The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

1972 ADVERTISING 527production costs? Very definitely,yes. It is completely arbitrary foranyone to argue that, whether ornot the consumer knows it,· thecommodity is there anyway, sothat when he pays the price whichincludes the advertising communicationhe is paying more than isnecessary for the opportunity madeavailable. For an opportunity to bemade available, it must be in aform which it is impossible tomiss. And this is what advertisingis all about.One more word about the offensivenessof advertising. Ultimatelyin a free market, consumerstend to get what they want.The kinds of products producedwill reflect the desires of the consumer.A society which wantsmoral objects will get moral objects.A society which wants immoralobjects will tend to get immoralobjects. Advertised communicationis part of the totalpackage produced and made available·to consumers. The kind of advertisingweget, sad to say, iswhat we deserve. The kind of advertisingwe get reflects the kindof people that we are. No doubt adifferent kind of advertising wo~ldbe better, more moral, more ethicalin many respects; but I'mafraid we have· no one to blamebut ourselves, as in all cases whereone deplores that which is producedby a market society.A final word about deceit. Ofcourse, deceitful advertising is tobe condemned on both moral andeconomic grounds. But we have toput it in perspective. Let me readfrom one very eminent economistwho writes as follows:The formation of wants is a complexprocess. No doubt wants aremodified by Madison Avenue. Theyare modified by Washington, by theuniversity faculties and by churches.And it is not at all clear that MadisonAvenue has the advantage whenit comes to false claims and exaggerations.!Take with a Grain of SaltIn other words, we live in a worldwhere you have to be careful whatyou read, to whom you listen, whomto believe. And it's true Qf everything,every aspect of life. If ·onewere to believe everything projectedat him, he would be in asorry state.It is very easy to pick out thewrong messages to believe. Now,this doesn't in any way condoneor justify deceitful messages ofany kind. We have to recognize,however, while particular producersmay have a short-run interestin projecting a message to consumersof doubtful veracity, that1 H. Demsetz, "The TechnostructureForty-Six Years Later," (Yale Law Jour~nal, 1968), p. 810.