However, at the end of the day it won't matter. Advertising is available to all companies, we end up with a tug of war over peoples attentions, which will probably result in advertising becoming ineffective.
No, there is no debate. No one seriously argues that companies pour half a trillion dollars into advertising that doesn't work.
> However, at the end of the day it won't matter. Advertising is available to all companies, we end up with a tug of war over peoples attentions, which will probably result in advertising becoming ineffective.
It does matter. If the tug of war is between two companies that want you to buy their version of X, there is still no one advertising that you should not buy X at all. This is known as growing the market. Demand is still created in this case.
It's at least not a new thought. Mostly though I'm skeptical that advertising is subverting capitalism.
Is demand created though? How do you know that some people weren't just unaware of the product before, and would have gladly bought it had they known of it.
Because not buying something is the easiest, and default position.
Advertising is also part of the capitalism chain. Companies demand advertising, so it exists.
> Is demand created though? How do you know that some people weren't just unaware of the product before, and would have gladly bought it had they known of it.
You're describing creating demand. Someone didn't want something because they didn't know it existed. Now they want it. This is the most effective advertising possible.
> Because not buying something is the easiest, and default position.
Ok? If you exit the default position because you saw an ad, the ad worked.
Because the core principles of Capitalism could function without advertising, I think this is incorrect.
The main point I was trying to make was that advertising does not remove the inherent Democratic component of Capitalism.
> You're describing creating demand. Someone didn't want something because they didn't know it existed. Now they want it. This is the most effective advertising possible.
The advertiser didn't really create the demand though, it existed before them?
However, I don't think that advertising is enough to remove the democratic component from capitalism.
If you want a perfect example of this, go back to the start of modern advertising and look up the phrase "Torches Of Freedom" and Edward Bernays.
In what way did this harm democracy? Cigarettes are dying off, because of scientific discoveries, if anything this demonstrates my point.