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The critics who denigrate advertising attack not only advertising but also by logical necessity capitalism, ethical egoism, and reason. As an institution in the division of labor and an instrument of capitalistic production, advertising communicates to many people at one time, the availability and nature of need- and want-satisfying products. In essence, advertising is salesmanship via the mass media; as such, it is the capitalists largest sales force and most effective means of delivering information to the market. In addition, advertising by its essential nature blatantly and unapologetically appeals to the self-interest of consumers for the blatant and selfish gain of capitalists. To criticize advertising is to criticize capitalism and ethical egoism.At the most fundamental level, the attacks on advertising are an assault on reason on mans ability to form concepts and to think in principles because advertising is a conceptual communication to many people at one time about the conceptual achievements of others. It is attacked for precisely this aspect of its nature. The goal of advertising is to sell products to consumers, and the means bywhich this goal is achieved is to communicate what advertisers call the product concept. An advertisement is itself an abstraction, a concept of what the capitalist has produced. Thus, advertising is a conceptual communication in a market economy to self-interested buyers about the self-interested, conceptual achievements of capitalists. To criticize advertising at the most fundamental level- is to assault mans consciousness.From its earliest days, critics attacked capitalism for its dependence on the profit motive and the pursuit of self-interest. As the most visible manifestation, or point man of capitalism, advertising can be called the capitalists tool of selfishness. In a world culture based on altruism and self-sacrifice, it is amazing that advertising has lasted as long as it has. Indeed, its growth was stunted in Great Britain and Ireland for 141 years by a tax on newspapers and newspaper advertising. If selfishness is the original sin of man, according to Judeo-Christian ethics, then surely advertising is the original sin of capitalism. More accurately, advertising is the serpent that encourages man to pursue selfish gain and, in subtler form, to disobey authority. In contemporary economics, pure and perfect competition is the Garden of Eden in which the lion lies down beside the lamb and this dirty, filthy advertising is entirely absent-because consumers allegedly have perfect information. Small wonder that advertising does not have a good press.At the level of fundamental ideas, three attacks on advertising constitute the assault on consciousness. One attack attributes to advertising the coercive power to force consumers to buy products they do not need or want. At the level of metaphysics, this attack denies the volitional nature of reason, that is, free will; consequently, it denies, either explicitly or implicitly, the validity of human consciousness as such. A second attack derides advertising for how offensive it allegedly is; ultimately, critics advocate regulation to control the allegedly offensive advertising. At root -that is, at the level of ethics this attack denies that values are objective, that values are a product of the relation between material objects and a volitional consciousness that evaluates them. Consequently, it denies the existence of rational options.A third attack, which derives from contemporary economics, views advertising as a tool of monopoly power. At the level of epistemology, however, this attack denies the possibility of truth and certainty, because reason allegedly is impotent to know reality; all man can do is emulate the methods of physics, by conducting statistically controlled experiments, and attempt to establish an uncertain, probabilistic knowledge.These three assaults on consciousness form the philosophic foundations of what are commonly known as the social and economic criticisms of advertising, the first two forming the foundation of the social criticisms, the third the foundation of the economic criticisms. The quantity of literature that attacks advertising approaches the infinite. The list of complaints is long, and each one has many variations. Explicitly or implicitly, all attacks attribute to advertising the power to initiate physical force against both consumers and competitors. The social criticisms assert that advertising adds no value to the products it promotes; therefore, it is superfluous, inherently dishonest, immoral, and fraudulent. The economic criticisms assert that advertising increases prices and wastes societys valuable resources; therefore, advertising contributes to the establishment of monopoly power.In essence, there are two social criticisms. The first explicitly charges advertising with the power to force consumers to buy products they do not need or want; the second implicitly charges advertising with this power. According to the first, advertising changes the tastes and preferences of consumers by coercing them to conform to the desires of producers. For example, consumers may want safer auto-mobiles, but what they get, according to the critics, are racing stripes and aluminum hubcaps. Forcing consumers to conform to the desires of producers, the critics point out, is the opposite of what advocates of capitalism claim about a free- market economy-namely, that producers conform to the tastes and preferences of consumers. Within the first criticism there are two forms.The more serious claims that advertising, by its very nature, is inherently deceptive, because it manipulates consumers into buying products they do not need or want. The most specific example of this criticism is the charge of subliminal advertising. Thus, when looking at a place mat in front of you at a Howard Johnsons restaurant, with its picture of the fried clam special, you might be deceived and manipulated into changing your taste. The other form claims that advertising is merely coercive, by creating needs and wants that otherwise would not exist without it. That is, highly emotional, persuasive, combative advertising -as opposed to rational, informative, and constructive advertising - is claimed to be a kind of physical force that destroys consumer sovereignty over the free market. This is Galbraiths dependence effect, so called because our wants, he claims, are dependent on or created by the process by which they are satisfied- the process of production, especially advertising and salesmanship. Our wants for breakfast cereal and laundry detergent, says Galbraith, are contrived and artificial. The psychology of behaviorism has strongly influenced this second form of thefirst social criticism.Both forms of the coercive power charge refer repeatedly to the advertising of cigarettes, liquor, drugs, sports cars, deodorant, Gucci shoes, and color television sets as evidence of advertisings alleged power to force unneeded and unwanted products on the poor, helpless consumer. The charge of manipulation and deception is more serious than mere coercion because manipulation is more devious; a manipulator can make consumers buy products they think are good for them when, in fact, that is not the case. The charge of manipulation, in effect, views advertising as a pack of lies. The charge of mere coercion, on the other hand, claims that advertising is just brute force; advertising in this view, in effect, is excessively pushy.According to the second social criticism, advertising offends the consumers sense of good taste by insulting and degrading his intelligence, by promoting morally offensive products, and by encouraging harmful and immoral behavior. Prime targets of this offensiveness criticism are Mr. Whipple and his Charmin bathroom tissue commercials, as well as the ring around the collar commercials of Wisk liquid detergent and the Noxzema take it all off shaving cream ads. But worse, the critics allege, advertising promotes products that have no redeeming moral value, such as cigarettes, beer, and pornographic literature. Advertising encourages harmful and immoral behavior and therefore is itself immoral. Although this criticism does not begin by attributing coercive power to advertising, it usually ends by supporting one or both forms of the first social criticism, thus calling for the regulation or banishment of a certain type of offensive-meaning coercive-advertising.Q. Which of the following statements does not agree with the idea of social criticism?a)Advertisements tend to hurt the sentiments of customers by questioning their intellectualityb)Advertising is a means by which businesses establish monopoly power over the marketc)Advertisers are motivated primarily by self-interest and do not cater to customer needs ethicallyd)Advertisements do not add value to the products they promote and hence keep their customers under wrong impressionCorrect answer is option 'B'. Can you explain this answer? for CAT 2024 is part of CAT preparation. The Question and answers have been prepared according to the CAT exam syllabus. Information about The critics who denigrate advertising attack not only advertising but also by logical necessity capitalism, ethical egoism, and reason. As an institution in the division of labor and an instrument of capitalistic production, advertising communicates to many people at one time, the availability and nature of need- and want-satisfying products. In essence, advertising is salesmanship via the mass media; as such, it is the capitalists largest sales force and most effective means of delivering information to the market. In addition, advertising by its essential nature blatantly and unapologetically appeals to the self-interest of consumers for the blatant and selfish gain of capitalists. To criticize advertising is to criticize capitalism and ethical egoism.At the most fundamental level, the attacks on advertising are an assault on reason on mans ability to form concepts and to think in principles because advertising is a conceptual communication to many people at one time about the conceptual achievements of others. It is attacked