Can Demand Be Manipulated?
In response to several debates I’ve had with Glen about the subject, I posed the question over at Lean Left. Some interesting responses in comments. Have a look.
In response to several debates I’ve had with Glen about the subject, I posed the question over at Lean Left. Some interesting responses in comments. Have a look.
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I like this one-
and also this one-
In a lot of ways, we are just arguing over words, but our differences on this really reveal the differences in our outlooks and overall ideologies. Do you agree?
Of course what it is really about is two hardheaded SOBs that won’t give an inch.
Was there any demand for the iPod before it was introduced?
But there was record demand after it was introduced.
I agree that a big part of it is semantics, so in that vein, I’ll withdraw for now my assertion that businesses “create demand.” What they undeniably do is manipulate consumers, often to do things that they would not otherwise do (again, that’s a big part of the point of marketing). To the extent that this is the case, I don’t think it’s fair to state that businesses have no role in the demand equation, or that they’re just passively responding to what the customer wants, and that they therefore have no responsibility for what the customer does.
That’s the main crux of our disagreement, as I see it.
Was there any demand for the iPod before it was introduced?
Ch-ch-ch-CHIA!
I can’t remember life before Chia-Pet!
(or 99% of all that plastic Chinese shit the Waltons sell ya)
.
You’ll only see me with an iPod if someone gives one to me.
.
Sure there was and Apple recognized that market, then created the product.
I won’t argue anymore though.
Of course you won’t argue any more. It’s been made abundantly clear that once the semantic issues are cleared up, you’re wrong.
Why would you continue to argue?
No, we just go around and around and around and around. You’re too hard headed. Even when you are amazingly wrong, you think you are right. I am nothing like that though, of course.
I don’t really thinking I’m being all that hard-headed here. I’ve already conceding that “creating demand” is probably the wrong way of putting the phenomenon I’m trying to describe. But if you’re trying to tell me that people in general, and buyers in particular, cannot be manipulated, then you’re pretty much denying everything we know about human psychology.
Manipulated is okay. See, we arrived at agreement. Kind of.
OK, now take it a half a step further. If party X manipulates party Y into doing something, which party Y likely would not have done in the absence of the influence of party X, does not party X bear some portion of the responsibility for party Y’s actions?
Chicken.
You’re a trip. You won’t give up. All those x’s and y’s mess up my mind you know. I hate Algebra.
Why would I give up? For the first time in a couple of weeks, we’ve made real progress on this discussion, and you’re choosing that time to back away…
Okay, I’ll answer dammit.
I really don’t know the answer. Off the top of my head, I will say morally and ethically yes, but legally probably not. Manipulation is still not the same as coercion.
See, now we’re getting somewhere.
The problem, when applied to the discussions we’ve been having, is that even though there’s manipulation going on, you’re willing to give the manipulators a free pass (even though you concede they bear some “moral and ethical” responsibility), and put all of the blame/responsibility on the manipulatee.
That’s where I have a problem with a lot of your “free market” logic. Businesses don’t just passively “respond to demand.” They actively work to manipulate the buying patterns and habits of consumers, even, in the case of McDonald’s and Super Size meals, their own loyal customers — in the absence of the suggestive “upsell,” which McDonald’s required its associates to attempt, the majority of their customers would not have purchased the larger size. But you behave as if the companies have no noteworthy role in this equation, and that they therefore bear no responsibility. That simply doesn’t hold up to honest scrutiny. (There’d be no such thing as “high-pressure sales” if such manipulation were not possible.)
Now, we need to go a step even further. If it’s acknowledged that a company can encourage its consumers to making decisions/purchases they otherwise wouldn’t make absent the encouragement, what then happens when the decision/purchase the customer makes, at the encouragement of the company, turns out to be a harmful one? (Harmful to the customer, or harmful to others; for this example, the “harmful to whom” aspect doesn’t much matter.) Shouldn’t the company bear some of the responsibility — moral, ethical, and legal — for the consequences? The question becomes particularly interesting if the company knows the decision/purchase they’re pushing is harmful, but I’m not sure even that’s a necessary requirement.
P.S. You’re right. Manipulation isn’t the same thing as coercion. But then, I never said it was. If we were talking about coercion, I’d be arguing that the company guilty of it should bear all of the responsibility for it, rather than just some, as in the case of manipulation.
But everybody knows that foods high in fat and starch are not good for you. Nobody has been tricked. Being unknowingly poisoned is one thing, but knowingly eating unhealthy, thats all personal responsibility.
#1, Who said anyone was being “tricked?” I said “manipulated,” and that’s different.
#2, People generally know that fast food is “bad for them,” but they have no idea how bad for them. When you ask people to estimate the calories, fat, etc. of what they’re eating, they consistently guess low — WAY low.
Sorry, Glen, but it’s nowhere near as black and white as you want to make it. You really need to set your ideology aside, and consider the practical effects.
Kind of hard for a principled ideologue.