[Grovenet] consumerism

[David Morelli]

On Dec 19, 2007, at 8:42 AM, Ron D'Eau Claire wrote:

> Ha! Ha!
>
> David wrote: For the most part, we are not looking out for us, we  
> are looking out  for "me".
>
> Isn't that the basis of a free society, including ours?

It is certainly part of our national myth.  I am not certain that it  
is the best way to preserve our free society.  At least it is not  
best if we ignore the role of enlightened self interest and focus  
instead on short sighted self interest.
>
> The only justification for laws in our society is to allow people  
> to do whatever they want - to look out for themselves as they wish  
> - to the extent they do not harm their neighbors. The purpose of  
> law is to set those limits past which we harm one another.

The other purpose of the law is to compel contribution of time and  
money to the preservation of the social order.  (e.g. taxes to pay  
for the government and military service to defend the government)
>
> Absolutely, for all the reasons you cited. Long ago human kind  
> discovered that we can do more through reasonable cooperation than  
> unrestricted competition. I believe that's what caused family units  
> to form, which lead to tribes, communities, societies, and nations.

I happen to remember back that far, it was about the time that we  
discovered that predators were taking our young for food.  By  
protecting our young, we had a larger work force to gather the  
insects, leaves and fruits we ate.  And the little ones were useful  
for pulling the bugs out of the fur on our back, too.  I can't eat a  
grub without thinking back on those times, they were not "the good  
old days".
>
> Because our closest social group - family and friends - is the most  
> important to us (outside of ourselves) advertisers have been  
> attacking our fear of rejection by those very people as a way to  
> convince us we really NEED an iPhone, big screen TV or new car.  
> That's one of the key points of the video Martha shared.
>
> Ron D'Eau Claire

The quote by Victor Lebow was quite a statement.  He appears to be a  
commentator on the condition rather than the architect of the  
process.  A Victor Lebow made some observations in 1976 in a book  
review in the Nation, quoted in another source.
http://www.manasjournal.org/pdf_library/VolumeXXIX_1976/XXIX-41.pdf

Capitalism is already showing signs that it can no longer generate  
the social morale so essential to continued existence.  It is true  
that it has freed probably more than half the American people from  
scarcity and want.  But at the heart of this business civilization is  
a "hollowness"—everything is evaluated in money terms.  "Or consider  
advertising, perhaps the most value-destroying activity of a business  
civilization."  That hollowness is further emphasized by the low  
estimation business places on the value of work, which it sees as a  
means to an end—not the true end in itself for that is profit,  
income, economic growth.  Nor is industrial socialism immune to this  
outlook, for its roots lie "in machine process and worship of  
efficiency."

...
But between the greed and power hunger of the corporations and the  
ineptitude and hypocrisy of the rule of the nation-state—with its  
dependence on that "last refuge of scoundrels," patriotism—one is at  
a loss to know where mankind is to turn for its deliverance.
...

Only primitive peoples have been able to live their lives without the  
organizational and bureaucratic impedimenta that characterize more  
advanced civilizations, building their lives "around the great  
supportive pillars of tradition or religious life."  Since we have  
not such elements that may serve to solve our problems in this  
"middle future," we will have to utilize "both the crude agencies of  
nationalism with its irrationality and force, and corporations or  
ministries with their hierarchies of status and inculcated  
dissatisfaction."