• eatthecake@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I don’t believe that demand is solely driven by voluntary consumer choice. On the contrary, demand is manufactured by misleading and manipulative advertising and marketing. It’s driven by making cheap products that don’t last and encouraging a throwaway culture. It’s driven by planned obselesence.

    Nor is buying essential items like food and utilities voluntary. People who live in food deserts don’t have choice.

    If the thing you want is not popular with the masses then the capitalists have no incentive to make it. Endless growth and all that…

    • MenKlash@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      demand is manufactured by misleading and manipulative advertising and marketing.
      It’s driven by planned obselesence.

      Consumer products develop through experimentation. Consumer preferences also change and develop gradually through time. To meet them requires entrepreneurial judgment.

      Nor is buying essential items like food and utilities voluntary.

      Aside from a few innate demands concerning hunger and temperature, consumer preferences emerge as a result of interaction between many individuals.

      Each consumer regulates the consumer products he consumes by spending money. There is no good substitute for the market process concerning the development and dissemination of consumer goods.