for precisely this aspect of its nature. The goal of advertising is to sell products to consumers, and the means bywhich this goal is achieved is to communicate what advertisers call the product concept. An advertisement is itself an abstraction, a concept of what the capitalist has produced. Thus, advertising is a conceptual communication in a market economy to self-interested buyers about the self-interested, conceptual achievements of capitalists. To criticize advertising at the most fundamental level- is to assault mans consciousness.From its earliest days, critics attacked capitalism for its dependence on the profit motive and the pursuit of self-interest. As the most visible manifestation, or point man of capitalism, advertising can be called the capitalists tool of selfishness. In a world culture based on altruism and self-sacrifice, it is amazing that advertising has lasted as long as it has. Indeed, its growth was stunted in Great Britain and Ireland for 141 years by a tax on newspapers and newspaper advertising. If selfishness is the original sin of man, according to Judeo-Christian ethics, then surely advertising is the original sin of capitalism. More accurately, advertising is the serpent that encourages man to pursue selfish gain and, in subtler form, to disobey authority. In contemporary economics, pure and perfect competition is the Garden of Eden in which the lion lies down beside the lamb and this dirty, filthy advertising is entirely absent-because consumers allegedly have perfect information. Small wonder that advertising does not have a good press.At the level of fundamental ideas, three attacks on advertising constitute the assault on consciousness. One attack attributes to advertising the coercive power to force consumers to buy products they do not need or want. At the level of metaphysics, this attack denies the volitional nature of reason, that is, free will; consequently, it denies, either explicitly or implicitly, the validity of human consciousness as such. A second attack derides advertising for how offensive it allegedly is; ultimately, critics advocate regulation to control the allegedly offensive advertising. At root -that is, at the level of ethics this attack denies that values are objective, that values are a product of the relation between material objects and a volitional consciousness that evaluates them. Consequently, it denies the existence of rational options.A third attack, which derives from contemporary economics, views advertising as a tool of monopoly power. At the level of epistemology, however, this attack denies the possibility of truth and certainty, because reason allegedly is impotent to know reality; all man can do is emulate the methods of physics, by conducting statistically controlled experiments, and attempt to establish an uncertain, probabilistic knowledge.These three assaults on consciousness form the philosophic foundations of what are commonly known as the social and economic criticisms of advertising, the first two forming the foundation of the social criticisms, the third the foundation of the economic criticisms. The quantity of literature that attacks advertising approaches the infinite. The list of complaints is long, and each one has many variations. Explicitly or implicitly, all attacks attribute to advertising the power to initiate physical force against both consumers and competitors. The social criticisms assert that advertising adds no value to the products it promotes; therefore, it is superfluous, inherently dishonest, immoral, and fraudulent. The economic criticisms assert that advertising increases prices and wastes societys valuable resources; therefore, advertising contributes to the establishment of monopoly power.In essence, there are two social criticisms. The first explicitly charges advertising with the power to force consumers to buy products they do not need or want; the second implicitly charges advertising with this power. According to the first, advertising changes the tastes and preferences of consumers by coercing them to conform to the desires of producers. For example, consumers may want safer auto-mobiles, but what they get, according to the critics, are racing stripes and aluminum hubcaps. Forcing consumers to conform to the desires of producers, the critics point out, is the opposite of what advocates of capitalism claim about a free- market economy-namely, that producers conform to the tastes and preferences of consumers. Within the first criticism there are two forms.The more serious claims that advertising, by its very nature, is inherently deceptive, because it manipulates consumers into buying products they do not need or want. The most specific example of this criticism is the charge of subliminal advertising. Thus, when looking at a place mat in front of you at a Howard Johnsons restaurant, with its picture of the fried clam special, you might be deceived and manipulated into changing your taste. The other form claims that advertising is merely coercive, by creating needs and wants that otherwise would not exist without it. That is, highly emotional, persuasive, combative advertising -as opposed to rational, informative, and constructive advertising - is claimed to be a kind of physical force that destroys consumer sovereignty over the free market. This is Galbraiths dependence effect, so called because our wants, he claims, are dependent on or created by the process by which they are satisfied- the process of production, especially advertising and salesmanship. Our wants for breakfast cereal and laundry detergent, says Galbraith, are contrived and artificial. The psychology of behaviorism has strongly influenced this second form of thefirst social criticism.Both forms of the coercive power charge refer repeatedly to the advertising of cigarettes, liquor, drugs, sports cars, deodorant, Gucci shoes, and color television sets as evidence of advertisings alleged power to force unneeded and unwanted products on the poor, helpless consumer. The charge of manipulation and deception is more serious than mere coercion because manipulation is more devious; a manipulator can make consumers buy products they think are good for them when, in fact, that is not the case. The charge of manipulation, in effect, views advertising as a pack of lies. The charge of mere coercion, on the other hand, claims that advertising is just brute force; advertising in this view, in effect, is excessively pushy.According to the second social criticism, advertising offends the consumers sense of good taste by insulting and degrading his intelligence, by promoting morally offensive products, and by encouraging harmful and immoral behavior. Prime targets of this offensiveness criticism are Mr. Whipple and his Charmin bathroom tissue commercials, as well as the ring around the collar commercials of Wisk liquid detergent and the Noxzema take it all off shaving cream ads. But worse, the critics allege, advertising promotes products that have no redeeming moral value, such as cigarettes, beer, and pornographic literature. Advertising encourages harmful and immoral behavior and therefore is itself immoral. Although this criticism does not begin by attributing coercive power to advertising, it usually ends by supporting one or both forms of the first social criticism, thus calling for the regulation or banishment of a certain type of offensive-meaning coercive-advertising.Q. Which of the following statements does not agree with the idea of social criticism?a)Advertisements tend to hurt the sentiments of customers by questioning their intellectualityb)Advertising is a means by which businesses establish monopoly power over the marketc)Advertisers are motivated primarily by self-interest and do not cater to customer needs ethicallyd)Advertisements do not add value to the products they promote and hence keep their customers under wrong impressionCorrect answer is option 'B'. Can you explain this answer? covers all topics & solutions for CAT 2024 Exam. Find important definitions, questions, meanings, examples, exercises and tests below for The critics who denigrate advertising attack not only advertising but also by logical necessity capitalism, ethical egoism, and reason. As an institution in the division of labor and an instrument of capitalistic production, advertising communicates to many people at one time, the availability and nature of need- and want-satisfying products. In essence, advertising is salesmanship via the mass media; as such, it is the capitalists largest sales force and most effective means of delivering information to the market. In addition, advertising by its essential nature blatantly and unapologetically appeals to the self-interest of consumers for the blatant and selfish gain of capitalists. To criticize advertising is to criticize capitalism and ethical egoism.At the most fundamental level, the attacks on advertising are an assault on reason on mans ability to form concepts and to think in principles because advertising is a conceptual communication to many people at one time about the conceptual achievements of others. It is attacked for precisely this aspect of its nature. The goal of advertising is to sell products to consumers, and the means bywhich this goal is achieved is to communicate what advertisers call the product concept. An advertisement is itself an abstraction, a concept of what the capitalist has produced. Thus, advertising is a conceptual communication in a market economy to self-interested buyers about the self-interested, conceptual achievements of capitalists. To criticize advertising at the most fundamental level- is to assault mans consciousness.From its earliest days, critics attacked capitalism for its dependence on the profit motive and the pursuit of self-interest. As the most visible manifestation, or point man of capitalism, advertising can be called the capitalists tool of selfishness. In a world culture based on altruism and self-sacrifice, it is amazing that advertising has lasted as long as it has. Indeed, its growth was stunted in Great Britain and Ireland for 141 years by a tax on newspapers and newspaper advertising. If selfishness is the original sin of man, according to