Scientism and Values.pdf - Ludwig von Mises Institute

122 Scientism and Values
braith, Vance Packard, and Leopold Kohr, among the less congenial,
as critics whose worst fear of "scientism" is focus,ed on its use
in the economic market.
It is perhaps quite interesting to observe how criticisms of advertising-which
have been commonplace in America and England
during the past two decades-are now being reformulated in
some West German philosophical quarters as ideas, which no one
since Fourier and Karl Marx knew how to express.
The gist of these criticisms can be given in a few words. Manthey
say-is caught in a vicious circle. He is the slave of a system
which must use any and all methods of hidden persuasion to sell
him things under false pretenses, things which he does not need
and which are often worth much less than claimed. Man loses his
humanity (HSelbstentfremdung des Menschen" according to Marx)
because of his fixation on acquiring things for consumption, a
fixation imposed upon him by others.
Sometimes the critics assert that this advertising apparatus of
mass persuasion is especially dangerous because it lends itself to
misuse by seekers after political tyranny.
This last assertion is not intrinsically related to the other criticisms
of advertising. But even this assertion does not stand up.
For after all, hidden mass persuasion could also be used by persons
wanting to get rid of an obnoxious government. See, for example,
the subtle slights on the planned economy in Great Britain by a
little Mr. Sugar whose image, I believe, appeared on all sugar
products.
As long as there is some freedom of communications-of the
press, of advertising, of broadcasting-the same methods can be
used by all antagonists. As long as we believe that one party or
group may have a better case than another, there is no reason why
the case for a free society should not be advanced for some voters
by methods that do not require intellectual virtuosity for comprehension.
Politics could be separated from the methods of hidden persuasion
only if our modern mass democracies could bring themselves
to reintroduce a highly unpopular limitation: a restricted suffrage.
So long as we adhere to the theory that all human beings ought