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Comment by erikpukinskis | Hacker News Reader

I think this is a fundamental property of capitalism. People who are happy and taken care of don't need to spend money and are terrible for the economy. If you can create problems for someone, you can market solutions to them. Some of the best selling products in the world, like Coca-Cola, are themselves creating the the problem they purport to solve.

For a century, companies have been pushing cultural changes that make it harder for us to take car of ourselves, privatizing public spaces for socialization, promoting nuclear families over extended families and neighborhoods, narrowing beauty standards, promoting exotic vacations and recreational activities, etc. This has fueled economic growth while making us generally more vulnerable. As the article describes, even if you have enough money to take care of your basic needs, you have a long distance to go to happiness.

On the tech side this is quite common too. I would put PowerPoint in this category, too. And most AAA video games.

The sooner we can get out of this "money is a proxy for everything because markets are perfect" nonsense the better.

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You're saying that a fundamental property of prosperity is a tendency for underconsumption? That capitalism therefore must mitigate it? So then, all your grievances are related to alleged cases of conspicuous consumption that are contrived by companies in response to a satiated, underconsuming populace.

I'm unsure of what "privatizing public spaces for socialization" is supposed to mean, or why it would be bad. After all, a private property owner may extend nonpossessory or usufructory rights to usage of their land, which would make it perfectly viable for social gatherings without being necessarily more exclusionary than a commons or public ownership. The promotion of the nuclear family model is an organic result of prosperity, which enables its existence to thrive. Thus, it's a social tendency first and then absorbed by industry. Same with beauty standards. I also fail to see how "promoting exotic vacations and recreational activities" is bad.

Your last sentence is confusing. Money is special because it is a good that, particularly fiat money, is almost entirely defined by exchange value over use value, and is the unit at which all other goods are priced relative to. Where are you drawing the association with "perfect markets," or whether markets would even need to be perfect?

Not the person you replied to, but here's my take on your confusions:

> I'm unsure of what "privatizing public spaces for socialization" is supposed to mean, or why it would be bad.

I think they were referring to the movement away from communal spaces and communally owned spaces, especially ones which contribute to socialization/enculturation. Things like parks, libraries, schools, which are for people and of people, but which increasingly are not by people.

> After all, a private property owner may extend nonpossessory or usufructory rights to usage of their land, which would make it perfectly viable for social gatherings without being necessarily more exclusionary than a commons or public ownership.

There's a difference between being a tenant on someone else's charity land and being a member of a community, and although I don't really have the expertise, time, or space to go into it, I imagine it involves a sense of belonging and ownership and community, that sort of thing.

> The promotion of the nuclear family model is an organic result of prosperity, which enables its existence to thrive.

This is true, and we've seen people moving back in with their parents on graduation now that the economy is weaker. This being true doesn't preclude there being a narrative that might eg take ideals like Independence and Self-Determination and turn them into a social impetus to form weaker bonds with extended family. I personally think it has a lot to do with our physical mobility increasing faster than our ability to maintain meaningful connections long-distance, but who knows.

> Same with beauty standards.

This has been problematic for generations and there's a lot of literature out there. I think that waving away the effects of image crafting on the psyche of young and impressionable folks in pursuit of profit is wrong of you, and you should consider re-evaluating this stance.

> I also fail to see how "promoting exotic vacations and recreational activities" is bad.

I mostly agree, except in the sense that people are maybe being sold a bad cure for an ailment they might not have had, spending money they don't have, perpetuating the problems that caused them to want to escape in the first place. Again, just for example.

For the last sentence, here's my interpretation: Markets are flawed because the actors in them are not rational or well-informed (which is often an axiom of whatever model one chooses to use), and because the actions available to them are dictated by those currently on top[1]. I think OP was referring to the way that boiling human interaction down to market interactions - trusting the Market to be a true and somehow just proxy for Everything - is causing problems; that is, trusting markets (alone) to meet human needs is failing.

Hope this helps.

1. For instance, violence or overt threats of violence in pursuit of gain is considered to be taboo in markets (that I know of), since those who have goods or the means to produce them generally want to keep that relative power over those who do not. We see alternative, or extra-market action in eg ecoterrorism, where someone whose needs or desires are not being met, and who have no in-market recourse, resort to destruction in order to reduce profitability of hummers or whatever.

Parks, libraries and schools are largely not communally-owned spaces, but government-owned. Crucial distinction. In fact, some of the best alternatives to the traditional classroom model (i.e. Montessori, Sudbury, democratic, etc.) tend to be privately run schools. As such, private schools are on the positive side here.