Judeo-Christian ethics, then surely advertising is the original sin of capitalism. More accurately, advertising is the serpent that encourages man to pursue selfish gain and, in subtler form, to disobey authority. In contemporary economics, pure and perfect competition is the Garden of Eden in which the lion lies down beside the lamb and this dirty, filthy advertising is entirely absent-because consumers allegedly have perfect information. Small wonder that advertising does not have a good press.At the level of fundamental ideas, three attacks on advertising constitute the assault on consciousness. One attack attributes to advertising the coercive power to force consumers to buy products they do not need or want. At the level of metaphysics, this attack denies the volitional nature of reason, that is, free will; consequently, it denies, either explicitly or implicitly, the validity of human consciousness as such. A second attack derides advertising for how offensive it allegedly is; ultimately, critics advocate regulation to control the allegedly offensive advertising. At root -that is, at the level of ethics this attack denies that values are objective, that values are a product of the relation between material objects and a volitional consciousness that evaluates them. Consequently, it denies the existence of rational options.A third attack, which derives from contemporary economics, views advertising as a tool of monopoly power. At the level of epistemology, however, this attack denies the possibility of truth and certainty, because reason allegedly is impotent to know reality; all man can do is emulate the methods of physics, by conducting statistically controlled experiments, and attempt to establish an uncertain, probabilistic knowledge.These three assaults on consciousness form the philosophic foundations of what are commonly known as the social and economic criticisms of advertising, the first two forming the foundation of the social criticisms, the third the foundation of the economic criticisms. The quantity of literature that attacks advertising approaches the infinite. The list of complaints is long, and each one has many variations. Explicitly or implicitly, all attacks attribute to advertising the power to initiate physical force against both consumers and competitors. The social criticisms assert that advertising adds no value to the products it promotes; therefore, it is superfluous, inherently dishonest, immoral, and fraudulent. The economic criticisms assert that advertising increases prices and wastes societys valuable resources; therefore, advertising contributes to the establishment of monopoly power.In essence, there are two social criticisms. The first explicitly charges advertising with the power to force consumers to buy products they do not need or want; the second implicitly charges advertising with this power. According to the first, advertising changes the tastes and preferences of consumers by coercing them to conform to the desires of producers. For example, consumers may want safer auto-mobiles, but what they get, according to the critics, are racing stripes and aluminum hubcaps. Forcing consumers to conform to the desires of producers, the critics point out, is the opposite of what advocates of capitalism claim about a free- market economy-namely, that producers conform to the tastes and preferences of consumers. Within the first criticism there are two forms.The more serious claims that advertising, by its very nature, is inherently deceptive, because it manipulates consumers into buying products they do not need or want. The most specific example of this criticism is the charge of subliminal advertising. Thus, when looking at a place mat in front of you at a Howard Johnsons restaurant, with its picture of the fried clam special, you might be deceived and manipulated into changing your taste. The other form claims that advertising is merely coercive, by creating needs and wants that otherwise would not exist without it. That is, highly emotional, persuasive, combative advertising -as opposed to rational, informative, and constructive advertising - is claimed to be a kind of physical force that destroys consumer sovereignty over the free market. This is Galbraiths dependence effect, so called because our wants, he claims, are dependent on or created by the process by which they are satisfied- the process of production, especially advertising and salesmanship. Our wants for breakfast cereal and laundry detergent, says Galbraith, are contrived and artificial. The psychology of behaviorism has strongly influenced this second form of thefirst social criticism.Both forms of the coercive power charge refer repeatedly to the advertising of cigarettes, liquor, drugs, sports cars, deodorant, Gucci shoes, and color television sets as evidence of advertisings alleged power to force unneeded and unwanted products on the poor, helpless consumer. The charge of manipulation and deception is more serious than mere coercion because manipulation is more devious; a manipulator can make consumers buy products they think are good for them when, in fact, that is not the case. The charge of manipulation, in effect, views advertising as a pack of lies. The charge of mere coercion, on the other hand, claims that advertising is just brute force; advertising in this view, in effect, is excessively pushy.According to the second social criticism, advertising offends the consumers sense of good taste by insulting and degrading his intelligence, by promoting morally offensive products, and by encouraging harmful and immoral behavior. Prime targets of this offensiveness criticism are Mr. Whipple and his Charmin bathroom tissue commercials, as well as the ring around the collar commercials of Wisk liquid detergent and the Noxzema take it all off shaving cream ads. But worse, the critics allege, advertising promotes products that have no redeeming moral value, such as cigarettes, beer, and pornographic literature. Advertising encourages harmful and immoral behavior and therefore is itself immoral. Although this criticism does not begin by attributing coercive power to advertising, it usually ends by supporting one or both forms of the first social criticism, thus calling for the regulation or banishment of a certain type of offensive-meaning coercive-advertising.Q. Which of the following statements does not agree with the idea of social criticism?a)Advertisements tend to hurt the sentiments of customers by questioning their intellectualityb)Advertising is a means by which businesses establish monopoly power over the marketc)Advertisers are motivated primarily by self-interest and do not cater to customer needs ethicallyd)Advertisements do not add value to the products they promote and hence keep their customers under wrong impressionCorrect answer is option 'B'. Can you explain this answer?.

Solutions for The critics who denigrate advertising attack not only advertising but also by logical necessity capitalism, ethical egoism, and reason. As an institution in the division of labor and an instrument of capitalistic production, advertising communicates to many people at one time, the availability and nature of need- and want-satisfying products. In essence, advertising is salesmanship via the mass media; as such, it is the capitalists largest sales force and most effective means of delivering information to the market. In addition, advertising by its essential nature blatantly and unapologetically appeals to the self-interest of consumers for the blatant and selfish gain of capitalists. To criticize advertising is to criticize capitalism and ethical egoism.At the most fundamental level, the attacks on advertising are an assault on reason on mans ability to form concepts and to think in principles because advertising is a conceptual communication to many people at one time about the conceptual achievements of others. It is attacked for precisely this aspect of its nature. The goal of advertising is to sell products to consumers, and the means bywhich this goal is achieved is to communicate what advertisers call the product concept. An advertisement is itself an abstraction, a concept of what the capitalist has produced. Thus, advertising is a conceptual communication in a market economy to self-interested buyers about the self-interested, conceptual achievements of capitalists. To criticize advertising at the most fundamental level- is to assault mans consciousness.From its earliest days, critics attacked capitalism for its dependence on the profit motive and the pursuit of self-interest. As the most visible manifestation, or point man of capitalism, advertising can be called the capitalists tool of selfishness. In a world culture based on altruism and self-sacrifice, it is amazing that advertising has lasted as long as it has. Indeed, its growth was stunted in Great Britain and Ireland for 141 years by a tax on newspapers and newspaper advertising. If selfishness is the original sin of man, according to Judeo-Christian ethics, then surely advertising is the original sin of capitalism. More accurately, advertising is the serpent that encourages man to pursue selfish gain and, in subtler form, to disobey authority. In contemporary economics, pure and perfect competition is the Garden of Eden in which the lion lies down beside the lamb and this dirty, filthy advertising is entirely absent-because consumers allegedly have perfect information. Small wonder that advertising does not have a good press.At the level of fundamental ideas, three attacks on advertising constitute the assault on consciousness. One attack attributes to advertising the coercive power to force consumers to buy products they do not need or want. At the level of metaphysics, this attack denies the volitional nature of reason, that is, free will; consequently, it denies, either explicitly or implicitly, the validity of human consciousness as such. A second attack derides advertising for how offensive it allegedly is; ultimately, critics advocate regulation to control the allegedly offensive advertising. At root -that is, at the level of ethics this attack denies that values are objective, that values are a product of the relation