Adverts defile Free Market values

[Silhouette]

There is an irony here, which exposes a hidden coercion in the "free" market.

It's obvious enough that you are forced to supply a trade that meets some demand by others, else you are excluded from the considerable advantages that the market can provide, and you must rely on self-sufficiency or breaking the law.
This goes without saying for any economic model though, because the law of increasing entropy demands at least that somebody works whether anyone wants to or not - in order to lower the rate of increasing entropy. So physically no market is "free", and every market involves coercion.

The more freely available the product or service, the more the "free" market comes to rely on security services to prevent the freedom of their availability, in order to justify imposing a price to sell them. Think intellectual property or anything publishable on the internet.
When this imposition rightly fails, imposing adverts is the modern resort as a lame kind of backup strategy.

Adverts, by derivation "to turn" you "towards" a product or service, are not intended to be skippable - they are intended to infringe on what you would otherwise choose to do in order to persuade you by whatever means to at least consider and preferably submit to the trade of your money for their product or service. The better the manipulation of human psychological weaknesses, the more effective the advertisement - and if they did not work then it would not be a monumentally huge industry.

This is the deception of advertisement: to convince you that "you don't have to" pay attention to the means by which companies make you feel like your subsequent purchase was your own choice uninfluenced by their advertisement. "The customer doesn't know what they want" and "we're only providing information on where to go to get what you want" are patent deceptions delivered with an air of innocent benevolence. If the customer doesn't know what they want, you could simply provide them with dry information on an optional platform, which simultaneously provides information on where to go to get what you want. Anything above that is unnecessary to innocent causes.
Even more advanced is the stage where you are convinced to submit yourself to these means out of duty to support the company that distributed the ad...

The structure itself requires private property laws, and only within the ability to privatise (make unfree within particular constraints) can such a market be "free".

[Ecmandu]

You're not going to get disagreement by anyone here, so I'd be suprized if you get many replies.

You missed one of the most powerful arguments though:

The only reason we get content at all is because of ad revenues.

Maybe everyone should be like PBS...

[pinkladydragon]

There is an irony here, which exposes a hidden coercion in the "free" market.

This is the deception of advertisement: to convince you that "you don't have to" pay attention to the means by which companies make you feel like your subsequent purchase was your own choice uninfluenced by their advertisement.

I think this overcomplcates matters. To paraphrase that well known saying: Lies, damn lies and advertising. From time to time when I hear or see an advert my jaw nearly hits the ground when I see what lies it is getting away with. As to the Advertising Standards Authority telling me that all ads must be "truthful...etc", well, they simply don't know what truth is.

[Silhouette]

I think this overcomplcates matters. To paraphrase that well known saying: Lies, damn lies and advertising. From time to time when I hear or see an advert my jaw nearly hits the ground when I see what lies it is getting away with. As to the Advertising Standards Authority telling me that all ads must be "truthful...etc", well, they simply don't know what truth is.

I don't know what adverts for e.g. perfumes and scents are like globally, but where I'm from there's literally zero informational and objective content. It's 100% imagery and association - how do you assess the truth of the olfactory in terms of the visual and auditory? It sounds like the assessment of truth in explaining eyesight to the blind - inherently problematic.

Perhaps this is an extreme example, but all the rest seem to be shades of the same thing - begging the question of how much truth can you appear to be portraying whilst maximally subliminally manipulating and deceiving in order to maximise the whole purpose of advertising in the first place. I don't think it's controversial to suggest that advertising stands in direct opposition with truth, only able to deceptively achieve truth through lying beneath appearances.

You missed one of the most powerful arguments though:

The only reason we get content at all is because of ad revenues.

Maybe everyone should be like PBS...

Yes, I've seen this argument a lot - it revolves around the assumption that surface adjustments are the best we can do, like with mainstream politics. That is to say, given the economic model, adverts are the "best" solution to continuing the economic model. But instead of justifying the depths we have to sink to, the obvious other angle is to question the economic model itself.

I think the current economic model can be traced back to the Division of Labour, which is certainly a strong basis. You might think that the alternative (self-sufficiency) would appeal to individualists - but politically Individualism appears to be entrenched in a socialised division of labour. The society-wide division of labour has a great deal of efficiency going for it.

