Real Enemy of Society isn't Wall Street, But Advertising and the Poison It Tell Us
Capital of Nasty, an Electronic Magazine - ISSN 1482-0471
Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 21:00 (5987/6)
Categories:
Advertising
George Monbiot of The Guardian opines that it is not Wall Street we should be calling a menace to society, but advertising. Advertising, he argues, subjects people to ever more pervasive messages to consume all while encouraging dissatisfaction. And, not without irony, he notes how the very newspaper he writes for needs that advertising to survive.
We think we know who the enemies are: banks, big business, lobbyists, the politicians who exist to appease them. But somehow the sector which stitches this system of hypercapitalism together gets overlooked. That seems strange when you consider how pervasive it is. In fact you can probably see it right now. It is everywhere, yet we see without seeing, without understanding the role that it plays in our lives.I am talking about the industry whose output frames this column and pays for it: advertising. For obvious reasons, it is seldom confronted by either the newspapers or the broadcasters.
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