UNDER SEIGE

I have never had a problem with commerce. It is an essential component of civilization. It helps spread the workload around and distribute the wealth. Finding a need for a product or service, meeting that need at a reasonable price and walking away with a profit works just fine. Letting people know what you have to offer and where you can be found - advertising - is a necessary and appropriate part of commerce. But, that doesn’t seem to be what is happening these days. Businesses aren’t meeting people’s needs; they are creating them.

If my home is my castle, I feel like I’m under siege. People trying to sell me stuff are on my phone, in my e-mail, all over my Facebook account and stuffed into my mail box every single day trying to take my money. I am not talking about Nigerian Prince scams. I am talking about so called legitimate businesses – phone companies, cable and internet providers, banks, credit card companies, utility companies, drug companies, insurance companies, hospitals, airlines, the processed food industry, the entertainment industry, the fashion industry, even local retailers. They come at you with very sophisticated messages and elaborate strategies developed by top notch psychologists designed to manipulate you, trick you, trap you, intimidate you, or embarrass you into giving them your money for something you didn’t want and don’t need. Once they have you hooked, they reel you in with a lot of double-speak, so you don’t have a chance to read the fine print, and then they suck you dry with all sorts of fees that nobody can explain or understand, more tricks and traps, outright lies and a customer service strategy that runs you in circles until you get so frustrated you forget what you were complaining about in the first place. And then there is all the behind the scenes stuff they do to weaken anti-trust laws, eliminate regulations that protect consumers, reduce their liability and block competition.

When the Nazis introduced these techniques during the Third Reich it was called propaganda. When the Communists refined these same techniques during the Cold War it was called brain washing. Madison Avenue calls it marketing, but it’s all the same thing – people getting into your head to try to get you to give them something they haven’t earned – usually it’s your money, but it could be your power, your allegiance, your vote, everything but your first born child, and maybe that, too, if they thought they could get away with it.

Is it just me or are you feeling like you are under siege, too? If I am not alone, maybe we should do what singer/songwriter David Bromberg does at his live shows. He doesn’t like people telling him what to play. That’s understandable. It’s his show. So if someone in the audiences asks for a song, he absolutely won’t play it, even if he planned to. It works pretty well for him. Once he explains what he is doing, the audience shuts up and lets him play what he wants to play. At the very least, we should start recognizing marketing for what it is, not good business, but a deceitful and destructive hustle that enables businesses to prey on people rather than serve their needs.