The reason Division of Labour is the basis, is because it is the foundation of the need to trade - self-sufficiency requires no trade, but as soon as you share out tasks to allow specialisation, trade is required for specialists to acquire the other things they need that they aren't producing, and everyone else mutually benefits from the higher quality of what each specialist has to offer.

So with the need for trade established, the question of whether it is voluntary or not arises.

Trade is not just a question of what you buy, obviously - voluntary trade of course appeals to pretty much everyone: to buy whatever you want. It's also nice to be able to pick what trade you want too.
But you can't buy whatever you want for what are accepted restrictions of: what's on offer & its pricing. And you can't pick whatever trade you want either, because you can't sell what others don't want. Even voluntary trade in the current model is not voluntary for many reasons - what even is the question of voluntary trade or not? It's a question of what aspects of the voluntary can be mixed with the inevitable restrictions of the necessary.

So with the need for trade established, the question is over what ratios and arrangements of the voluntary that we can have.

That is to say: there is no such thing as a free market - as exemplified perfectly by advertising.
If a company cannot impose a price restriction on what you want to buy, they still need to want to supply what they want to sell. Apparently the current solution is to replace price with a forced investment in your future purchase of other products where prices can still be imposed. This begs the question of what happens once prices can no longer be imposed on other products, due to upcoming technologies like free energy - neither advertising nor pricing will work as necessary accompaniments and antitheses to the notion of the "free" market.
Perhaps the application of "the voluntary" will no longer be able to go to the choice to produce anything to sell - i.e. production will become mandatory.

This leaves only the "freedom" to buy what you wish, and the ideological notion of "free" market becomes even less justified than it is already.

[promethean75]

the thing with adverts, sil, is that they're incredibly expensive, so companies aren't going to spend their money to extend commercial air time to give you all the info on the product during the commercial. it's the consumer's responsibility to research the product.

but you're spot on about the more concealed nature of advertisement, especially it's subliminal content. i just heard a car dealership radio commercial - well i've heard it several times. the name of the dealer is 'hendrick', and at the very end of the commercial, the name is said. but it isn't just any ol' body or any ol' voice that says it; it's the voice of a young female who says 'hendrick' the same way she might say 'oh it's so good' when getting fucked. there's a science to everything about this... the tone, pitch, volume, all of it. basically what the advert producers are doing is trying to trigger and stimulate the most base of the subconscious reward responses; i just heard a girl sound like she's orgasming... now i'm totally interested in buying a car from them (if you're a guy). i just heard a sexy girl's voice... and i want to be sexy like her... now i'm totally interested i buying a car from them (if you're a gal).

it's not rocket science to observe how capitalism thrives on this kind of underhanded manipulation...and it's something it has forced itself to do in order to be successfully competitive in the market. make you interested in as little time possible, even if that involves forms of persuasion that are hidden underneath an otherwise banal surface. and what is happening as a kind of side-effect is that people sense the play of this subterfuge, and it conditions their social behavior such that they almost become commercials themselves in selling themselves publically. they unconsciously model their behavior off of the adverts, TV shows, music videos, and all other kinds of media that are structured to solicit interests subliminally. i was reading a book on post-structuralism earlier and the author had made the comment that people in capitalist/consumerism are like 'walking billboards' with little to no depth. everything is a performance... everyone is an autonomous copy... even the image of non-conformity becomes a conformity that is purchased. originality, today, is almost impossible... or requiring such a radical break from normality that you'd almost be classed a sociopath to do so.

and all this bullshit is the product of commodity fetishism... attributing 'metaphysical niceties' (marx) to otherwise mundane goods that are portrayed through capitalst advertisement to possess almost magical properties. when you buy a shampoo, you ain't just buying some soap to clean your hair. you're buying a way of life, a complete persona. just look at the confident bounce in the step and how everyone smiles when you walk by. you're a go-getter, someone who demands respect and is admired by everyone in both the workplace and at home. you could even do a joint commercial with chili's bar and grill. first you'd wash your hair with pantene, then you'd join your friends at chili's where everyone would sit at the table and NEVER STOP LAUGHING AND SMILING because they're having such a wonderful time. the food is great and the conversation even better.

