly force, play the great part . . . As a matter of fact, the methods of primitive accumulation are anything but idyllic.” A view echoed by one of the Indians in the Times: – “The whites are violent. They just want land. We are afraid of them, they are very aggressive.”


Business as Usual

“Burma is still exporting rice even as it tries to curb the influx of international donations of food bound for the starving survivors of the cyclone that killed up to 116,000 people. Sacks of rice destined for Bangladesh were being loaded on to a ship at the Thilawa container port at the mouth of the Yangon River at the end of last week, even though Burma’s ‘rice bowl’ region was devastated by the deadly storm a week ago. The Burmese regime, which has a monopoly on the country’s rice exports, said it planned to meet all its contractual commitments” (Observer, 11 May). Inside capitalism business is business, and the fact that millions of Burmese risk death by starvation is of no concern. That is how capitalism operates. During the Irish potato famines foodstuffs were still being exported from Ireland.

Las Vegas: Everyone’s a Loser (2020)

From the January 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

Las Vegas is Spanish for The Meadows. A settlement was established there in 1905. Before that it was just an oasis in the Mojave Desert.

Nothing strange about an oasis in the desert. A well with water for the weary traveller and his camels. Trees to shade them from the hot sun while they rest. I see it in my mind’s eye.

‘Hold on there, mate Camels?’

Joe Zentner tells us that ‘Bactrian camels were imported from Manchuria to San Francisco in 1860 and put to work as pack animals in Nevada’ (‘The Desert Camel Experiment: Camels in America’s Southwest’ Link).

True, the experiment was not a great success. Camels are suited to soft sandy terrain. Much of the Mojave consists of ‘desert pavement’ with sharp-edged rocks that cut the poor creatures’ feet. Camels are not long-suffering beasts of burden. When in pain they kick you and spit at you. The camel drivers didn’t like that.

Anyway, those days are long gone. By 2018 the Las Vegas Metropolitan Area was home to 2,227,000 people. It also had over 42 million visitors. In the middle of the desert.

Local aquifers provide a mere tenth of the metropolitan area’s drinking water. The rest is taken from Lake Mead, which even though fed by the Colorado River is shrinking fast. The city government wants to build a pipeline to pump in water from three valleys in Utah. Opponents of the scheme say that the pipeline would turn the valleys into dustbowls.

As for the sun, it is hotter than ever. Las Vegas has a few trees, but the cooling effect of their shade is outweighed by the ‘heat island’ effect of its concrete and asphalt. Daytime temperatures remain above 100°Fahrenheit (38C) throughout the summer. On some days the thermometer goes over 110° (43C), the official record being 117° (47C) reached on June 20, 2017.

All temperatures higher than that of human blood (98.4°F/36.8C) endanger human life and health. Most people are able to live in Las Vegas only thanks to air conditioning, which gives further impetus to global warming.

But what about building workers and others who have to work outdoors? Starting shifts at the crack of dawn and ending by noon provides only partial protection. How do the homeless cope? Residents of homeless shelters, pushed out into the heat for most of the day? Where do they get the large amount of fluid they need to drink every hour so that they can perspire, cool their bodies, and survive? The hotels and restaurants don’t want them hanging around.

The fastest-warming city

And it gets hotter every year. Las Vegas is the fastest-warming city in the United States. Its average temperature has risen by 5.8°F since 1970. The corresponding figure for the country as a whole is 2.5°F.

What are the sources of the livelihood of these 2.2 million people in the middle of the desert? How do they pay for all the goods that have to be shipped in for their consumption?

Agriculture? In the middle of the desert? What would they farm? Cacti?

Fishing? Forestry? In the middle of the desert?

Mining? Are there valuable minerals in the desert?

Gold and silver used to be mined in the area, but that came to an end long ago. The Techatticup mine in Eldorado Canyon closed in 1942.

Manufacturing? Do they make anything?

No.

Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice said on her journey through Wonderland.

Their livelihood comes from gambling, tourism, and entertainment. That explains why they get so many visitors.

But the tourists come mainly for the gambling. Without the gambling there would be few tourists to pack into hotels, restaurants, museums, bars, and brothels or entertain with shows and concerts.

The pivot of Las Vegas’ economy is gambling. The city has over 100 of the largest casinos in the United States.

What is gambling? Without delving into technical details, we can say that gambling is a set of deceptive games of chance used to transfer money from a large number of ‘losers’ to a much smaller number of ‘winners’ – the main winner by far always being the owner of the gambling establishment. In 2013, according to a study conducted at the University of Las Vegas, the 23 largest casinos (the study ignored the others) pocketed over $5 billion of their visitors’ money.

Sinister ways

Why do people gamble so much?

Julian Crowley has detailed ‘ten sinister ways casinos keep you gambling’. They include:

• additional oxygen pumped in to keep you awake;
• ‘psychedelic’ carpets with garish patterns and clashing colors, also to stop you dozing off;
• ‘mild, looping’ background music for its hypnotic effect;
• food and drink served to you (often without charge) right at the gambling table;
• no clocks to remind you of the passage of time;
• no windows to remind you of the world outside;
• slot machines that convey subliminal messages.
• Last but not least, it is deliberately made difficult and time-consuming to exchange your remaining chips for cash and find the way out of the maze-like floor layout.