between material objects and a volitional consciousness that evaluates them. Consequently, it denies the existence of rational options.A third attack, which derives from contemporary economics, views advertising as a tool of monopoly power. At the level of epistemology, however, this attack denies the possibility of truth and certainty, because reason allegedly is impotent to know reality; all man can do is emulate the methods of physics, by conducting statistically controlled experiments, and attempt to establish an uncertain, probabilistic knowledge.These three assaults on consciousness form the philosophic foundations of what are commonly known as the social and economic criticisms of advertising, the first two forming the foundation of the social criticisms, the third the foundation of the economic criticisms. The quantity of literature that attacks advertising approaches the infinite. The list of complaints is long, and each one has many variations. Explicitly or implicitly, all attacks attribute to advertising the power to initiate physical force against both consumers and competitors. The social criticisms assert that advertising adds no value to the products it promotes; therefore, it is superfluous, inherently dishonest, immoral, and fraudulent. The economic criticisms assert that advertising increases prices and wastes societys valuable resources; therefore, advertising contributes to the establishment of monopoly power.In essence, there are two social criticisms. The first explicitly charges advertising with the power to force consumers to buy products they do not need or want; the second implicitly charges advertising with this power. According to the first, advertising changes the tastes and preferences of consumers by coercing them to conform to the desires of producers. For example, consumers may want safer auto-mobiles, but what they get, according to the critics, are racing stripes and aluminum hubcaps. Forcing consumers to conform to the desires of producers, the critics point out, is the opposite of what advocates of capitalism claim about a free- market economy-namely, that producers conform to the tastes and preferences of consumers. Within the first criticism there are two forms.The more serious claims that advertising, by its very nature, is inherently deceptive, because it manipulates consumers into buying products they do not need or want. The most specific example of this criticism is the charge of subliminal advertising. Thus, when looking at a place mat in front of you at a Howard Johnsons restaurant, with its picture of the fried clam special, you might be deceived and manipulated into changing your taste. The other form claims that advertising is merely coercive, by creating needs and wants that otherwise would not exist without it. That is, highly emotional, persuasive, combative advertising -as opposed to rational, informative, and constructive advertising - is claimed to be a kind of physical force that destroys consumer sovereignty over the free market. This is Galbraiths dependence effect, so called because our wants, he claims, are dependent on or created by the process by which they are satisfied- the process of production, especially advertising and salesmanship. Our wants for breakfast cereal and laundry detergent, says Galbraith, are contrived and artificial. The psychology of behaviorism has strongly influenced this second form of thefirst social criticism.Both forms of the coercive power charge refer repeatedly to the advertising of cigarettes, liquor, drugs, sports cars, deodorant, Gucci shoes, and color television sets as evidence of advertisings alleged power to force unneeded and unwanted products on the poor, helpless consumer. The charge of manipulation and deception is more serious than mere coercion because manipulation is more devious; a manipulator can make consumers buy products they think are good for them when, in fact, that is not the case. The charge of manipulation, in effect, views advertising as a pack of lies. The charge of mere coercion, on the other hand, claims that advertising is just brute force; advertising in this view, in effect, is excessively pushy.According to the second social criticism, advertising offends the consumers sense of good taste by insulting and degrading his intelligence, by promoting morally offensive products, and by encouraging harmful and immoral behavior. Prime targets of this offensiveness criticism are Mr. Whipple and his Charmin bathroom tissue commercials, as well as the ring around the collar commercials of Wisk liquid detergent and the Noxzema take it all off shaving cream ads. But worse, the critics allege, advertising promotes products that have no redeeming moral value, such as cigarettes, beer, and pornographic literature. Advertising encourages harmful and immoral behavior and therefore is itself immoral. Although this criticism does not begin by attributing coercive power to advertising, it usually ends by supporting one or both forms of the first social criticism, thus calling for the regulation or banishment of a certain type of offensive-meaning coercive-advertising.Q. Which of the following statements does not agree with the idea of social criticism?a)Advertisements tend to hurt the sentiments of customers by questioning their intellectualityb)Advertising is a means by which businesses establish monopoly power over the marketc)Advertisers are motivated primarily by self-interest and do not cater to customer needs ethicallyd)Advertisements do not add value to the products they promote and hence keep their customers under wrong impressionCorrect answer is option 'B'. Can you explain this answer? in English & in Hindi are available as part of our courses for CAT. Download more important topics, notes, lectures and mock test series for CAT Exam by signing up for free.

Here you can find the meaning of The critics who denigrate advertising attack not only advertising but also by logical necessity capitalism, ethical egoism, and reason. As an institution in the division of labor and an instrument of capitalistic production, advertising communicates to many people at one time, the availability and nature of need- and want-satisfying products. In essence, advertising is salesmanship via the mass media; as such, it is the capitalists largest sales force and most effective means of delivering information to the market. In addition, advertising by its essential nature blatantly and unapologetically appeals to the self-interest of consumers for the blatant and selfish gain of capitalists. To criticize advertising is to criticize capitalism and ethical egoism.At the most fundamental level, the attacks on advertising are an assault on reason on mans ability to form concepts and to think in principles because advertising is a conceptual communication to many people at one time about the conceptual achievements of others. It is attacked for precisely this aspect of its nature. The goal of advertising is to sell products to consumers, and the means bywhich this goal is achieved is to communicate what advertisers call the product concept. An advertisement is itself an abstraction, a concept of what the capitalist has produced. Thus, advertising is a conceptual communication in a market economy to self-interested buyers about the self-interested, conceptual achievements of capitalists. To criticize advertising at the most fundamental level- is to assault mans consciousness.From its earliest days, critics attacked capitalism for its dependence on the profit motive and the pursuit of self-interest. As the most visible manifestation, or point man of capitalism, advertising can be called the capitalists tool of selfishness. In a world culture based on altruism and self-sacrifice, it is amazing that advertising has lasted as long as it has. Indeed, its growth was stunted in Great Britain and Ireland for 141 years by a tax on newspapers and newspaper advertising. If selfishness is the original sin of man, according to Judeo-Christian ethics, then surely advertising is the original sin of capitalism. More accurately, advertising is the serpent that encourages man to pursue selfish gain and, in subtler form, to disobey authority. In contemporary economics, pure and perfect competition is the Garden of Eden in which the lion lies down beside the lamb and this dirty, filthy advertising is entirely absent-because consumers allegedly have perfect information. Small wonder that advertising does not have a good press.At the level of fundamental ideas, three attacks on advertising constitute the assault on consciousness. One attack attributes to advertising the coercive power to force consumers to buy products they do not need or want. At the level of metaphysics, this attack denies the volitional nature of reason, that is, free will; consequently, it denies, either explicitly or implicitly, the validity of human consciousness as such. A second attack derides advertising for how offensive it allegedly is; ultimately, critics advocate regulation to control the allegedly offensive advertising. At root -that is, at the level of ethics this attack denies that values are objective, that values are a product of the relation between material objects and a volitional consciousness that evaluates them. Consequently, it denies the existence of rational options.A third attack, which derives from contemporary economics, views advertising as a tool of monopoly power. At the level of epistemology, however, this attack denies the possibility of truth and certainty, because reason allegedly is impotent to know reality; all man can do is emulate the methods of physics, by conducting statistically controlled experiments, and attempt to establish an uncertain, probabilistic knowledge.These three assaults on consciousness form the philosophic foundations of what are commonly known as the social and economic criticisms of advertising, the first two forming the foundation of the social criticisms, the third the foundation of the economic criticisms. The quantity of literature that attacks advertising approaches the infinite. The list of complaints is long, and each one has many variations. Explicitly or implicitly, all attacks attribute to advertising