but it's never really like that, is it? see what i mean; advertisement exaggerates reality to a point where it's almost surreal... and that's what people want. they want to be that chick walking down the sidewalk with the bouncing hair... they want to be in that group of impossibly happy people at the table pulling pieces of pizza from the pie as the long strings of cheese stretch like they never really do in reality.

the whole thing is a joke, man. it's one of the 673 lies that cannot exist without capitalism. lies which taken individually never amount to any real danger, but when combined with all the others, completely poison the mind and soul of man. the genius in it is that it works so subtly... so slowly, so that one never notices the disease they've gotten from it.

capitalism is a monopoly on the fantasies of man, a systematic brainwashing and hypnotism that creates mindless hedonistic zombies ready and waiting to buy whatever they're told to.

[promethean75]

(as always, Tina Turner and her trusty Ikettes on backing vocals, ladies and gentlemen)

[MagsJ]

Thank god for moneyback guarantees, huh.

[promethean75]

no.

i just bought a new pair of electric blue asics running shoes, and they aren't making me feel fabulous. at least not as fabulous as the middle-upper class hot guy with the perfect hair in the commercial i saw.

now what am i supposed to do? return them and say 'they didn't make me feel fabulous'? i can't do that, so i'd have to lie... but kant says i should act as if my act were to become a universal maxim/law. now if i do that, i'd be condoning lying. i don't wanna do that, man. my whole thing is that there is already TOO MUCH LYING going on. see how capitalism with its false promises forces me to lie to get my money back after i discover it's products don't deliver unto me the image i've been made to believe is real?

fucking bullshit. i'm not saying i'm not fabulous. i am. that's not the point, though. the point is i was promised satisfaction i didn't get through my purchase.

[Meno_]

75:


The whole thing is about objectifying
the imagination of men, which You rightly point out, by a series of deliberate counterpunches to the politically sensitive identity politics.
Who are You? The fear of social cohesion by object manipulation , reverts fear of identity branding in it's self, or, self valuing, to coin St
James, by objectives imposed by material criteria.

It cuts away essential values referring to historical needs to an accumulation of wants peripheral to the personality.

Alienation may be de-infused with ever emphatic regression to illness.

Susan Sontag, 'Ilness as a metaphor' ,
and other has been social architectural vehicles- ' The Ugly American' ' Black like Me' ... et al ; all sellers in the socially changing world of the '60' s.


But can't You just smell the contradiction between a NWO type Capitalism trying to cohese with a new type of nationality of identity?

It is so obvious, but it is more of a prolegmina to those infected with the European virus.

[Silhouette]

capitalism is a monopoly on the fantasies of man, a systematic brainwashing and hypnotism that creates mindless hedonistic zombies ready and waiting to buy whatever they're told to.

There's actually an ecological law, known as the "Competitive Exclusion Principle" that describes exactly how the Classical Liberal economic theory of markets cannot work in practice.

We all know how "Perfect Competition" describes the ideal conditions for the market to function as intended, and the further away you get from that towards monopoly the more corrupt it becomes. Well the CEP shows exactly why perfect competition conditions cannot endure. I've only come across one theory that explains when it can endure: under conditions of extreme poverty and scarcity. Reason being that there is so little to gain from getting any degree of competitive advantage that it doesn't provide enough of a competitive advantage to destabilise the balance. So basically to keep markets fair, you have to starve them, otherwise they become a victim of their own success and tend towards monopoly - like we have now. Then the media machine and politicians just blame this monopoly on attempts to fix it...

The CEP is at the very core of marketing theory: that you need to distinguish yourself from your competition in order to survive and thrive i.e. make your own market to monopolise.
Adverts are designed to facilitate the perception of competitors in the same market as being unique.

Hereby adverts are a direct affront to Free Market theory as well as its values.
It is exactly a systematic brainwashing and hypnotism by design - the "creativity" that those who work in marketing flatter themselves with is the very means by which they tie themselves and everyone else down towards unfree market conditions.

but it's never really like that, is it? see what i mean; advertisement exaggerates reality to a point where it's almost surreal... and that's what people want. they want to be that chick walking down the sidewalk with the bouncing hair... they want to be in that group of impossibly happy people at the table pulling pieces of pizza from the pie as the long strings of cheese stretch like they never really do in reality.