But the main reason why people gamble is that the casinos encourage them to focus on the tiny chance of winning rather than on the much higher probability of losing. They are misled by frequent ‘near wins’ and paltry wins. Flashing lights ‘give you the impression that winning is constant and all around you.’ When someone is allowed to have a big win a huge fuss is made and there is lots of publicity, but security staff intervene if anyone tries to film people who are losing.

It is true that gamblers may enjoy the experience of gambling even when they are losing, even though there is photographic evidence of individuals in front of slot machines or at the gaming table who are clearly in great distress. It’s also doubtful whether pleasure taken in the process of gambling, where it exists, often outweighs the distress felt later, when the gambler realises just how much money he or she has lost – money that could and should have been spent on other things. Gamblers risk loss of their homes, breakup of their families, bankruptcy, even suicide.

A social ‘bad’

Gambling then makes no net contribution to human welfare. On balance, it is a social ‘bad’ rather than a social ‘good.’ As gambling is the raison d’être of Las Vegas – the only reason why this big city exists in the middle of the desert – it would be better for human well-being if Las Vegas were to become once more what it was before 1905 – an unsettled green oasis.

In a socialist society the city of Las Vegas will in all likelihood be abandoned. Because it is in a place where it makes no sense for people to live. The local flora and fauna are adapted to the desert environment. People are not. In past ages no one would have dreamt of living here. It was a place to take refreshment, rest a while, and travel on.

The city of Las Vegas will be abandoned in a socialist society also because in such a society gambling will not exist. Gambling will not exist because people will feel no urge to gamble, for they will have free access to whatever they need. Money itself will not exist.

That does not, of course, mean that no one ever does anything worthwhile in Las Vegas. There is surely fantastic music being made there. Great tacos too. The music and the tacos will continue to be made in a socialist society. But not in the middle of the desert.

Stefan

The Hidden Persuaders (1960)

Book Review from the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Hidden Persuaders, by Vance Packard. (Penguin Books. 2/6d.)

This interesting, and in part entertaining, critique of a now not so new approach to advertising has recently been added to the Penguin catalogue. Although this one short book obviously cannot, and indeed does not attempt to, deal more than very superficially with the subject (as well as revealing Mr. Packard's obvious bias) it contains much useful information and some pertinent comments.

Motivation research invented and pioneered by people like Dr. Ernest Dichter (President of Motivation Research Inc.) and Louis Cheskin (Director of the Colour Research Institute of America) as early as the 1930's, has been developed since the second World War, and really became established in the early I950‘s. Even today those who are most enthusiastic admit that “M.R.” is only in its early stages.

What is M.R., and how does it help in advertising? Briefly, it could be explained as “selling to the subconscious that is, finding people’s hidden weaknesses, wishes and frustrations, and exploiting these in order that, to meet expanding production, they can be persuaded to buy more.

Different experts favour different methods of M.R., the best known of these is the “depth interview." For this individuals or groups of people taken from a cross section of the population are led in discussion by experts, having first been put in a relaxed state of mind either by hypnosis or the administration of a special drug. It is claimed by advocates of this method that. "when their defences are down,” people reveal secrets to which they would not admit under normal circumstances.

M.R. is used not only in persuading the consumer to buy more. Public relations experts can be found advising churchmen on how they can become more effective manipulators of their congregation, business concerns of their employees and politicians of their voters.

By the mid-fifties both major United States Parties had become deeply involved in the use of professional persuaders. In early 1956 “Nation's Business,” published by the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, proclaimed: “Both parties will merchandise their candidates and issues by the same methods that business has developed to sell goods. These include scientific selection of appeals, planned repetition. . . . Candidates need, in addition to rich voices and good diction, to be able to look ‘sincerely' at the TV camera." This method of ‘selling’ was used to such an extent at the last but one Presidential Election that Mr. Adlai Stevenson said: “The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal . . . is the ultimate indignity to the democratic process."

As Socialists are not surprised that those in control under the present system are constantly trying to think of new ways to persuade us (quoting Christianity and Crisis, an American Protestant publication) ‘‘to consume, consume and consume, whether we need or even desire the product almost forced upon us . . . to consume to meet the needs of the productive process,” to accept their ideas, religion and leaders.

Although at present the use of M.R. in the United Kingdom is negligible, it will certainly increase. The Observer may have had this in mind when featuring Dr. Dichter in their “Profile" a few weeks ago.

Mr. Packard in his final chapter quotes Clyde Miller in his book The Process of Persuasion: “When we learn to recognise the devices of the persuaders, we build a ‘recognition reflex.' Such a recognition reflex can protect us, not only against the petty trickery of small time persuaders operating in the commonplace affairs of everyday life, but also against the mistaken or false persuasions of powerful leaders. . . That, surely, is a good thing for all of us to bear in mind when listening to the utterances of those who “lead" us today.