the power to initiate physical force against both consumers and competitors. The social criticisms assert that advertising adds no value to the products it promotes; therefore, it is superfluous, inherently dishonest, immoral, and fraudulent. The economic criticisms assert that advertising increases prices and wastes societys valuable resources; therefore, advertising contributes to the establishment of monopoly power.In essence, there are two social criticisms. The first explicitly charges advertising with the power to force consumers to buy products they do not need or want; the second implicitly charges advertising with this power. According to the first, advertising changes the tastes and preferences of consumers by coercing them to conform to the desires of producers. For example, consumers may want safer auto-mobiles, but what they get, according to the critics, are racing stripes and aluminum hubcaps. Forcing consumers to conform to the desires of producers, the critics point out, is the opposite of what advocates of capitalism claim about a free- market economy-namely, that producers conform to the tastes and preferences of consumers. Within the first criticism there are two forms.The more serious claims that advertising, by its very nature, is inherently deceptive, because it manipulates consumers into buying products they do not need or want. The most specific example of this criticism is the charge of subliminal advertising. Thus, when looking at a place mat in front of you at a Howard Johnsons restaurant, with its picture of the fried clam special, you might be deceived and manipulated into changing your taste. The other form claims that advertising is merely coercive, by creating needs and wants that otherwise would not exist without it. That is, highly emotional, persuasive, combative advertising -as opposed to rational, informative, and constructive advertising - is claimed to be a kind of physical force that destroys consumer sovereignty over the free market. This is Galbraiths dependence effect, so called because our wants, he claims, are dependent on or created by the process by which they are satisfied- the process of production, especially advertising and salesmanship. Our wants for breakfast cereal and laundry detergent, says Galbraith, are contrived and artificial. The psychology of behaviorism has strongly influenced this second form of thefirst social criticism.Both forms of the coercive power charge refer repeatedly to the advertising of cigarettes, liquor, drugs, sports cars, deodorant, Gucci shoes, and color television sets as evidence of advertisings alleged power to force unneeded and unwanted products on the poor, helpless consumer. The charge of manipulation and deception is more serious than mere coercion because manipulation is more devious; a manipulator can make consumers buy products they think are good for them when, in fact, that is not the case. The charge of manipulation, in effect, views advertising as a pack of lies. The charge of mere coercion, on the other hand, claims that advertising is just brute force; advertising in this view, in effect, is excessively pushy.According to the second social criticism, advertising offends the consumers sense of good taste by insulting and degrading his intelligence, by promoting morally offensive products, and by encouraging harmful and immoral behavior. Prime targets of this offensiveness criticism are Mr. Whipple and his Charmin bathroom tissue commercials, as well as the ring around the collar commercials of Wisk liquid detergent and the Noxzema take it all off shaving cream ads. But worse, the critics allege, advertising promotes products that have no redeeming moral value, such as cigarettes, beer, and pornographic literature. Advertising encourages harmful and immoral behavior and therefore is itself immoral. Although this criticism does not begin by attributing coercive power to advertising, it usually ends by supporting one or both forms of the first social criticism, thus calling for the regulation or banishment of a certain type of offensive-meaning coercive-advertising.Q. Which of the following statements does not agree with the idea of social criticism?a)Advertisements tend to hurt the sentiments of customers by questioning their intellectualityb)Advertising is a means by which businesses establish monopoly power over the marketc)Advertisers are motivated primarily by self-interest and do not cater to customer needs ethicallyd)Advertisements do not add value to the products they promote and hence keep their customers under wrong impressionCorrect answer is option 'B'. Can you explain this answer? defined & explained in the simplest way possible. Besides giving the explanation of The critics who denigrate advertising attack not only advertising but also by logical necessity capitalism, ethical egoism, and reason. As an institution in the division of labor and an instrument of capitalistic production, advertising communicates to many people at one time, the availability and nature of need- and want-satisfying products. In essence, advertising is salesmanship via the mass media; as such, it is the capitalists largest sales force and most effective means of delivering information to the market. In addition, advertising by its essential nature blatantly and unapologetically appeals to the self-interest of consumers for the blatant and selfish gain of capitalists. To criticize advertising is to criticize capitalism and ethical egoism.At the most fundamental level, the attacks on advertising are an assault on reason on mans ability to form concepts and to think in principles because advertising is a conceptual communication to many people at one time about the conceptual achievements of others. It is attacked for precisely this aspect of its nature. The goal of advertising is to sell products to consumers, and the means bywhich this goal is achieved is to communicate what advertisers call the product concept. An advertisement is itself an abstraction, a concept of what the capitalist has produced. Thus, advertising is a conceptual communication in a market economy to self-interested buyers about the self-interested, conceptual achievements of capitalists. To criticize advertising at the most fundamental level- is to assault mans consciousness.From its earliest days, critics attacked capitalism for its dependence on the profit motive and the pursuit of self-interest. As the most visible manifestation, or point man of capitalism, advertising can be called the capitalists tool of selfishness. In a world culture based on altruism and self-sacrifice, it is amazing that advertising has lasted as long as it has. Indeed, its growth was stunted in Great Britain and Ireland for 141 years by a tax on newspapers and newspaper advertising. If selfishness is the original sin of man, according to Judeo-Christian ethics, then surely advertising is the original sin of capitalism. More accurately, advertising is the serpent that encourages man to pursue selfish gain and, in subtler form, to disobey authority. In contemporary economics, pure and perfect competition is the Garden of Eden in which the lion lies down beside the lamb and this dirty, filthy advertising is entirely absent-because consumers allegedly have perfect information. Small wonder that advertising does not have a good press.At the level of fundamental ideas, three attacks on advertising constitute the assault on consciousness. One attack attributes to advertising the coercive power to force consumers to buy products they do not need or want. At the level of metaphysics, this attack denies the volitional nature of reason, that is, free will; consequently, it denies, either explicitly or implicitly, the validity of human consciousness as such. A second attack derides advertising for how offensive it allegedly is; ultimately, critics advocate regulation to control the allegedly offensive advertising. At root -that is, at the level of ethics this attack denies that values are objective, that values are a product of the relation between material objects and a volitional consciousness that evaluates them. Consequently, it denies the existence of rational options.A third attack, which derives from contemporary economics, views advertising as a tool of monopoly power. At the level of epistemology, however, this attack denies the possibility of truth and certainty, because reason allegedly is impotent to know reality; all man can do is emulate the methods of physics, by conducting statistically controlled experiments, and attempt to establish an uncertain, probabilistic knowledge.These three assaults on consciousness form the philosophic foundations of what are commonly known as the social and economic criticisms of advertising, the first two forming the foundation of the social criticisms, the third the foundation of the economic criticisms. The quantity of literature that attacks advertising approaches the infinite. The list of complaints is long, and each one has many variations. Explicitly or implicitly, all attacks attribute to advertising the power to initiate physical force against both consumers and competitors. The social criticisms assert that advertising adds no value to the products it promotes; therefore, it is superfluous, inherently dishonest, immoral, and fraudulent. The economic criticisms assert that advertising increases prices and wastes societys valuable resources; therefore, advertising contributes to the establishment of monopoly power.In essence, there are two social criticisms. The first explicitly charges advertising with the power to force consumers to buy products they do not need or want; the second implicitly charges advertising with this power. According to the first, advertising changes the tastes and preferences of consumers by coercing them to conform to the desires of producers. For example, consumers may want safer auto-mobiles, but what they get, according to the critics, are racing stripes and aluminum hubcaps. Forcing consumers to conform to the desires of producers, the critics point out, is the opposite of what advocates of capitalism claim about a free- market economy-namely, that producers conform to the tastes and preferences