The term for this is "Supernormal Stimuli".

Humans and other animals alike still haven't transcended their weakness to be seduced by exaggerations of reality. Like those who work in marketing need an education in economics and ecology, there is a need for self-awareness to wake people up to their pscyhological weaknesses that adverts so clinically abuse to disrupt the "free" market.

You get the same response from working class supporters of Capitalism (rule by those with what they do not have: capital) - they buy into an image and a lifestyle made to seem associated with their mundane lives, and thereby support the means by which others gain from their foolishness. Their wishful thinking, and usually a dash of narcissism is used against them.

And yes, these people play out the theatre of competiting to have their weaknesses used against them - and seeing who does it the best!

the thing with adverts, sil, is that they're incredibly expensive, so companies aren't going to spend their money to extend commercial air time to give you all the info on the product during the commercial. it's the consumer's responsibility to research the product.

I love the cynicism here. Yes, if the companies were concerned with distributing all the info on the product, they'd do it - but look at that twist on values: they're doing the customer the value of leaving it to themselves to actually do the research. Can you feel the freedom? And at the same time, in the name of attracting you to a known business entity they provide more like the absolute opposite of knowledge about the advertised business - to instead trick you not into thinking they are something they aren't, but that the viewer can be something they aren't.

There's layers and layers of deception here - and all to uphold the conditions of your own submission. Just dress up submission in a sense of control and domination and voila - a working empire.

[MagsJ]

no.

Woah!

i just bought a new pair of electric blue asics running shoes, and they aren't making me feel fabulous. at least not as fabulous as the middle-upper class hot guy with the perfect hair in the commercial i saw.

There's your problem right there.. electric blue running shoes.. what were you thinking?

Joking aside.. why don't you feel fabulous in them? What element is missing that is not making it so?

now what am i supposed to do? return them and say 'they didn't make me feel fabulous'? i can't do that, so i'd have to lie... but kant says i should act as if my act were to become a universal maxim/law. now if i do that, i'd be condoning lying. i don't wanna do that, man. my whole thing is that there is already TOO MUCH LYING going on. see how capitalism with its false promises forces me to lie to get my money back after i discover it's products don't deliver unto me the image i've been made to believe is real?

..you could just say they're really uncomfortable.. and they are, because you feel unfabulously uncomfortable wearing them.

fucking bullshit. i'm not saying i'm not fabulous. i am. that's not the point, though. the point is i was promised satisfaction i didn't get through my purchase.

That's the 'disappointed with the item' returns option then.. uncomfortable, unfabulous, disappointed.. there ya go!

Let us know what happens? think of it as a socio-economic experiment.

[promethean75]

There's your problem right there.. electric blue running shoes.. what were you thinking?

as a nihilist i'm a very dark person, mags. the beliefs and ideas most take for granted that keep them in such good (superficial) spirits, i do not share. so i thought that maybe some bright colors might lighten the unsavory existential aura that surrounds me. i'm actually wearing at this moment a neon green scarf with yellow paisley print, and so far three people have nodded at me today. this is progress.

Joking aside.. why don't you feel fabulous in them?

i... i just... god I DON'T KNOW. maybe i got them laced too tight? or maybe i just need to look inward... do some sole searching and find some inserts.

'sole searching'

ha-ha-ha! what a dumbass.

[MagsJ]

as a nihilist i'm a very dark person, mags. the beliefs and ideas most take for granted that keep them in such good (superficial) spirits, i do not share. so i thought that maybe some bright colors might lighten the unsavory existential aura that surrounds me. i'm actually wearing at this moment a neon green scarf with yellow paisley print, and so far three people have nodded at me today. this is progress.

Progress, or, a charade? a charade into making others think that you're inner light is shining, or, perhaps these new interactions will trigger your inner light and so lessen the nihilism in you.