Again, this mystical "community" is mostly an illusion. It's either private ownership or government ownership via eminent domain. Commons aren't applicable in most cases.

Bonds with extended family are to be settled on an individual case-by-case basis. Many people rightfully may consider their extended families to be not worth interacting with, and in any event this is all a flimsy normative sentiment.

Beauty standards are determined first societally, then by entrepreneurs. The profit motive is intrinsic to a world of uncertainty (see Frank H. Knight's Risk, Uncertainty and Profit). It is wholly neutral. There is nothing wrong with pursuing profits, even though a lot of people have an anti-capitalist bias and are convinced it's demonic.

Clearly these are unresolved issues on part of the consumer.

Markets are flawed because the actors in them are not rational or well-informed (which is often an axiom of whatever model one chooses to use), and because the actions available to them are dictated by those currently on top.

This is the almost cliched refrain of every moral reformer. Market participants are irrational, therefore $SOCIAL_ENGINEERING_POLICY_OF_CHOICE. Of course, there is information asymmetry in anything one does (market or no market), and the classic resolutions are through screening or signaling.

(Also, the definitions of "rational" and "informed" in economics are quite different from their colloquial counterparts. Moreover, assuming universal irrationality by default leads to nihilistic conclusions. At least it should anyway, most people use it as an excuse for their pet reforms by completely ignoring the irrationality in state institutions.)

For instance, violence or overt threats of violence in pursuit of gain is considered to be taboo in markets (that I know of), since those who have goods or the means to produce them generally want to keep that relative power over those who do not.

What the fuck? Violence is taboo in markets because the bourgeoisie capitalists want to exploit the underdogs? Could it possibly be because the initiation of force against voluntary actors is considered immoral by almost everyone? Hopefully you do, as well, but I can't deduce.

EDIT: The anti-capitalist and socialist crankery seems to be inherent from examining your post history.

> Parks, libraries and schools are largely not communally-owned spaces, but government-owned. Crucial distinction.

It's only a crucial distinction if you don't consider yourself part of your own municipality. For the rest of us, (local) government is an expression of communion.

> Many people rightfully may consider their extended families to be not worth interacting with

I'm not convinced about the "rightfully" part. Your extended family exists because of choices of your direct family; to denounce the extensions is to make your direct family subject to your approval. You're free to do so, but I don't think "right" is the qualifier I would use.

> Beauty standards are determined first societally, then by entrepreneurs.

Except that entrepreneurs don't idly sit on the sidelines while "society" forms its standards. Our social self-image is dominated by only a few corporations, which have a lot to gain from controlling that image.

> The profit motive is intrinsic to a world of uncertainty [..] It is wholly neutral.

Just as the military motive is intrinsic to a world of uncertainty, I guess. Is developing and deploying nuclear weapons wholly neutral too?

> Clearly these are unresolved issues on part of the consumer.

On the contrary, when the majority of consumers is led to the wrong choice (cue philosophical derailment about moral relativism), it becomes a systemic problem. Maybe it's time to stop relying on 400-year old dogma?

> This is the almost cliched refrain of every moral reformer.

Your post also reads as the most cliched refrain of every economic anarchist. Can you even name one truly free market?

Even if you believe "local government is an expression of communion," that would not invalidate the fact that there are important distinctions, as a many political scientist and public choice theorist have outlined. You may well believe it to be a purely benevolent arrangement by and for the people, but that is very weak and ignores problems highlighted by James M. Buchanan, Gordon Tullock and many others.

I don't understand the logic of "Direct family made this decision at some point, therefore you are obligated to perpetually obligate it." The "rightfulness" comes from the fact that the extended family may in fact be harmful and detrimental to one's well-being if it is highly dysfunctional. It can happen.

Our social self-image is dominated by only a few corporations, which have a lot to gain from controlling that image.

The implications of this statement, even if true, are quite unfortunate. It would imply the public is that naive and susceptible, but that moreover they have absolutely no recourse. This is a plain falsehood, they can each reject various parts of consumer culture if they wish, just as I (and presumably you) are doing by abstaining from lots of activities. You may also organize boycotts or engage in activism.

Obviously, without knowing who these corporations are and examining how they emerged, this statement you've given me alone is of little use to deliberate, and mostly makes the public look gullible.

Just as the military motive is intrinsic to a world of uncertainty, I guess. Is developing and deploying nuclear weapons wholly neutral too?