of consumers. Within the first criticism there are two forms.The more serious claims that advertising, by its very nature, is inherently deceptive, because it manipulates consumers into buying products they do not need or want. The most specific example of this criticism is the charge of subliminal advertising. Thus, when looking at a place mat in front of you at a Howard Johnsons restaurant, with its picture of the fried clam special, you might be deceived and manipulated into changing your taste. The other form claims that advertising is merely coercive, by creating needs and wants that otherwise would not exist without it. That is, highly emotional, persuasive, combative advertising -as opposed to rational, informative, and constructive advertising - is claimed to be a kind of physical force that destroys consumer sovereignty over the free market. This is Galbraiths dependence effect, so called because our wants, he claims, are dependent on or created by the process by which they are satisfied- the process of production, especially advertising and salesmanship. Our wants for breakfast cereal and laundry detergent, says Galbraith, are contrived and artificial. The psychology of behaviorism has strongly influenced this second form of thefirst social criticism.Both forms of the coercive power charge refer repeatedly to the advertising of cigarettes, liquor, drugs, sports cars, deodorant, Gucci shoes, and color television sets as evidence of advertisings alleged power to force unneeded and unwanted products on the poor, helpless consumer. The charge of manipulation and deception is more serious than mere coercion because manipulation is more devious; a manipulator can make consumers buy products they think are good for them when, in fact, that is not the case. The charge of manipulation, in effect, views advertising as a pack of lies. The charge of mere coercion, on the other hand, claims that advertising is just brute force; advertising in this view, in effect, is excessively pushy.According to the second social criticism, advertising offends the consumers sense of good taste by insulting and degrading his intelligence, by promoting morally offensive products, and by encouraging harmful and immoral behavior. Prime targets of this offensiveness criticism are Mr. Whipple and his Charmin bathroom tissue commercials, as well as the ring around the collar commercials of Wisk liquid detergent and the Noxzema take it all off shaving cream ads. But worse, the critics allege, advertising promotes products that have no redeeming moral value, such as cigarettes, beer, and pornographic literature. Advertising encourages harmful and immoral behavior and therefore is itself immoral. Although this criticism does not begin by attributing coercive power to advertising, it usually ends by supporting one or both forms of the first social criticism, thus calling for the regulation or banishment of a certain type of offensive-meaning coercive-advertising.Q. Which of the following statements does not agree with the idea of social criticism?a)Advertisements tend to hurt the sentiments of customers by questioning their intellectualityb)Advertising is a means by which businesses establish monopoly power over the marketc)Advertisers are motivated primarily by self-interest and do not cater to customer needs ethicallyd)Advertisements do not add value to the products they promote and hence keep their customers under wrong impressionCorrect answer is option 'B'. Can you explain this answer?, a detailed solution for The critics who denigrate advertising attack not only advertising but also by logical necessity capitalism, ethical egoism, and reason. As an institution in the division of labor and an instrument of capitalistic production, advertising communicates to many people at one time, the availability and nature of need- and want-satisfying products. In essence, advertising is salesmanship via the mass media; as such, it is the capitalists largest sales force and most effective means of delivering information to the market. In addition, advertising by its essential nature blatantly and unapologetically appeals to the self-interest of consumers for the blatant and selfish gain of capitalists. To criticize advertising is to criticize capitalism and ethical egoism.At the most fundamental level, the attacks on advertising are an assault on reason on mans ability to form concepts and to think in principles because advertising is a conceptual communication to many people at one time about the conceptual achievements of others. It is attacked for precisely this aspect of its nature. The goal of advertising is to sell products to consumers, and the means bywhich this goal is achieved is to communicate what advertisers call the product concept. An advertisement is itself an abstraction, a concept of what the capitalist has produced. Thus, advertising is a conceptual communication in a market economy to self-interested buyers about the self-interested, conceptual achievements of capitalists. To criticize advertising at the most fundamental level- is to assault mans consciousness.From its earliest days, critics attacked capitalism for its dependence on the profit motive and the pursuit of self-interest. As the most visible manifestation, or point man of capitalism, advertising can be called the capitalists tool of selfishness. In a world culture based on altruism and self-sacrifice, it is amazing that advertising has lasted as long as it has. Indeed, its growth was stunted in Great Britain and Ireland for 141 years by a tax on newspapers and newspaper advertising. If selfishness is the original sin of man, according to Judeo-Christian ethics, then surely advertising is the original sin of capitalism. More accurately, advertising is the serpent that encourages man to pursue selfish gain and, in subtler form, to disobey authority. In contemporary economics, pure and perfect competition is the Garden of Eden in which the lion lies down beside the lamb and this dirty, filthy advertising is entirely absent-because consumers allegedly have perfect information. Small wonder that advertising does not have a good press.At the level of fundamental ideas, three attacks on advertising constitute the assault on consciousness. One attack attributes to advertising the coercive power to force consumers to buy products they do not need or want. At the level of metaphysics, this attack denies the volitional nature of reason, that is, free will; consequently, it denies, either explicitly or implicitly, the validity of human consciousness as such. A second attack derides advertising for how offensive it allegedly is; ultimately, critics advocate regulation to control the allegedly offensive advertising. At root -that is, at the level of ethics this attack denies that values are objective, that values are a product of the relation between material objects and a volitional consciousness that evaluates them. Consequently, it denies the existence of rational options.A third attack, which derives from contemporary economics, views advertising as a tool of monopoly power. At the level of epistemology, however, this attack denies the possibility of truth and certainty, because reason allegedly is impotent to know reality; all man can do is emulate the methods of physics, by conducting statistically controlled experiments, and attempt to establish an uncertain, probabilistic knowledge.These three assaults on consciousness form the philosophic foundations of what are commonly known as the social and economic criticisms of advertising, the first two forming the foundation of the social criticisms, the third the foundation of the economic criticisms. The quantity of literature that attacks advertising approaches the infinite. The list of complaints is long, and each one has many variations. Explicitly or implicitly, all attacks attribute to advertising the power to initiate physical force against both consumers and competitors. The social criticisms assert that advertising adds no value to the products it promotes; therefore, it is superfluous, inherently dishonest, immoral, and fraudulent. The economic criticisms assert that advertising increases prices and wastes societys valuable resources; therefore, advertising contributes to the establishment of monopoly power.In essence, there are two social criticisms. The first explicitly charges advertising with the power to force consumers to buy products they do not need or want; the second implicitly charges advertising with this power. According to the first, advertising changes the tastes and preferences of consumers by coercing them to conform to the desires of producers. For example, consumers may want safer auto-mobiles, but what they get, according to the critics, are racing stripes and aluminum hubcaps. Forcing consumers to conform to the desires of producers, the critics point out, is the opposite of what advocates of capitalism claim about a free- market economy-namely, that producers conform to the tastes and preferences of consumers. Within the first criticism there are two forms.The more serious claims that advertising, by its very nature, is inherently deceptive, because it manipulates consumers into buying products they do not need or want. The most specific example of this criticism is the charge of subliminal advertising. Thus, when looking at a place mat in front of you at a Howard Johnsons restaurant, with its picture of the fried clam special, you might be deceived and manipulated into changing your taste. The other form claims that advertising is merely coercive, by creating needs and wants that otherwise would not exist without it. That is, highly emotional, persuasive, combative advertising -as opposed to rational, informative, and constructive advertising - is claimed to be a kind of physical force that destroys consumer sovereignty over the free market. This is Galbraiths dependence effect, so called because our wants, he claims, are dependent on or created by the process by which they are satisfied- the process of production, especially advertising and salesmanship. Our wants for breakfast cereal and laundry detergent, says Galbraith, are contrived and artificial. The psychology of behaviorism