STREET DOGS

The theory states, in part, that competition in the marketplace requires that the buyer not only knows what is good for him but also what is not good. If the seller produces nothing of value, as determined by a rational marketplace, then he loses out.

It is the assumption of rationality among buyers that spurs competitors to become winners, and winners to keep on winning. Where it is assumed that a buyer is unable to make rational decisions, laws are passed to invalidate transactions, as, for example, those which prohibit children from making contracts.

Of course, the practice of capitalism has its contradictions. But television commercials make a hash of it. By substituting images for claims, the pictorial commercial has made emotional appeal, not tests of truth, the basis of consumer decisions. The distance between rationality and advertising is now so wide that it is difficult to remember that there once existed a connection between them.

We no longer buy oranges, we buy vitality. We do not just buy a car, we buy prestige. And so with all the rest: in toothpaste we buy not a mere cleanser, but release from the fear of being sexually repulsive; in vodka and whisky we are not buying a protoplasmic poison which in small doses, may depress the nervous system in a psychologically valuable way, we are buying friendliness and good fellowship, the warmth of Dingley Dell and the brilliance of the Mermaid Tavern.

With the monthly bestseller we acquire culture, the envy of our less literate neighbours and the respect of the sophisticated. In every case the motivation analyst has found some deep-seated wish or fear, whose energy can be used to move the customer to part with cash and so, indirectly, to turn the wheels of industry.