The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

1972 THE ECONOMIC-POWER SYNDROME 221Nor men, either. Aristotle wroteonly for men, it seems, in theNichomache,an Ethics. In discussingand urging the virtue· of temperance,he admonished againstthe development of voluptuaryhabits. More to the point, he focusedupon the inner sources ofluxurious desires. "It is absurd,"he said, "to make external circumstancesresponsible, and not oneself,as being easily caught bysuch attractions." There was hardlyany business around at all inAncient Greece, let alone bigbusiness, and B.B.D. & O. werestill in the far off future. Suchtoo was the case in 17th centuryEngland, when John Locke took. note of the insatiable desires ofmankind for material goods andservices. He said:We are seldom at ease, and freeenough from the solicitation of ournatural or adopted desires, but a constantsuccession of uneasiness out ofthat stock which natural wants or acquiredhabits have heaped up, takethe will in their turns; and no sooneris one action dispatched, which bysuch a determination of the will weare set upon, but another uneasinessis ready to set us on work.The Galbraithian-SDS thesis isout of touch, not only with themost profound and persistent realitiesof human nature, but alsowith the available statistical evidenceconcerning the use of commercialadvertising. Far from establishingthe contention that big,concentrated business to somemarked extent uses advertising towarp consumer desires, recent researchersreveal: (1) that there isno significant correlation betweenindustrial concentration and advertising;and (2) that there is indeeda contrary tendency, with advertisingexpenditures tending torise as industrial concentrationdecreases.Sources of MisunderstandingI must deal more briefly withthe two remaining major sourcesof. misunderstanding which makeup the "economic-power" syndrome- (1) the belief that economicpower can buy political power orthat, at any rate, (2) economicpower can shape the political opinionsof the community more orless at will.The first of these can be dispatchedfairly readily. Certainlyit is true that public servants atevery level of government are "forsale," as every person is, for thatmatter. The question is, however,in what medium of exchange dothey do business? In contemporaryrepres.entative government, themediurn of exchange is votes.While the wealthy and the bigbusinessmen could and do bid vigorouslyin the medium of exchangewhich they are well supplied with,