Well, you jumped the shark on this one. Whether you define profits as the speculation in opportunities concerning undervaluation or overvaluation of production factors, or profits as the surplus value extracted from variable capital, or surplus at all, I can't tell how it is anything but neutral. A particular profit-seeker may not be, but profit in general is. Production-for-use is a classic socialist anthem, but in practice it means always operating at subsistence and having distribution be inefficient because of cutting yourself off from a price system. Only in a hypothetical final state of rest/general equilibrium that cannot exist will profits disappear and only interest be obtained.

Not really moral relativism, but more that you cannot do interpersonal comparisons of utility. Even if you leave that aside, it is genuinely difficult to say that a majority of consumers are making a wrong choice, if it may be that is what they intended by their own volition. I'm sure going to strip clubs in general would count by a many definition, but, ultimately you have to convincingly prove there is both a massive and predictable irrationality going on. Even when you do, you have to weigh in the costs-benefits of intervention over individual bargaining and Coasian solutions of transaction costs and property rights.

If mine is 400-year old dogma, yours must be much older.

Your post also reads as the most cliched refrain of every economic anarchist. Can you even name one truly free market?

That's not the point, nor am I an economic anarchist. You can't just handwave useful economic research in a pithy one-liner about market irrationality without proposing a consistent model that doesn't lead to outright analytical nihilism, and you absolutely cannot refrain from extending irrationality to all other institutions and examine the effects, over merely assuming the perfection of some form of government.

> Even if you believe "local government is an expression of communion," that would not invalidate the fact that there are important distinctions, as a many political scientist and public choice theorist have outlined

Can you enumerate some of them, or point me to a simple resource? I have no desire to go read full-size papers, so something light that goes beyond the trite "we oppose any form of social organization" would be nice.

> The implications of this statement, even if true, are quite unfortunate

I guess that is true. Maybe yours is the more optimistic view of mankind. Your discomfort does not invalidate my viewpoint, though.

As for rejecting various parts of consumer culture, how would I participate in web 2.0 while rejecting walled gardens?

> Whether you define profits [..] I can't tell how it is anything but neutral

There is value in a society beyond profits. Individual freedom, social coherence and emotional stability cannot be valued at all, except perhaps in lost productivity when they break down. There are also forms of productivity that are not expressed as profit even though they could: childrearing and other forms of care come to mind. In addition, "profits" rarely include common costs (like depletion of fish stocks), or they are valued well below their true cost (e.g. carbon tax).

No, I cannot see how "profits" can be seen as neutral, when the true cost/benefit ratio to society is so skewed.

> it is genuinely difficult to say that a majority of consumers are making a wrong choice, if it may be that is what they intended by their own volition

Difficult as it is, the debate around the obesity epidemic is certainly heading in that direction.

I had an earlier post listing various resources, originally from a drug-related debate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10729233 (That you use straw men like opposition to all forms of social organization implies to me you don't have a background on these issues at all, though.)

A consistent pessimism for mankind should involve rejection of authority beyond corporate villains.

As for rejecting various parts of consumer culture, how would I participate in web 2.0 while rejecting walled gardens?

Web 2.0 is a useless term, but since we can assume it refers to social media that is intrinsically walled gardens, you simply do not participate in it. However, that you can't isn't strictly true. Metcalfe's law would make it harder since you'd need to restrict yourself to smaller social sites. Yet you're deriving utility from sites like HN, clearly, so this "Web 2.0" distinction strikes me as elusive. There's plenty of mitigations to lower your exposure to walled gardens while still nominally using them, it's not necessarily a binary proposition of accept/reject. Though, who ever said that rejecting consumer culture would be easy? Going outside any grain involves forgoing opportunities.

Your paragraph about profits is a tautology. Of course unquantifiable (psychic) profits are different and unrelated. Value and profits are not the same thing, and it's a red herring to bring up things like childrearing (which babysitters and nannies do for profit, nevertheless). How does this defy the intrinsic existence of profits and their neutrality? And, certainly, someone may indeed find value and derive profits (psychic or monetary) from conserving fish stocks or any other environment. Not only that, markets can be environmentalist. Check out these guys: http://www.perc.org/

Difficult as it is, the debate around the obesity epidemic is certainly heading in that direction.

No shit, people make decisions ex ante that prove ex post to have been incorrect (by whatever measure). I am unsure of what you intend by invoking the obesity epidemic (I''m presuming specifically for the USA?)

> A consistent pessimism for mankind should involve rejection of authority beyond corporate villains.

I don't follow. Why should I accept corporate villains?

> I am unsure of what you intend by invoking the obesity epidemic (I''m presuming specifically for the USA?)

