Capitalism

TheCenturion

TheCenturion

TheCenturion

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Joined
18 Mar 2008
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Hello OcUK

I'm not sure how this thread will go down. It could be another thread where I'm just being absolutely ridiculous :p

A few months ago, I was watching tv, and then there was the usual advertisement break halfway through the show. While watching these advertisements, I just thought to myself. Huge amounts of money have been paid in order to broadcast this ad. These ads are pretty much solely intended to make people go out and buy said product. The people who created this ad, all they want is your money. It's not like they're committing a crime, everything they're doing complies with the laws of the land.

But as a teenager living in this society, I see all my mates going mad over stuff, having all the latest gadgets, all wanting to buy Jack Wills, they're all getting Blackberries as well (it's a business phone :confused:) and yet most of these kids are on EMA.

Then, there's the other side of the coin. Capitalism is a free market. And the freer the market, the better off the poorest in the society are.

Don't get me wrong, I love capitalism, but I can't help feeling that it seems to be least of several evils.

Ps: Chances are, what I've just written is an absolute load of tosh. I know that advertisments, gadgets, fashion etc, do not necessarily have anything to do with capitalism, but I'm making the point that free market gives consumers easy access to these products. Also, I was aiming at poking at the philosophical/ethical side of my post, rather than the political or economic side.

I know I'm going to get slaughtered on here for sounding so ridiculous, especially given the right wing nature of most of this community (myself included)

Also, in before the inevitable

Worst "I have friends" thread ever.
Worst "I watch tv" thread ever.
Worst "I'm younger than you" thread ever.
 
TheCenturion said:
These ads are pretty much solely intended to make people go out and buy said product.
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Technically the advert is there only to raise awareness of the brand and the product


Equally no-one forces your friends to buy "popular" stuff, they need to stop being sheep and get stuff that they actually like/need rather the latest "in" thing
 
rypt said:
Technically the advert is there only to raise awareness of the brand and the product


Equally no-one forces your friends to buy "popular" stuff, they need to stop being sheep and get stuff that they actually like/need rather the latest "in" thing
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'd realise that someone would bring that up. Of course no one is forcing anyone to buy the product. They're merely attempting to 'convince' people to buy it. Having freedom means that we have a choice whether or not to purchase the damned thing.
 
what's a jack wills ?

You are growing up, grats. Don't post your anti establishment, anti free market crap here though, you be ridiculed ocuk isnt the place for free thought.











/
 
I think you're talking more about consumerism (a society where the continual desire to buy goods and services is prevalent) than capitalism (individual ownership of land and other assets) - maybe there is a link between them. I agree though, consumerism is very damaging to society because you're always under subtle pressure to buy more and more, which is why some kids on EMA are going around buying smartphones.
 
Capitalism isn't perfect. The market isn't god. It's just the way it is.

I get frustrated with the amount of middle men, PR, marketing and advertising that capitalism causes. But you have to take that with the benefits.
 
TheCenturion said:
Yeah, I'd realise that someone would bring that up. Of course no one is forcing anyone to buy the product. They're merely attempting to 'convince' people to buy it. Having freedom means that we have a choice whether or not to purchase the damned thing.
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They don't convince though, only those simple of mind are convinced by adverts that if they buy ... say Lynx ... they get laid.

The rest of us go "oh, Lynx deodorant ... hmm" and then we buy whatever it is that we buy, but we are now aware of Lynx and may give it a try to see if it is any good.
 
rypt said:
They don't convince though, only those simple of mind are convinced by adverts that if they buy ... say Lynx ... they get laid.

The rest of us go "oh, Lynx deodorant ... hmm" and then we buy whatever it is that we buy, but we are now aware of Lynx and may give it a try to see if it is any good.
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It's far far more complex than that. Many many studies show that we all think we're immune and none of us are.

The draw back with capitalism is it costs less to persuade someone your product is better than they perceive it than it costs to make the product better to change their perception.
 
rypt said:
They don't convince though, only those simple of mind are convinced by adverts that if they buy ... say Lynx ... they get laid.

The rest of us go "oh, Lynx deodorant ... hmm" and then we buy whatever it is that we buy, but we are now aware of Lynx and may give it a try to see if it is any good.
Click to expand...

Lynx sucks, it smells of teenage desperation :D
 
The Halk said:
It's far far more complex than that. Many many studies show that we all think we're immune and none of us are.
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We aren't immune, but the only thing adverts do is build brand ... so that we think it is an established brand, etc.

We don't go and buy a product that we don't need due to seeing an advert for it though

TheCenturion said:
Lynx sucks, it smells of teenage desperation :D
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I tend to stick to just cheap supermarket stuff for day to day, and something Ted Baker or whatever else I've been given as a gift (seriously I have like a crate of random stuff like this that came as gifts) for when I'm actually ... you know ... "out"
 
rypt said:
We aren't immune, but the only thing adverts do is build brand ... so that we think it is an established brand, etc.

We don't go and buy a product that we don't need due to seeing an advert for it though
Click to expand...

You're being very naive. Adverts are incredibly powerful and have a massive effect on you.
 
Being able to polish a turd is the most valuable part of capitalism.

See:
Steve Jobs - Not that Apple products are turd, just that they are technically inferior to the competition. Being able to sell orders of magnitude more of an inferior product is amazing.
Simon Cowell - Getting people to vote for a plethora of people who cannot sing, earn money from it, and then make money off the winner of the competition. Turd polishing master.
Katie Price aka Jordan - Trash yet has tens of millions of pounds.

Add this to expensive hi-fi cables, branded pharmaceutical products vs. Generics, Fiji bottled water...

Don't like it? Don't buy it. As the saying goes, a fool and his money are soon parted. ;)
 
OK, FINE!
I have never gone out and got a product I did not need based on an advert

The most an advert has done is "oh, you can get something that does that? well I might want to see who else makes products like that, as I want something reliable and Japanese and not some tat".
 
No, I really haven't... you are welcome to come and look around my room to check for yourself.
 
Oh yeah, here's another marker of a capitalist society: weight loss pills.

These annoy the HELL out of me. I hate them with a passion. Why? It's not because they don't actually work (that's just a flaw of the product) but they promote yet more laziness. They make people conform to the notion that if you spend money, you get results. Spending money is starting to replace hard work and determination, like in the case of weight loss pills.
 
I thought Vince Cable summed capitalism up perfectly, it kills competition.

You start off with a free market but slowly the smaller businesses fall by the wayside and the result becomes a few mega corporations that continue to eat up or kill the smaller fish. For example small corner shops are becoming a thing of the past because they cannot compete with the already established big super market chains.

Then you have the fact that our politicians are greedy human beings like the rest of us and most would be happy to take bribes from said mega corporations to lobby laws/policies for them, eg. music piracy.
 
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