I admit that I have not heard this question—why does capitalism need to be defended?—in precisely that form. After the hardcover edition of my book In Defense of Advertising: Arguments from Reason, Ethical Egoism, and Laissez-Faire Capitalism was published, I did hear the question this way: Why does advertising need to be defended? As advertising is the point man and product of capitalism, the two questions are intimately related.The question about advertising initially surprised me. When the look on my face expressed a “Did you read the book?†reply, my questioners promptly continued, “Advertising in the U.S. is a $270 billion a year business. It doesn’t need to be defended!†Somehow, apparently, the amount of money spent by the industry was supposed to be its own justification. Similarly, I could imagine someone thinking or saying, “The United States is a $12 trillion a year economy. Capitalism doesn’t need to be defended!â€
I soon came to realize where my advertising questioners were coming from: their question is motivated by the premises of what I call the critics’ world view. As I argue in my book, the social and economic criticisms of advertising—namely that advertising is coercive, offensive, and monopolistic—are based on false philosophic and economic ideas that at root are authoritarian.
The discussion with my questioners usually runs as follows. The questioners comment that advertising is a “big bucks†industry and, like any other big business, assume it eventually becomes immune to competition—and to criticism. “It’s just words,†they say, “like water falling off a duck’s back. The criticisms have no effect on advertisers who, after all, are so big and powerful that they can easily ignore the complaints. Therefore, advertising does not need to be defended.†QED. Subsequent discussion then brings out the premise that a little (or a lot) of legislation is needed to help cut these guys down to size. Why? Because advertising is so . . . well, coercive, offensive, and monopolistic. At that point, we are off to the litany of criticisms that ranges from alleged sexual orgies subliminally embedded in a Howard Johnson’s restaurant menu to the four-firm concentration ratio.
No doubt, anyone who has engaged the critics of capitalism has observed a similar pattern. It involves a move from surface appearances—advertising doesn’t need to defended—to underlying causal principles that initially seem unconnected to the appearances—these big advertisers need to be brought down a few notches. It is a move from what is seen, to use Bastiat’s phrase, to what is not seen. Bastiat explained the seen and unseen in terms of economic events, but the more fundamental psychological issue here is that conscious perceptions (the seen) are shaped by the contents of one’s subconscious (the unseen). Defenders of advertising and capitalism must probe to those deeper levels and make the critics aware of, and answer, all of the buried fallacies that motivate their surface comments.
Contrary to what the critics of advertising—or capitalism—may think, their criticisms do have an effect. When left unanswered, the criticisms reinforce ignorance and misunderstandings about the nature of advertising and, by implication, capitalism. They reinforce and encourage hostility toward both. And they implicitly and explicitly provide a call for legislation to restrain what are perceived by the critics to be “abuses†of advertising and big business.
Jerry Kirkpatrick is professor of international business and marketing at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and author of In Defense of Advertising: Arguments from Reason, Ethical Egoism, and Laissez-Faire Capitalism. Visit his blog.
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When I first read the title of the post my initial thought was ‘why indeed?’ After all capitalism has helped more people than any other innovation in history and shown itself superior to all other forms of economic organisation. After that defending capitalism seems a little like defending breathing.
OF COURSE CAPITALISM MUST BE DEFENDED! If politicians, and other types you wouldn’t invite home, seek to evade blame, the system as it once was (Capitalism) is what they blame. Capitalism as bad lets them portray state action as good. The temptation to mislead the voter will always be there, so we must always be ready to stop them, and sling their mud right back at them. Never let the Powers That Bedazzle have the last word! The anti-statist fight will only be won when the last agents of taxation are forced to hold decent jobs, and politicians only get what they’ve earned! (Quick- give them begging bowls!)
Statists seem to have all learned the same set of talking points. Any mention of the benefits of capitalism will usually provoke a half-baked, hysterical response on one or more of the following:
- child labor
- slavery, indentured servitude and “company towns”
- robber barons
Clearly, most people have been indoctrinated from an early age in Progressive Era and Marxist propaganda. I think many people have honestly never heard anyone ever say that capitalism has improved the quality of life for untold millions of people.
Capitalism (and advertising) need to be defended because government-run schools teach the religion of Statism to millions of children every day.
To advertise against advertising is surely self-contradictory, just as demonstrating your preference against demonstrating your preference is. This is Hoppe’s argumentation ethics.
Speaking of land and advertising and stuff, check out this building in Vancouver:
The Lee Building
There are constant socialist cries to “take down that awful eyesore of a billboard.” Seriously, if you’ve been to Vancouver you know that the city doesn’t exactly lack great views. Funny, too, how we don’t hear anyone complaining about all those trolley wires in the foreground of the photo. No siree, electric trolley-buses are too hip and too green to ever be pooh-poohed in Vancouver.
Thinking more on the defence of Capitali$m, I thought of this argument- Capitalists and governments are natural enemies- ANY Government. Including our own! Capitalists are about borderless worlds and free trade, governments exist within borders and want to control trade. Why do we assume that ‘our’ governments are different to socialists, such as cuba and China? The size of governments differ, but the basic nature of the beast is the same. Once you realise this, you can see that you need to keep the foxes out of the henhouse AND control your own pets at the same time! I hope this analogy clears things up!
I think you should know you are not the first person who asks this question — why does capitalism need to be defended? — but, if you haven’t heard it, I advice you to read Ayn Rand’s “Capitalism – The Unknown Ideal”: “…..By their silence — *by their evasion of of the clash between capitalism and altruism* — it is capitalism’s alleged champions who are responsible for the fact that capitalism is being destroyed without a hearing, without a trial, without any public knowledge of its principles, its nature, its history, or its moral meaning. It is being destroyed in the manner of a nightmare lynching — as if a blind, despair-crazed mob were burning a straw man, not knowing that the grotesquely deformed bundle of straw is hiding the loving body of the ideal.
The method of capitalism’s destruction rests on never letting the world discover *what* it is that is being destroyed — on never allowing it to be identified within the hearing of the young.
The purpose of this book is to identified it….”
That is why capitalism needs to be defended.
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