Lindblom - The Market System - Afghan Journalists' Committee

220 What To Make of Itdustries on the minds on which they so steadily seek tobring their distracting and confusing efforts. Some peoplecannot bear to acknowledge that these industries, especiallysales promotion, are rivals to public education. Norwill they reflect that this industry is at war with the education“industry”: the one assaulting the mind, the other oftenseeking, among its other functions, to inform and exerciseit. The sales-promotion industry’s disposition towardtruth is roughly the same as its disposition toward misrepresentation,falsehood, and obfuscation: within some legallimits, use it if it works. The education industry tries togive to the pursuit of truth a standing denied to misrepresentation,falsehood, and obfuscation.If we simply look about us at both sales promotion andthe political appeals of market elite to mass, especiallythose now in the hands of specialists in public relations, wecannot escape some fears that they are systematically underminingthat respect for truth or honesty long argued tobe a requirement of civilized society. Perhaps the traditionalendorsement of honesty is no more than a pablumthat we intend only for the very young. In any case, venerationfor truth is always shaky and highly qualified. Still,there appears to be a worrisome problem here of market impacton culture even though it receives far less attentionthan the other impacts just discussed.In the United States, the judiciary long ago accepted aslegal some degree of product misrepresentation. “Puffing,”the court said, is to be expected in commercial transactions,hence hardly to be outlawed. The court was insightful: misrepresentationis to be expected as a widespread practice.The decision was a telling commentary on market society.Just as societies now usually forbid a market in children,prohibit slavery, and begin to curb industrial pollution, so