I was referring to England actually. I don't know enough about the US situation, I'm guessing the obesity rates are similar if not worse. The concensus basically centers around "consumers are making a wrong choice because of the availability of cheap unhealthy alternatives". I used it to illustrate that even when it comes to something basic like sustenance, "the market" fails to produce the desired outcome.

> Of course unquantifiable (psychic) profits are different and unrelated. Value and profits are not the same thing

Then perhaps you should stop asserting that "There is nothing wrong with pursuing profits", as you apparently are well aware that increased profits and increased value do not necessarily coincide?

Increased value of what? There's no such thing as this monolithic unit of value that is in conflict with the monolithic unit of profit. Values are not necessarily profits, but profits are values.

Why should my statement require qualification, while your statement stands similarly unqualified?

I can see strawmen, reactiveness, ad hominem attacks in your post. Please take time to read and empathize with the people you respond to. This is not a place to win arguments with aggressive tone.

You've obviously misunderstood something. You, in what now was obviously an attempt to troll folks, feigned confusion at some of the OP's points, and I was trying to mediate by fleshing those out along what I considered to be standard ideological lines. The only place where I interjected my own opinion was on the beauty standards bit. I'm not a socialist (I've never even read any Marx!), just trying to take a critical view of things.

I wasn't feigning anything. The GP was being unspecific.

> People who are happy and taken care of don't need to spend money

Um, what? People who are happy and taken care of may well be that way precisely because they are able to spend enough money to either prevent problems from arising, or make them go away if they do arise. There is no magical way to make people happy and taken care of without doing productive work, and a free market is the best way we know of to efficiently do productive work.

> The sooner we can get out of this "money is a proxy for everything because markets are perfect" nonsense the better.

I would say that the sooner we stop trying to monkey with markets because we think we can do better when we actually can't, the better. I completely agree that not everything can be provided by free market transactions; but that doesn't change the fact that without all the stuff that can and should be provided by free market transactions, our current civilization could not exist. I don't know about you, but I don't want to live the kind of life that everybody would be living if our current civilization did not exist.

Temporary solutions have higher evolutionary fitness in a capitalist environment. They provide consistent cash flow that can be used for employing people, expanding, marketing, lobbying, etc.

Examples are everywhere: - Pharma's lack of interest in reversible male birth control [1] - The USDA's MyPlate reflecting industry interests rather than science [2], which is particularly damaging when you consider the impact of healthy eating on obesity, health care

As luminary Chris Rock mentioned, "Ain't no money in the cure, the money's in the medicine" [3]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversible_inhibition_of_sperm... [2] http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-eating-p... [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7P4iFg048k

I used to be a hardcore capitalist and would've launched into a rant at this kind of a post. I do disagree in a minor way though: I think Capitalism is fine and dandy, I think we've just gotten entirely too good at the emotional manipulative style of marketing products.

Awhile back I started reading a lot about what goes into the creation of a mainstream big brand product and it's fucking horrifying. Food for example should scare you to death, how thoroughly engineered it is to make you want to eat more of it and never feel full. I'm not even talking highly processed food, I'm talking ALL FUCKING FOOD does this. If it's ever been involved in a corporation at all, be it for packaging, growing, slaughtering, etc. I promise you it has been engineered to at least some degree, and probably to a large degree to be consumed as an addictive thing.

Then you go into just the regular advertising for electronics, cars, on and on and how they do just tons and tons of things in this little 30 second TV spot to make you want a thing. You can find BOOK length documents to read about how to engineer the perfect YouTube ad, we've already figured out how to entice people to things using a 10 second video that takes up 1/4 of the page.

I still believe capitalism is the best system, but we need to reign in our marketers across the board. Consumers need to be able to make rational decisions for Capitalism to truly work, and they can't do that when they're being barraged with manipulative messaging 14 hours a day.

While I don't necessarily disagree I have to point out that TFA isn't talking about the malaise of wanting more to consume. It's talking about much larger issues: people who are schizophrenic, or victims if physical abuse, or rape.

I don't see any marketers out there enticing more people into the arms of schizophrenia, food stamps, or prison sentences.

True enough, I got a little on a side tangent here. To be honest though I think this is a little more sad, only because no matter how good as a society we become we'll always have rapists and whatnot, but we've created an entire demographic group of people who can't stop consuming as a compulsion, who otherwise were it not for excessive exposure to marketing messages they don't understand, would just be (plus or minus) "normal" people.

How is unprocessed food engineered to make you want more? You mean if I buy chicken from a local grocer, it's corrupted?

Look at chickens from the 1920's and compare them to what we have now. I don't know if "corrupted" is the right word for it, but it has a shitload more salt (which your body naturally craves) not to mention it's much larger and fatter.

