Free Market
The Colonization of the Intimate
“Caveat emptor, quia ignorare non debuit quod jus alienum emit.”
(Let the buyer beware, for he ought not to be ignorant of what sort of right he is buying.)
—Sir Edward Coke, The first part of the Institvtes of the lawes of England ; or, A commentarie vpon Littleton, not the name of a lawyer onley, but of the law it selfe, Printed for the Societie of Stationers, England, 1628
“Any community that lives on staples has relatively few wants. The community that can be trained to desire change, to want new things even before the old have been entirely consumed, yields a market to be measured more by desires than by needs. And man’s desires can be developed so that they will greatly overshadow his needs.
Newness or style became the new order of the day. Retailers looked for novelties with which to tickle the jaded appetites of lady consumers. Sales organizations began to urge upon production changes instead of standardized low-cost units. Saturation came quickly if the market bought to satisfy demand, but saturation would never be reached if what was in style could be changed quickly enough and made soon obsolete. Standardization became increasingly subordinate to style; uniformity of production was subordinated to style appeal.”
—Paul Mazur, Senior Partner, Lehman Brothers, American Prosperity: Its Causes and Consequences, 1928 (my emphasis)
“Advertising is an educational force. If effective, desires increase, standards of living are raised, purchases are made; purchases create production, production creates purchasing power, and the circle can be made complete if desire is at this point strong enough to convert that power into actual purchases.”
—Paul Mazur, Senior Partner, Lehman Brothers, American Prosperity: Its Causes and Consequences, 19281
In America, the market is not separate from the self. The market becomes so personal that people evaluate themselves, their spiritual health, how well they’re doing, with market terms and metrics. This process happens everywhere America spreads her gospel. The eventual supplanting of family, and its replacement with unrelenting work for profit, and the artificial dream advertisers package and market and call success. Success: an experience akin to indentured servitude except they sell your family—piece by piece—back to you. A mother becomes a service. A father becomes a wage. A coach becomes a confidante. Cook, laundry, babysitter, housekeeper, ethics teacher, civics professor, financial advisor. All people you pay, not people you love. You outsource love in America. And you pay for it. Edward Bernays must be so proud.
About a year ago, before men and women began selling their loneliness as content en masse, before “100 women vs accountability” started trending, before women made a point of announcing they were horny for bears and took a fair stab at making bestiality mainstream. Some time after passport bros discovered that the best way for men to find something akin to the romance promised in stories their moms and dads told them—straining against exuberance barely contained—about what life was like when they were young was to travel to places that retained old values, the internet was abuzz about a budding couple who recorded the woman’s meltdown when she realized their first date was about to take place at Cheesecake Factory.
Via all the interviews that were given to satisfy the virality of that moment, we were able, as a culture, to come to grips with something we could not and did not name.
We learned that she was so late to the date the couple missed their original reservation. We learned he waited for more than an hour, downstairs in his car, while she put on purple lipstick to match her lime-green dress and brown coffin-tip fingernails. We learned that she would have had difficulty paying for a meal at the Cheesecake Factory for herself without debt, to say nothing of the expensive restaurants to which she aspired. We learned that her friends and their influence had set a standard for her that they were, themselves, incapable of meeting.
We learned that these two people, made famous by their viral moment, if not empty, if not spiritually bereft, were at least spiritually injured and unhealthy no matter how gently they carried themselves to hide the wound. The moment was lightning captured in an SUV in a muggy parking lot, cracks in the asphalt, vegetation peeking through, on an otherwise unremarkable day. It was a perfect example of the phenomenon of the market supplanting relationships on display. How do you know if you’ve gone on a good date? Chemistry? The buzzy, heady, champagne feeling that smushes your lungs against your ribcage and forces itself up your windpipe when you are alone, that squeezes your throat and cracks your voice and your reason until breathless, you confess what took place and what you want next to your closest confidante?
No.
A slow-burn, blossoming romance, marked by intrigue, and red-herrings, and an insatiable desire to know every detail about another’s life so intense that it turns you into public relations operator, impatient spy, and detective all at once?
No.
Knowing the reggae percussive rhythm of blood pounding in your ears, squelching the world into silence every time the other person turns to look at you, a rhythm that becomes the same experience you recognize as falling just as the elevator hurtling towards the pit of your stomach begins to melt? The runaway elevator melts, and because you experience melting you, yourself, begin to melt at the same gradual speed at which you become aware that the other person looking at you, seeking your eyes, is staring, rapt, either unwilling or unable to look away?
No.
That’s chopped. Not a good date at all. If you evaluate it that way, you’re doing it wrong.
What’s a good date you ask? Why, ensuring that you’ve been taken to the restaurant with the highest current stock price, social currency, and luxurious décor of course. Some place that exudes exclusivity or desirability in the photos you take while you’re there. Some place that advertises that you know your “worth.” Some place that proves to the people you call your friends—but in whom you are always attempting to provoke envy—that you can satisfy advertiser’s ideals.
It’s like everybody’s competing in a never-ending episode of a TV-gameshow called Look at Me, I’m The Biggest Narcissist. It’s so weird watching an entire culture calling itself spiritual but influenced every step of the way by market forces.
They even sell spirituality in America. They’ve been doing it for decades in an altogether different way than the Church did while crusading through Europe and the Middle East. Do you feel spiritually bereft? Does the tiny vestige of your soul that happened to survive the onslaught of advertisers telling you that you weren’t smart enough, or popular enough, or pretty enough, or thin enough, or good enough—just wholly and totally never ever enough—since you were old enough to interact with the screens they specifically designed to arrest your attention and on which they placed the most exciting, stupor inducing content they are reasonably certain self-selects for being engaging and addictive and thus impossible to resist, does what’s left of your soul ache from all that trauma?
America: It’s so horrible that that happened to you. Come. Hush. Allow us to soothe the pain. Over here. We have apps for that. Books, if you don’t want “content.” Outdoor experiences if you want to feel less “connected.” Seminars if you want to bond with strangers. What’s your budget? How much money do you have?
Entire industries exist for the sole purpose of arresting your attention and feasting on what’s left of your wounded soul while you are distracted. Guided meditations voiced by someone you’ve been groomed to like; nature sounds piped digitally into your brain via headphones the marketers made you covet and then pay for. Spirituality offered as a subscription, gift-box, experience, seminar, webinar, exclusive retreat, or one-time-purchase. $9.99. Industries rise like empires and erect temples to the celebration of your woundedness before they fall. They monetize every detail of the human experience—cradle to grave. Endlessly competing for the opportunity to confuse, to stimulate anxiety, to harvest emotion, before selling you peace in monthly installments.
High Value. Exclusive. Meet and Greet. Investment. Top. Bestselling. Afford. Valuable. Trending. Worth. Return.
What do the words in that random string have in common?
Just words people use when they’re talking about their children.
Spirituality. Youth. Health. Beauty. Happiness. Success. Identity.
All advertised. All available for purchase.
Market forces.
Market. Forces.
The free market forces.
Originally published in 1928 right after Lehman brothers and other investment banks created what would become known as “department stores” in New York and began to foment desire in the American public to ensure good return on their investment—a pastime that eventually became a staple of the America they deliberately created.