E. C.

Advertising by Stealth (1958)

From the November 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Slight Subliminal
There is proverbially no sentiment in business, and obviously no conscience in advertising. There is, however, a curious ethic of "fair play” which picks on one way of victimizing people among a thousand and demands that it be stopped. Thus at the present time “subliminal” advertising seems likely to be banned as too mean a method of what in any case is achieved in plenty of other ways.

The “subliminal” technique is a visual one, devised for the cinema and TV. In Chamber’s Dictionary it means “beneath the threshold of consciousness"; it consists of flashing a word or a symbol so swiftly that the brain registers without awareness that the eye has seen. Its first test in a cinema in America involved the words “ice cream,” and according to the Sunday Pictorial, which sounded a furious alarm (“Home Office Must Act”) on its front page on October 5th: “Ice cream sales in the interval took a tremendous upward leap, and the customers did not know why.”

It was announced in the House of Commons earlier this year that advertisers are forbidden to use subliminal suggestion on television in this country. There is, however, the promise of an American horror film in which nasty symbols and words like “blood” and “death” are flashed. Calling this "rape of the mind,” the Pictorial reported that "screams of horror are almost doubled when the symbols are used” because "without realizing it, the sub-conscious mind of the audience is flooded with thoughts of death.”

That this is low and objectionable could not be contested: what, one wonders, will future social historians make of the twentieth century? The suggestions made about it, however, extend far beyond those simple considerations. Through the subliminal technique, it is said, ideas and fears may be planted in the mind by stealth—it means, in fact, the beginning of thought-control. “Advisers to the Pictorial” made the demand for a ban indisputable by saying: “This is the sort of terror that George Orwell visualized in his book '1984.’ This is Big Brother’.”

Orwell’s earnest, mistaken book: what a lot it has to answer for! And, curiously enough, it never succeeded in showing any such terror. For all Orwell’s efforts, its horror lies chiefly in physical brutality; its Thought Police are simply plug-uglies, its hero hectored into seeing two and two as five ultimately not by suggestion but in fact by pain, privation and fear. One wonders, again, what the future could show the past in obtaining conformity, acquiescence, and self-deception. The Roman Catholic Church held millions in subjection for centuries without a single subliminal symbol; the Kaiser’s picture in the papers roused fury equal to anything in Orwell’s “hate week.”

Subliminal suggestion is undesirable, but there is no evidence to date—discounting the somewhat naive “tests” described in the Pictorial—that it is anything more than a new way of advertising. True, it carries the stigma of unfairness, of invading the person’s mind while his back, so to speak, is turned. Is that any more unfair or any more undesirable, however, than browbeating him into submission, which is what much modern advertising does? It is hard to see the difference between slipping a name into the subconscious and imprinting it by nagging repetition: few of us today will not carry the news of the New Blue Whitener to our graves.

Advertising has for many years employed techniques of suggestion; if the subliminal is rape of the mind, then these may be said to have tried taking liberties with it. The implications, for example, of all the symbols of masculinity and female desirability: Twice the Man on Whatsaname. What Makes a Woman Magnetic, Handsome Men are Slightly Sunbronzed. Where all suggestion techniques founder is on their own basis of competition. Presumably it is not difficult to rouse anyone’s wishes for strength, security, health or charm: what no advertiser has discovered, however, is how to make conflicting and contradictory claims effective on the subconscious.

It is all very well to find that more people bought ice cream after a subliminal flash, but the same effect could have been produced by any of half a dozen others means (overheating the cinema, for example). The real test is not whether they can be persuaded to buy more ice cream, but whether it will mean anything at all when they are told to buy four brands simultaneously, each one in preference to the others.

Every person in our society must always be on his guard against attempts to regulate his thoughts: government. press, church, school and advertisement are at it all the time. The facile common picture—Orwell’s one—of twentieth-century man as having less and less autonomy of thought is, however, completely untrue. It is the opposite which is true. For all the black patches, all the prejudice and cruelty and acceptance of things which ought not to be, man today is far more knowledgeable than ever before. That is not man in the abstract, typified by a few; it means man everywhere, walking the streets and going to work and reading the paper and watching the television. Knowing more, he is more critical and altogether more sensible than he has ever been.

The only really effective means of subjecting people’s minds is ignorance. The Catholic Church has already been mentioned; there are innumerable other examples— kingship, war propaganda, every persecution in history, including that of the Jews. While on the one hand new techniques of mass communication are developed and put into the hands of the few against the many, every day man grows in knowledge and so in ability to think for himself. It is worth reverting to advertising for a moment to point out that after forty years of mass commercial advertising a great many people remain more or less immune to it, and the growth of ventures for “consumer research” suggests that knowledge is far more effective than symbols.

“1984” has not come yet; nor will it This is not the trouble with the modem world. Much of its technical development points the way to the kind of world that could be; as things are, it is the organization of society now and nothing else which stands in the way of man’s full development. For that only a little more knowledge is needed. The enemy is ignorance.

Robert Barltrop