Neon green and yellow paisley..? this too is questionable, but if it's having an effect you feel you are benefiting from, then it's definitely a thing.. a thing that is working for you.. work it baby.

i... i just... god I DON'T KNOW. maybe i got them laced too tight? or maybe i just need to look inward... do some sole searching and find some inserts.

'sole searching'

ha-ha-ha! what a dumbass.

Lol at all of the above..

I would prescribe that you simply swap said Asics for something more you, less not you.. perhaps something with touches of colour, but not so.. colourful.

Choosing the right trainers is definitely a philosophical matter, regarding their matter and reflection of you thereof.

[ralfy]

A free market does not refer to the absence of coercion such as advertising but minimal government regulation.

[promethean75]

you need government regulation because without it excessive liberal freedoms will be abused and you'll end up shooting your eye out, ralfy. happens every time.

[Silhouette]

A free market does not refer to the absence of coercion such as advertising but minimal government regulation.

So you can still have a "free market" when coercion is maximally privatised?
If so, "free market" would seem a misleading term just because the unfreedom was decentralised.

I'm guessing the implication is that with minimal government regulation, we reach minimal coercion by definition?
This would, of course, place a great deal of faith in Classical Liberal economic theory - that tending towards perfection competition minimises coercion through monopoly and oligopoly etc.

I've explained that through the "Competitive Exclusion Principle" we know that perfect competition is not stable unless poverty is so great as to negate the advantage gained by success. The point is for the Free Market to get us out of this state of poverty so that we no longer need it, which means that with the physical restrictions of poverty no longer around to actually enable perfect competition to keep the Free Market in line, other means are needed. I'm not certain that only government regulation can satisfy that requirement, but it is certainly one way to do so if done properly. Anything that overrides the authority of decentralised markets could potentially fulfill this requirement, though in practice with too minimal government regulation or with government working too in line with markets and not to keep them in line, government will not suffice in this regard.

So what then? This is the only relevant economic question of our age. We know the market solution is limited and we know pre-Information-Age totalitarian governments with can't keep up with populations beyond a fairly small size.

Until that is answered, we are left with hack solutions such as enforced advertising just to maintain the illusion of voluntary trade when the Information Age makes so much so freely available. The more we progress into this age, the less viable these hack solutions become.

[Meno_]

The infusion of advertising even permeates into the information age, and some say it consists of the very opposite You are describing. It may consist more of a build up of pressures of the very complex forces of the market, which, like earthquakes, we can not really understand by prediction.
Great transformations have to naturally occur along pressure points, to be able to understand the under lying forces that shape the forces which drive the effective ingredients.
Distribution patterns suggest the effects to be contrary to curves expected, and that was behind the last past great recession.
The e caption to the rule is more manifest in economic history then the rule, and I gather, this exceptional and repetitive phenomenon has already been somewhat factored in, or rather, been devoured my the market.
If the great crash were ever to return, would market in extreme situations be for ed to view an ultimate shakeup like another world war to straighten it up, would it require it's implementation? Certainly !
That is why minor quakes naturally are instituted to relieve pressures on major faults.
The point of a general depression of a universal scale can never again be permitted to occur, and that is the final arbiter of limits to authoritarian forces bearing down on market no events, the level of poverty can not ever negate successes.
So if Conservative were to say that return to the era of a great America would entail child labour, cessation of if social programs including cutting social security , who would listen?
Well some would, and they would argue on the basis of retransforming society into less complex, less visually promoted eras, where smaller family of resembling circles of affinity drove societal needs.
If this type of retransformative awareness became dominant force, would advertisement lessen the impact of cautionary voices of those, who warn that what you see is not always to your best satisfaction?
In fact , it diminishes your need to understand the idea of why you even considered buying it in the first place.