has strongly influenced this second form of thefirst social criticism.Both forms of the coercive power charge refer repeatedly to the advertising of cigarettes, liquor, drugs, sports cars, deodorant, Gucci shoes, and color television sets as evidence of advertisings alleged power to force unneeded and unwanted products on the poor, helpless consumer. The charge of manipulation and deception is more serious than mere coercion because manipulation is more devious; a manipulator can make consumers buy products they think are good for them when, in fact, that is not the case. The charge of manipulation, in effect, views advertising as a pack of lies. The charge of mere coercion, on the other hand, claims that advertising is just brute force; advertising in this view, in effect, is excessively pushy.According to the second social criticism, advertising offends the consumers sense of good taste by insulting and degrading his intelligence, by promoting morally offensive products, and by encouraging harmful and immoral behavior. Prime targets of this offensiveness criticism are Mr. Whipple and his Charmin bathroom tissue commercials, as well as the ring around the collar commercials of Wisk liquid detergent and the Noxzema take it all off shaving cream ads. But worse, the critics allege, advertising promotes products that have no redeeming moral value, such as cigarettes, beer, and pornographic literature. Advertising encourages harmful and immoral behavior and therefore is itself immoral. Although this criticism does not begin by attributing coercive power to advertising, it usually ends by supporting one or both forms of the first social criticism, thus calling for the regulation or banishment of a certain type of offensive-meaning coercive-advertising.Q. Which of the following statements does not agree with the idea of social criticism?a)Advertisements tend to hurt the sentiments of customers by questioning their intellectualityb)Advertising is a means by which businesses establish monopoly power over the marketc)Advertisers are motivated primarily by self-interest and do not cater to customer needs ethicallyd)Advertisements do not add value to the products they promote and hence keep their customers under wrong impressionCorrect answer is option 'B'. Can you explain this answer? has been provided alongside types of The critics who denigrate advertising attack not only advertising but also by logical necessity capitalism, ethical egoism, and reason. As an institution in the division of labor and an instrument of capitalistic production, advertising communicates to many people at one time, the availability and nature of need- and want-satisfying products. In essence, advertising is salesmanship via the mass media; as such, it is the capitalists largest sales force and most effective means of delivering information to the market. In addition, advertising by its essential nature blatantly and unapologetically appeals to the self-interest of consumers for the blatant and selfish gain of capitalists. To criticize advertising is to criticize capitalism and ethical egoism.At the most fundamental level, the attacks on advertising are an assault on reason on mans ability to form concepts and to think in principles because advertising is a conceptual communication to many people at one time about the conceptual achievements of others. It is attacked for precisely this aspect of its nature. The goal of advertising is to sell products to consumers, and the means bywhich this goal is achieved is to communicate what advertisers call the product concept. An advertisement is itself an abstraction, a concept of what the capitalist has produced. Thus, advertising is a conceptual communication in a market economy to self-interested buyers about the self-interested, conceptual achievements of capitalists. To criticize advertising at the most fundamental level- is to assault mans consciousness.From its earliest days, critics attacked capitalism for its dependence on the profit motive and the pursuit of self-interest. As the most visible manifestation, or point man of capitalism, advertising can be called the capitalists tool of selfishness. In a world culture based on altruism and self-sacrifice, it is amazing that advertising has lasted as long as it has. Indeed, its growth was stunted in Great Britain and Ireland for 141 years by a tax on newspapers and newspaper advertising. If selfishness is the original sin of man, according to Judeo-Christian ethics, then surely advertising is the original sin of capitalism. More accurately, advertising is the serpent that encourages man to pursue selfish gain and, in subtler form, to disobey authority. In contemporary economics, pure and perfect competition is the Garden of Eden in which the lion lies down beside the lamb and this dirty, filthy advertising is entirely absent-because consumers allegedly have perfect information. Small wonder that advertising does not have a good press.At the level of fundamental ideas, three attacks on advertising constitute the assault on consciousness. One attack attributes to advertising the coercive power to force consumers to buy products they do not need or want. At the level of metaphysics, this attack denies the volitional nature of reason, that is, free will; consequently, it denies, either explicitly or implicitly, the validity of human consciousness as such. A second attack derides advertising for how offensive it allegedly is; ultimately, critics advocate regulation to control the allegedly offensive advertising. At root -that is, at the level of ethics this attack denies that values are objective, that values are a product of the relation between material objects and a volitional consciousness that evaluates them. Consequently, it denies the existence of rational options.A third attack, which derives from contemporary economics, views advertising as a tool of monopoly power. At the level of epistemology, however, this attack denies the possibility of truth and certainty, because reason allegedly is impotent to know reality; all man can do is emulate the methods of physics, by conducting statistically controlled experiments, and attempt to establish an uncertain, probabilistic knowledge.These three assaults on consciousness form the philosophic foundations of what are commonly known as the social and economic criticisms of advertising, the first two forming the foundation of the social criticisms, the third the foundation of the economic criticisms. The quantity of literature that attacks advertising approaches the infinite. The list of complaints is long, and each one has many variations. Explicitly or implicitly, all attacks attribute to advertising the power to initiate physical force against both consumers and competitors. The social criticisms assert that advertising adds no value to the products it promotes; therefore, it is superfluous, inherently dishonest, immoral, and fraudulent. The economic criticisms assert that advertising increases prices and wastes societys valuable resources; therefore, advertising contributes to the establishment of monopoly power.In essence, there are two social criticisms. The first explicitly charges advertising with the power to force consumers to buy products they do not need or want; the second implicitly charges advertising with this power. According to the first, advertising changes the tastes and preferences of consumers by coercing them to conform to the desires of producers. For example, consumers may want safer auto-mobiles, but what they get, according to the critics, are racing stripes and aluminum hubcaps. Forcing consumers to conform to the desires of producers, the critics point out, is the opposite of what advocates of capitalism claim about a free- market economy-namely, that producers conform to the tastes and preferences of consumers. Within the first criticism there are two forms.The more serious claims that advertising, by its very nature, is inherently deceptive, because it manipulates consumers into buying products they do not need or want. The most specific example of this criticism is the charge of subliminal advertising. Thus, when looking at a place mat in front of you at a Howard Johnsons restaurant, with its picture of the fried clam special, you might be deceived and manipulated into changing your taste. The other form claims that advertising is merely coercive, by creating needs and wants that otherwise would not exist without it. That is, highly emotional, persuasive, combative advertising -as opposed to rational, informative, and constructive advertising - is claimed to be a kind of physical force that destroys consumer sovereignty over the free market. This is Galbraiths dependence effect, so called because our wants, he claims, are dependent on or created by the process by which they are satisfied- the process of production, especially advertising and salesmanship. Our wants for breakfast cereal and laundry detergent, says Galbraith, are contrived and artificial. The psychology of behaviorism has strongly influenced this second form of thefirst social criticism.Both forms of the coercive power charge refer repeatedly to the advertising of cigarettes, liquor, drugs, sports cars, deodorant, Gucci shoes, and color television sets as evidence of advertisings alleged power to force unneeded and unwanted products on the poor, helpless consumer. The charge of manipulation and deception is more serious than mere coercion because manipulation is more devious; a manipulator can make consumers buy products they think are good for them when, in fact, that is not the case. The charge of manipulation, in effect, views advertising as a pack of lies. The charge of mere coercion, on the other hand, claims that advertising is just brute force; advertising in this view, in effect, is excessively pushy.According to the second social criticism, advertising offends the consumers sense of good taste by insulting and degrading his intelligence, by promoting morally offensive products, and by encouraging harmful and immoral behavior. Prime targets of this offensiveness criticism are Mr. Whipple and his Charmin bathroom tissue commercials, as well as the ring around the collar commercials