The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

220 THE FREEMAN Aprilfirms which encourage consumersto stay at home or enjoy themselvesin their gardens. EvenAmerican Telephone and Telegraphcompetes. It urges us to call,not write.The much maligned soapmanufacturers have only one thingto say: "Buy our product."Ultimately, when one thinksthings through, that is the basicmessage of all commercial advertising.Advertising agencies claim,quite rightly, I believe (on thewhole at any rate), a specialability to bring products and servicesto the attention of consumers.Their job is to acquaint the publicwith the fact that such and sucha product exists and to urge thatit be given a try. From there on,the consumer and the productmust fend for themselves. Theproduct must make good on theclaim made for it. Thus understood,the specific function of advertisingis to promote competition.Any other claim for it,whethey made by advertising menor Messrs. Galbraith et al., is merepuffing.If big business and its advertisinghad the power attributed toit by Messrs. Galbraith et al., theavidity of men and women for materialgoods would be a new phenomenon,observable in humanhistory for the first time only inthe last fifty years or so. Afterall, big business is a new ,phenomenonin the world, and advertisingagencies are still newer.But is it true that men and womenhave grown remarkably desirousonly in the last fifty or hundredyears? The question answers itself.,On the first page of'the first historybook ever written, The Historyof Herodotus, recounting thewars between the Greeks and thePersians, the author reports that"according to Persians best informedin history, the Phoeniciansbegan the quarrel." How wasthat? Herodotus continues:They ianded at many places on thecoast, and among the rest at Argos.... Here they exposed their merchandise,and traded with the natives forfive or six days; at the end of whichtime ... there came down to the beacha number of women, and among themthe daughter of the king.... Thewomen were standing by the stern ofthe ship intent upon their purchases,when the Phoenicians, with a generalshout, rushed upon them. The greaterpart made theirescape, but some wereseized and carried off....Anyone who has ever had the misfortuneto be in Macy's on a salesday will know that, whateverGalbraith says about it, big businessand advertising have notchanged women very much in theintervening two thousand fourhundred years.