Where can I look at chickens from the 1920's?

It seems like you and many other people are of the world view that everyone would behave ideally if only corporate forces weren't influencing them. This may be true, there's no way to know for sure.

It's also possible that most major corporations meet the demands of the market rather than create those demands. Art imitates life. The thing about brand advertising, like for Coca-Cola, is that its done mainly for commoditized products that consumers already want. People already want a cold soda on a hot day. The question is will they reach for a coke or a pepsi? A Big Mac or a Whopper? A dell or a macbook? It's not like none of those things would exist if evil corporations didn't make us want them. The cat is out of the bag now, people already want sodas and fast food. The global advertising empire is primarily fueled by getting people to choose company's product over another, not intentionally making you want things you can't afford.

We cant blame society's ills on corporations, capitalism or any other system of behavior. All of these things are democratic, they reflect the will of the people. And human beings have been making themselves feel bad due to envy and desire for as long as there have been human beings. I would advocate for banning all advertising forever if I thought it would change things. But it won't.

I agree with you that to blame corporations about every bad thing is going too far.

But I also think that you go too far exculpating them.

To say "all of these things are democratic, they reflect the will of the people", is a very naive comment.

Tobacco is a good example of a need that was just created.

Or in the news not so long ago:

Coca-Cola 'spends millions on research to prove that fizzy drinks don't make you fat' ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandcon... )

We could find so many examples as you need.

>The question is will they reach for a coke or a pepsi?

How about plain old cold water? Is a Cola much better at quenching thirst than plain cold water?

EDIT for clarity: The point is, the first question is not "Will they reach for a coke or pepsi", but "Will they reach for a bottle of cold water or a cola", then only the question of choosing between pepsi or coke comes.

So you first need to convince people that you should drink a cola when you are thirsty. This is where the "evil" part comes from.

I don't think people were really happier back then, before the things you say are the problem. In fact I'd bet anything people were significantly less happy. You blame capitalism, but I doubt that people under communism were happier.

Frankly the world is getting better every year. Not quickly, but gradually. I welcome a world where our biggest problems come from Coca-Cola and vacations and video games.

I agree. But I think we will be happier when capitalism is partially (mostly?) displaced by voluntary participation in anarchist syndicates that control a meaningful set of resources.

I don't know what proportion is right, but I strongly suspect the near-100% private/government ownership of resources we see today is not optimal.

On this topic I recommend "The Gospel of Consumption" [1]

[1] https://orionmagazine.org/article/the-gospel-of-consumption/

> I think this is a fundamental property of capitalism. > Second most-upvoted comment

OK, I think I'm done reading HN comments on political and social issues. The amount of delusion and ignorance is just unbearable.

> I think this is a fundamental property of capitalism

What precisely is "this"?

> Some of the best selling products in the world, like Coca-Cola, are themselves creating the the problem they purport to solve.

I can't imagine what problem you're referring to. Are you saying Coca-Cola creates thirst?

> This has fueled economic growth while making us generally more vulnerable

How do you measure that? By any measure I'm aware of we are vastly better off than the people of 1915.

> Are you saying Coca-Cola creates thirst?

Really?

I imagine he's saying Coca-Cola makes you fat and diabetic, and thus unhappy, whereas it purports to make you happy. So it creates the problem it says it solves.

Yeah, I imagine something like that too. I asked to see if there was something better.

But that argument is really weak.

All products are obviously intended to improve your life in some way.

If a product causes more problems than it solves long term, it's true that people may buy more products to solve those problems.

But to assume that they would buy more of the exact product that caused the problem is really silly. Why not buy some of all the other products in the world that would make me better off, and one that addresses my particular problem?

Specifically, if Coca-Cola makes people fat and diabetic, does anyone really believe that a big enough portion of those affected would react by buying even more Coca-Cola that this is a viable business strategy?

> But to assume that they would buy more of the exact product that caused the problem is really silly. Why not buy some of all the other products in the world that would make me better off, and one that addresses my particular problem?

I don't understand why it is even remotely silly. Consider alcohol and tobacco, or any other addictive substance. A very common dynamic is that the addiction feeds itself. Sugar might be less addictive and/or less unhealthy than alcohol and tobacco, but it's still addictive and unhealthy.

While it might be possible that the more extreme statement that most cola-drinking obese and diabetic people keep drinking more and more cola is false, 'buying more of the thing that is the problem' is not at all silly. And anecdotally I find that obese people do tend to get stuck in this spiral and consume massive quantities of sugar water: that's why they got obese in the first place!

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