Essential viewing. “After WWI, the majority of products were sold to the [middle-class] public on the basis of need. Most products were still advertised as necessities. Goods like shoes, stockings, even cars, were promoted in functional terms. The aim of advertisements was simply to show people the product’s practical virtues, nothing more. “What the corporations realized they had to do was transform the way the majority of Americans felt about products. One leading Wall St. banker from Lehman Brothers was clear about what was necessary. ‘We must shift America,’ he wrote, ‘from a needs to a desires culture. People must be trained to desire. To want new things even before the old have been entirely consumed. We must shape a new mentality in America. Man’s desires must overshadow his needs.’” And goes on into politics and the linking of Capitalism and Democracy.
Posted on: Wed, 20 Aug 2014 04:15:56 +0000