[Meno_]

The infusion of advertising even permeates into the information age, and some say it consists of the very opposite You are describing. It may consist more of a build up of pressures of the very complex forces of the market, which, like earthquakes, we can not really understand by prediction.
Great transformations have to naturally occur along pressure points, to be able to understand the under lying forces that shape the forces which drive the effective ingredients.
Distribution patterns suggest the effects to be contrary to curves expected, and that was behind the last past great recession.
The exception to the rule is more manifest in economic history then the rule, and I gather, this exceptional and repetitive phenomenon have already been somewhat factored in, or rather, been devoured my the market.
If the great crash were ever to reoccure , would markets in extreme situations be forced to observe an ultimate shakeup like another world war to straighten things up? Would it require such extreme implementation? Certainly !
That is why minor quakes naturally are instituted to relieve pressures on major faults.
The point of a general depression of a universal scale can never again be permitted to occur, and that is the final arbiter of limits to authoritarian forces bearing down on marketable events, in which case , the levels of poverty can not ever negate successes absolutely.

So if Conservative were to say that return to the era of a great America would entail child labour, cessation of of social programs, including cutting social security , who would listen?
Well some would, and they would argue on the basis of retransforming society into less complex, less peripherally promoted eras, where smaller family of resembling circles of affinity drove societal needs.
If this type of retransformative awareness became dominant force, would advertisement lessen the impact of cautionary voices of those, who warn that what you see is not always to your best satisfaction?
In fact , it may even diminish the need to understand the idea of why competitive buying was considered in the first place.
That is, competitive buying based on peripheral levels of attributing value.

[Zero_Sum]

Free-markets don't exist and never have. Free-markets is purely fantasy and fiction that useful idiots embrace right up there with the Bible.

[Meno_]

Free-markets don't exist and never have. Free-markets is purely fantasy and fiction that useful idiots embrace right up there with the Bible.

Ok if you say so, but relative ones had in the original marketplace, where there was some village recognition of who was trading with whom, and what was being traded.
Unawareness came later, and anything advertised en-mass, was instantly a generic success.
Sure, monkeys see and do out of rote.

[Silhouette]

Free-markets don't exist and never have. Free-markets is purely fantasy and fiction that useful idiots embrace right up there with the Bible.

Textbook No true Scotsman fallacy.

Do you have a valid response?

[Meno_]

Free-markets don't exist and never have. Free-markets is purely fantasy and fiction that useful idiots embrace right up there with the Bible.

Textbook No true Scotsman fallacy.

Do you have a valid response?

Valid? Ask the man who has
to steal to eat to survive, if he can't trade. He is no less true.


I did just changed the terms, but meaning changes apart from a personal matter to get out of fallacy.
Situations change, what if it was a true Irishman, forced to abandon the village because of the potato famine?

The fallacie works only in a subjective context.

[Zero_Sum]

Free-markets don't exist and never have. Free-markets is purely fantasy and fiction that useful idiots embrace right up there with the Bible.

Ok if you say so, but relative ones had in the original marketplace, where there was some village recognition of who was trading with whom, and what was being traded.
Unawareness came later, and anything advertised en-mass, was instantly a generic success.
Sure, monkeys see and do out of rote.

Nothing in this world is free or even free from coercion. There's nothing free in the free market other than the ability for those that control it to steal other people's labor, time, and livelihoods under a variety of false pretenses.

[Zero_Sum]

Free-markets don't exist and never have. Free-markets is purely fantasy and fiction that useful idiots embrace right up there with the Bible.

Textbook No true Scotsman fallacy.

Do you have a valid response?

Prove to me in history where a free market has existed and then in detail define what a free market is. We can go from there.

[Silhouette]

Prove to me in history where a free market has existed and then in detail define what a free market is. We can go from there.

If I tried, you'd call them all no true Scotsman - that's the point of the fallacy.

Your response to Meno_ was actually the point of the thread - indeed nothing in this world is entirely free, as there is necessarily another side to the same coin wherever freedom can be identified.
This is absolutely clear as soon as you exemplify one person being completely free in one way, since another person is logically not free to do differently to what that person wants to do out of their own freedom.

This is probably your whole point as well, so I don't want to come across as hostile or averse to your point - in fact I want to agree with it, just in the most correct terms that I can.

But more than merely a general point about freedom, I simply meant to apply it specifically to the market model that is characteristically central to Western economics for the purposes of this thread. I explain how the facade necessarily becomes increasingly untenable the more we advance into the future, and specifically why it will do so.

Ideally I intended to open up discussion concerning the future of the "Free" market model, as foundationally unfree as you rightly identified it to be.