#consumer

The ideological blackmail that has been in place since the original Live Aid concerts in 1985 has insisted that ‘caring individuals’ could end famine directly, without the need for any kind of political solution or systemic reorganization. It is necessary to act straight away, we were told; politics has to be suspended in the name of ethical immediacy. Bono’s Product Red brand wanted to dispense even with the philanthropic intermediary. ‘Philanthropy is like hippy music, holding hands’, Bono proclaimed. ‘Red is more like punk rock, hip hop, this should feel like hard commerce’. The point was not to offer an alternative to capitalism - on the contrary, Product Red’s ‘punk rock’ or ‘hip hop’ character consisted in its ‘realistic’ acceptance that capitalism is the only game in town. No, the aim was only to ensure that some of the proceeds of particular transactions went to good causes. The fantasy being that western consumerism, far from being intrinsically implicated in systemic global inequalities, could itself solve them. All we have to do is buy the right products. ↗

— Mark Fisher

#capitalism #capitalist-realism #charity #consumerism #cultural-capitalism

The problem with Marxism is the proletariat isn’t going to rise up against capitalism and consumerism. The only time they’ll rise up is during a commercial break to either go to the bathroom or grab more beer.
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— Jarod Kintz

#beer #capitalism #commercials #communism #consumerism

In our rich consumers' civilization we spin cocoons around ourselves and get possessed by our possessions. ↗

— Max Lerner

#civilization #consumers #get #our #ourselves

One of the worst things to come out of the Consumer Protection Board's misleading claims is the impression that government resources are to hard to get and just aren't available for regular people like you and I. ↗

— Matthew Lesko

#board #claims #come #consumer #get

If you consider that a typical Central American consumer earns only a small fraction of an average American worker's wages, it becomes clear that CAFTA's true goal is not to the increase U.S. exports. ↗

— Stephen F. Lynch

#american consumer #average #average american #becomes #cafta

I am one of the writers who wish to create serious works of literature which dissociate themselves from those novels which are mere reflections of the vast consumer cultures of Tokyo and the subcultures of the world at large. ↗

— Kenzaburo Oe

#consumer #create #cultures #i #i am

The consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife. ↗

— David Ogilvy

#consumer #moron #she #wife #your

Can advertising foist an inferior product on the consumer? Bitter experience has taught me that it cannot. On those rare occasions when I have advertised products which consumer tests have found inferior to other products in the same field, the results have been disastrous. ↗

— David Ogilvy

#advertising #been #bitter #cannot #consumer

It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night. I doubt if more than one campaign in a hundred contains a big idea. ↗

— David Ogilvy

#attention #attract #big #big idea #buy

The most important word in the vocabulary of advertising is TEST. If you pretest your product with consumers, and pretest your advertising, you will do well in the marketplace. ↗

— David Ogilvy

#consumers #important #marketplace #most #product