PHIL 1100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Brand Loyalty, Consequentialism, The Strongest
26 Apr 2019
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Document Summary
Goldman reflects on the justification of advertising in a market economy. Marketing economies, in theory, achieve maximum efficiency under ideal conditions of pure competition. These include: true competition among firms, fluidity of labor and capital, perfect knowledge of consumers (prices and features, producer knowledge of consumer demands for goods. All transactions are to be voluntary, people are free to choose their occupations, investors are free to invest where they see fit and consumers are free to buy or refuse what is offered for sale. The ideal requires that consumers be relatively informed of the existence, quality and prices of products. It is unclear that advertising accomplishes this goal. The ideal also assumes those consumers are given, and measures the efficiency of the market by the extent to which these demands are satisfied. Advertising however often aims to create desires in consumers.
