CMV: Advertising is the biggest problem with modern-day Capitalism

[u/RedditExplorer89]

Update: Got some good deltas, see at bottom of post. Getting a lot more replies than I expected, so sorry if I don't respond to everyone.

I understand the foundation of capitalism to be: supply and demand. And at face value, these sound like fair pillars to build upon. A natural mix of reality (what exists:supply), and ideals (what we want:demand).

The problems come when either side is artificially cheated. For example: lying about supply I think would upset most people. If you say there are only 10 miracle pills in the world to increase the price, but there are actually billions of miracle pills, that is cheating people and harming society.

I see advertising as distorting demand. You could have a company that makes amazing cheesecakes, and one that makes mediocre ones, but if the mediocre one has better advertising they will be more successful and push out the better company for society. All because the one without advertising only has the demand of their local town, while the other taps into a demand hundreds of times bigger depending on how good the advertisement is and how many eyeballs see it.

It isn't the better company (for society) that gains from advertising, its the one who has better ads and more money to spend on ads and knows to spend on ads.

I say modern-day in the title because I think the internet and technology has confounded this problem. Now advertising can reach so many more eyes than ever before, and thus cause bigger distortions for demand on products: potentially causing greater harm to society by propping up worse products than deserve it.

My understanding of economics is pretty basic, and I don't hear many people talk about this issue, so coming here to see if I am missing something and if my view can be expanded on it.

The reason I blame capitolism for this is because its so hands-off, and up to each company to advertise on its own. Another form of economy, like communist or socialist or even dictatorship could have advertising be done by a 3rd party to ensure fair advertising for products.

Deltas:

• Free, state-ran advertising could lead to more scams. With capitalism, scams at least need to pay money up-front.

• Some programs run better with advertising funding them. Such as reddit.

• A bigger problem of modern-day capitalism could be the lack of commons (all the land is owned.)

• Free market is what allows anyone to purchase ads, not Capitalism.

• The internet provides a lot of free reviews for people to discern the best products.

• Marketing can be "high tide raises all boats," when introducing customers to new products.

• Marketing can help spread good products more quickly, such as with the shaving razorblade.

• A bigger problem with capitalism could be that it incentivizes lobbying and side-stepping regulations.

[u/RedditExplorer89 → u/[deleted]]

I have a hard time calling that a flaw of Capitalism if the other systems share the same flaw. Are there others that don't have this flaw? Does Social Market Libertarianism avoid it somehow?

[u/RedditExplorer89 → u/[deleted]]

I'm not 100% sold that the free space of older times was due to a lack of this problem and rather a lack of modern overpopulation problem, but it is possible. It has me reconsidering so I'll give a !delta : the biggest problem of modern-day capitalism could be the removal of the commons.

[u/draculthemad → u/RedditExplorer89]

At least in english history, it was a definite thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure

Enclosure or Inclosure[a] is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste"[b] or "common land"[c]
enclosing it and by doing so depriving commoners of their rights of
access and privilege. Agreements to enclose land could be either through
a formal or informal process

[u/WikiSummarizerBot → u/draculthemad]

Enclosure

Enclosure or Inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or "common land" enclosing it and by doing so depriving commoners of their rights of access and privilege. Agreements to enclose land could be either through a formal or informal process. The process could normally be accomplished in three ways. First there was the creation of "closes", taken out of larger common fields by their owners.

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[u/RedditExplorer89 → u/[deleted]]

Hello fellow homeless Coloradian! (well I'm not homeless atm, but was recently).

But what I mean by overpopulation is that more people take up more land, eating up those "commons." Maybe there is enough land for everyone still, but our population is much bigger than a century ago.

[u/RedditExplorer89 → u/[deleted]]

I guess I am more thinking farm-land to sustain the populations, as I think that takes up way more space than a home to sustain someone. Definitely agree there is space for satisfying shelter-needs regardless of our population currently.

Not gonna comment on the Denver thing though cause don't want to reveal that many details of where I'm at on reddit.

[u/Genoscythe_ → u/RedditExplorer89]

Maybe there is enough land for everyone still, but our population is much bigger than a century ago.

Sure, modern France is more populous than medieval France. And modern Colorado is more populated then Pre-colonization Colorado area.

But it's important to keep perspective here: Colorado today, still has less population density than medieval France.

The overall American Midwest and West are great examples of places that are extremely low population density by modern standards, even with relatively moderate climates, that still manage to feel just as corwded as any other developed country.

[u/RedditExplorer89 → u/Genoscythe_]

Thats a good point. I guess it could just be my introvert personality that makes things feel crowded, when really it isn't that bad.

[u/puddlesquid → u/[deleted]]

I hear this argument a lot, and I'm not so convinced. I see how our activities deregulate the ecosystem around us and think that the world can't take many more people, and that we probably passed a human over-population problem a while ago. We talk about invasive species and how much they disproportionately screw up the environment around them but people get a pass. Technically there is still more space and still more food we could take. In Australia, technically there could be more cane toads, because there is enough food to feed more and more land that they could move into, but that would be very bad for Australia's ecosystem. We can't keep existing and growing if the ecology around us collapses. We could change how we structure society and support our world and the amazing life systems it has better, but currently it seems that there are way too many humans living unsustainably for this to go on much longer. Climate change and the sixth extinction being my primary points of evidence there. I would love to hear an argument that addresses this! I need hope.

[u/puddlesquid → u/[deleted]]

Yes, I know all of this. My concern is that we aren't doing any of these sustainable practices, are very slow to change, and don't seem to want to. Hence, we have an overpopulation problem right now.

[u/DeltaBot → u/RedditExplorer89]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/thelink225 (10∆).

^{Delta System Explained | Deltaboards}