"The Management of Choice and Belief" or "When Water Starts to Burn"

It`s a Choose Your Title essay today. (A bit like destiny, the choice is there, but the core stays)

The Management of Choice and Belief

From my perspective, we live under the dogma of capitalism. It may as well become a god. We worship, we sing the praises, we make books, we convert the young (or the ones that "don't know better"), we defend, we make wars, we idealize, we condemn "others" not following His rules, we construct our societies around Him, we change His name. In other words, there is a marketing strategy.

According to the businessdictionary.com, there are four major steps to marketing. Lets say I want to sell you water (I`m sorry, but I`m old enough to remember the clash in my head when I started seeing water bottles for sell... It was a type of "paradigm shift" moment). The first step to marketing is choose, and develop if necessary, your product. So that`s my first step, just did it, I choose to sell water. Then, decide how much it`s going to earn you/how much "others" are going to pay. (I do make a point of choosing my words... if I write others, it`s because i believe it`s this sentiment of individuality which allows us to make egoistic decisions). In his book, The Value of Nothing, Raj Patel illustrates this point by comparing a few studies which compared wealth and happiness. It seems like a certain amount of whealth, does bring some happiness, yet, too much to manage gets people more anxious, generally. So why are we building our societies around the concepts of cheap prices = more stuff (offer and demand)?

"Economy and larger social advance is measured by the increase in the total production of all goods and services - in the United States what is called the Gross Domestic Product (the GDP) [...] from the size, composition and eminence of the GDP comes also one of our socially most widespread forms of fraud. The composition of the GDP is determined not by the public at large but by those who produce its components. This, in major part, is the result of the comprehensive and talented persuasion of the economic world, including economists. How does the GDP move? Its scale and content are extensively imposed by producers. Good performance is measured by the production of material objects and services. Not education or literature or the arts but the production of automobiles, including SUVs. Here is the modern measure of economic and therewith social achievement." (Galbraith, 2004)

"Can't take my eyes off you" is singing Damien Rice. Water. One of the Pacific Institute`s program is geared towards providing sustainable solutions to water pollution and shortages.

The third step in marketing is distribution. The Pacific Institute made this perceptive link between water and conflict in history.

"War remains the decisive human failure." (Galbraith, 2004)

And indeed, war can be costly... therefore somebody is making money.

Rien ne se perd, rien ne se crée, tout se transforme (Principe de Lavoisier) is actually inspired from the Greek Anaxagoras born in 500 BC.

(to be continued...)

Fourth and final step, I need to elaborate a strategy to promote my water bottles as being so amazingly necessary (!), that you will buy, no matter what... There is marketing of a need.

"Belief in a market economy in which the consumer is sovereign is one of our most pervasive forms of fraud. Let no one try to sell without consumer management, control." (Galbraith, 2004)

The Marketing Imagination by Theodore Levitt, is a book which explains how one will be charmed into being the customer. There is definitely room for us to improve our "Freedom of Choice"... choice, another form of innocent fraud?... a few researchers, such as Barry Schwartz and Sheena Iyengar, have looked into it and it seems like it may just be. Check out these ted talks by clicking on the names.

"The renaming of the economy served to affirm consumer sovereignty. In the market system [aka capitalism] the ultimate power, to repeat, is held to be with those who buy or choose not to buy; thus, with some qualifications, the ultimate power is that of consumer. Consumer choice shapes to the demand curve. As the ballot gives authority to the citizen, so in economic life the demand curve accords authority to the consumer. In both instances there is a significant measure of fraud. With both ballot and buyer, there is a formidable, well-financed management of the public response. And so especially in the age of advertising and modern sales promotion. Here an accepted fraud, not least in academic instruction." (Galbraith, 2004)

So we have been in schools (schools are businesses too), where we are taught microeconomics (obviously, for people who know me, they realize we are getting into my pet peeve), and it seems like one of the great defendant of free market, Alan Greenspan, who was in charge of the Fed for several years, has also figured a new meaning to freedom. Check out: Alan Greenspan's testimony.


When Water Starts To Burn

Reading back, it`s like this blog entry is more a prelude to my perspectives on life, rather than on water strickly. Indeed. Yet, I believe everything is connected. Like our consumption of fuel, our economic paradigm led us to the disaster of the Gulf of Mexico, july 2010 (see photo at the top of the entry). Are we at this point in history where we our children will find it normal to see water burn?

"Mass slaughter has become the ultimate civilized achievement." (Galbraith, 2004)

Is there a governement working for us? No, it's working for the Economy... and since it has a process of it's own (capitalism), who can and want to take advantage of it, will. That's the choice?

"The myth of the two sectors" (Galbraith, 2004)

Galbraith, J.K. 2004. The Economics of Innocent Fraud: Truth For Our Time. Houghton Mifflin Company. Boston, New York. 62 pages

Patel, R. 2009. The Value Of Nothing: Why Everything Costs So Much More Than We Think. HaperCollins Publishing LTD. Toronto. 250 pages