of Wisk liquid detergent and the Noxzema take it all off shaving cream ads. But worse, the critics allege, advertising promotes products that have no redeeming moral value, such as cigarettes, beer, and pornographic literature. Advertising encourages harmful and immoral behavior and therefore is itself immoral. Although this criticism does not begin by attributing coercive power to advertising, it usually ends by supporting one or both forms of the first social criticism, thus calling for the regulation or banishment of a certain type of offensive-meaning coercive-advertising.Q. Which of the following statements does not agree with the idea of social criticism?a)Advertisements tend to hurt the sentiments of customers by questioning their intellectualityb)Advertising is a means by which businesses establish monopoly power over the marketc)Advertisers are motivated primarily by self-interest and do not cater to customer needs ethicallyd)Advertisements do not add value to the products they promote and hence keep their customers under wrong impressionCorrect answer is option 'B'. Can you explain this answer? theory, EduRev gives you an ample number of questions to practice The critics who denigrate advertising attack not only advertising but also by logical necessity capitalism, ethical egoism, and reason. As an institution in the division of labor and an instrument of capitalistic production, advertising communicates to many people at one time, the availability and nature of need- and want-satisfying products. In essence, advertising is salesmanship via the mass media; as such, it is the capitalists largest sales force and most effective means of delivering information to the market. In addition, advertising by its essential nature blatantly and unapologetically appeals to the self-interest of consumers for the blatant and selfish gain of capitalists. To criticize advertising is to criticize capitalism and ethical egoism.At the most fundamental level, the attacks on advertising are an assault on reason on mans ability to form concepts and to think in principles because advertising is a conceptual communication to many people at one time about the conceptual achievements of others. It is attacked for precisely this aspect of its nature. The goal of advertising is to sell products to consumers, and the means bywhich this goal is achieved is to communicate what advertisers call the product concept. An advertisement is itself an abstraction, a concept of what the capitalist has produced. Thus, advertising is a conceptual communication in a market economy to self-interested buyers about the self-interested, conceptual achievements of capitalists. To criticize advertising at the most fundamental level- is to assault mans consciousness.From its earliest days, critics attacked capitalism for its dependence on the profit motive and the pursuit of self-interest. As the most visible manifestation, or point man of capitalism, advertising can be called the capitalists tool of selfishness. In a world culture based on altruism and self-sacrifice, it is amazing that advertising has lasted as long as it has. Indeed, its growth was stunted in Great Britain and Ireland for 141 years by a tax on newspapers and newspaper advertising. If selfishness is the original sin of man, according to Judeo-Christian ethics, then surely advertising is the original sin of capitalism. More accurately, advertising is the serpent that encourages man to pursue selfish gain and, in subtler form, to disobey authority. In contemporary economics, pure and perfect competition is the Garden of Eden in which the lion lies down beside the lamb and this dirty, filthy advertising is entirely absent-because consumers allegedly have perfect information. Small wonder that advertising does not have a good press.At the level of fundamental ideas, three attacks on advertising constitute the assault on consciousness. One attack attributes to advertising the coercive power to force consumers to buy products they do not need or want. At the level of metaphysics, this attack denies the volitional nature of reason, that is, free will; consequently, it denies, either explicitly or implicitly, the validity of human consciousness as such. A second attack derides advertising for how offensive it allegedly is; ultimately, critics advocate regulation to control the allegedly offensive advertising. At root -that is, at the level of ethics this attack denies that values are objective, that values are a product of the relation between material objects and a volitional consciousness that evaluates them. Consequently, it denies the existence of rational options.A third attack, which derives from contemporary economics, views advertising as a tool of monopoly power. At the level of epistemology, however, this attack denies the possibility of truth and certainty, because reason allegedly is impotent to know reality; all man can do is emulate the methods of physics, by conducting statistically controlled experiments, and attempt to establish an uncertain, probabilistic knowledge.These three assaults on consciousness form the philosophic foundations of what are commonly known as the social and economic criticisms of advertising, the first two forming the foundation of the social criticisms, the third the foundation of the economic criticisms. The quantity of literature that attacks advertising approaches the infinite. The list of complaints is long, and each one has many variations. Explicitly or implicitly, all attacks attribute to advertising the power to initiate physical force against both consumers and competitors. The social criticisms assert that advertising adds no value to the products it promotes; therefore, it is superfluous, inherently dishonest, immoral, and fraudulent. The economic criticisms assert that advertising increases prices and wastes societys valuable resources; therefore, advertising contributes to the establishment of monopoly power.In essence, there are two social criticisms. The first explicitly charges advertising with the power to force consumers to buy products they do not need or want; the second implicitly charges advertising with this power. According to the first, advertising changes the tastes and preferences of consumers by coercing them to conform to the desires of producers. For example, consumers may want safer auto-mobiles, but what they get, according to the critics, are racing stripes and aluminum hubcaps. Forcing consumers to conform to the desires of producers, the critics point out, is the opposite of what advocates of capitalism claim about a free- market economy-namely, that producers conform to the tastes and preferences of consumers. Within the first criticism there are two forms.The more serious claims that advertising, by its very nature, is inherently deceptive, because it manipulates consumers into buying products they do not need or want. The most specific example of this criticism is the charge of subliminal advertising. Thus, when looking at a place mat in front of you at a Howard Johnsons restaurant, with its picture of the fried clam special, you might be deceived and manipulated into changing your taste. The other form claims that advertising is merely coercive, by creating needs and wants that otherwise would not exist without it. That is, highly emotional, persuasive, combative advertising -as opposed to rational, informative, and constructive advertising - is claimed to be a kind of physical force that destroys consumer sovereignty over the free market. This is Galbraiths dependence effect, so called because our wants, he claims, are dependent on or created by the process by which they are satisfied- the process of production, especially advertising and salesmanship. Our wants for breakfast cereal and laundry detergent, says Galbraith, are contrived and artificial. The psychology of behaviorism has strongly influenced this second form of thefirst social criticism.Both forms of the coercive power charge refer repeatedly to the advertising of cigarettes, liquor, drugs, sports cars, deodorant, Gucci shoes, and color television sets as evidence of advertisings alleged power to force unneeded and unwanted products on the poor, helpless consumer. The charge of manipulation and deception is more serious than mere coercion because manipulation is more devious; a manipulator can make consumers buy products they think are good for them when, in fact, that is not the case. The charge of manipulation, in effect, views advertising as a pack of lies. The charge of mere coercion, on the other hand, claims that advertising is just brute force; advertising in this view, in effect, is excessively pushy.According to the second social criticism, advertising offends the consumers sense of good taste by insulting and degrading his intelligence, by promoting morally offensive products, and by encouraging harmful and immoral behavior. Prime targets of this offensiveness criticism are Mr. Whipple and his Charmin bathroom tissue commercials, as well as the ring around the collar commercials of Wisk liquid detergent and the Noxzema take it all off shaving cream ads. But worse, the critics allege, advertising promotes products that have no redeeming moral value, such as cigarettes, beer, and pornographic literature. Advertising encourages harmful and immoral behavior and therefore is itself immoral. Although this criticism does not begin by attributing coercive power to advertising, it usually ends by supporting one or both forms of the first social criticism, thus calling for the regulation or banishment of a certain type of offensive-meaning coercive-advertising.Q. Which of the following statements does not agree with the idea of social criticism?a)Advertisements tend to hurt the sentiments of customers by questioning their intellectualityb)Advertising is a means by which businesses establish monopoly power over the marketc)Advertisers are motivated primarily by self-interest and do not cater to customer needs ethicallyd)Advertisements do not add value to the products they promote and hence keep their customers under wrong impressionCorrect answer is option 'B'. Can you explain this answer? tests, examples and also practice CAT tests.