In the last few weeks, we have all seen a number of newspaper and magazine articles, TV shows, commentators of all kinds, as well as heard and had random conversations with friends or strangers, all about the economic crisis the world is currently facing. One of the conclusions that are being reached is that the way capitalism is running is just not sustainable. Nicholas Sarkozy, the president of France, declared there must be a big change in the base of capitalism, in order that money starts being in the service of business and citizens, and not the other way around. This seems like a generally accepted point of view, with all governments apparently working together to come up with a solution. And yet, nobody has talked about a deeper and also unsustainable side of capitalism that has claimed and is still claiming it´s toll, being responsible for grave suffering and psychological problems, and indirectly even crimes. This main ´partner´ of consumer capitalism that must be revised is known as advertisement.

The principle through which advertisement works is simple: utilize a certain specific psychological weakness in humans called ´suggestibility´, to inculcate the desire to consume and enhance the memorization of a specific product. This is done through the use of techniques such as the utilization of objectively unrelated but emotionally very efficient association of a natural instinctual impulse with the product wanted, like for example sex with a certain beer, as well as playing catchy songs to facilitate memorization, constant repeating and a number of other ingenious ways to increase consumerism.

Billions and billions of (euros/dollars/reais/whatever) are spent every day in advertisement through all sorts of mediums, and yet if one asks people around, nobody will admit they are affected by advertisement. The budget of the advertising industry is a proof that people are, even those that believe they don’t, since we know that the return of this investment must not only pay itself but also provide considerably more profit.

So what are the consequences of all this to the human mind? We have all seen it on a day to day basis, and yet our eyes seem to be shut to it. People desire more and more, and yet are more and more unhappy no matter how much they have. People do everything they can to achieve this ´more and more´, even killing other people in some cases if this leads to more money. New technological products of questionable necessity constantly appear, all of which are sure to become obsolete in a very short time. The desire of beauty that comes together with the advertising industry has created a lot of insatisfaction in the relationship realm too. Alcohol, which continues to be advertised in many parts of the world, is responsible for 2,5 million deaths a year. Cigarretes, twice that amount. People want the new shoes, the new purses, the new whatever products, always buying in order to fulfill an inner blackhole of insatisfaction

The desire of consumerism in general is equally inculcated in people for whom these product are unreachable.The lower classes specially in third world countries are equally exposed to the advertisement, and yet they do not have the possibilities of acquiring those products, which in turn may increase the amount of crimes such as robbery or kidnapping. In Rio slums, for example, the drug dealers are not doing so only because they want to have enough to eat, this is a myth: they want Nike shoes (and status and other things, but in a great part they want all the different advertised and desired products). One could mention on and on about the different unbalanced problems caused by advertisement, but everyone can realize and notice this for themselves, if attention is payed to it.

Just as the economic crisis has been caused by an unsustainable model, so is the already obvious but unnoticed psychological crisis being caused by an unsustainable model of consumerism inculcation through advertisement. In order to help the world reaching a better more harmonious state of being, we need to create measures to totally abolish or at least partly control advertisement, such as making it an optional item (normal TV channels not passing it and saving one or two TV channels only of advertisement so people can watch IF they want to, keeping all the advertisement in magazines to the first or last pages but not in between, the end of outdoors, etc). It may seem radical but it is definitely less radical than the incredible problems we are facing, from psychological problems such as depression, to crimes of all kinds. Only with such changes, together with an improvement in education, can we humans (and the planet in general) become happier and healthier.

we need to create measures to totally abolish or at least partly control advertisement, such as making it an optional item (normal TV channels not passing it and saving one or two TV channels only of advertisement so people can watch IF they want to, keeping all the advertisement in magazines to the first or last pages but not in between, the end of outdoors, etc). It may seem radical but it is definitely less radical than the incredible problems we are facing, from psychological problems such as depression, to crimes of all kinds. Only with such changes, together with an improvement in education, can we humans (and the planet in general) become happier and healthier.

If the governments hadn't bailed out the banks, Western society could've crumbled just like it did in the Great Depression. It's better that we prop it up for now, maybe we can make it more sustainable before capitalism goes into meltdown. And if governments hadn't counterbalanced capitalism all these years, we would've gone into meltdown long ago.

Well, I can't see anyone being bothered if they were banned (I wouldn't really mind, although I do like knowing what's out there, and as I don't have telly I don't get annoyed by the ads all the time like you lot do).

Except for the whole advertising industry who'd have to find other jobs... I'm sure some of them are shits anyway but still... what other useless social function would have to be invented to keep people employed instead? Why don't we ban all other pointless industries (there are a lot of them)?

And entrepreneurial small businesses... how are they going to inform people of their goods? Word of mouth alone? Or cut down more trees to make junk mail? Maybe the multinationals would become further strengthened without any threat of new competition?

I'm just playing devil's advocate here, I'm not actually against your idea.

the little ´eating worm´ of consumerism still finds a backdoor through the unconscious.. Even if one doesnt notice, no matter how instructed, advertisement influences us all, maybe not directly but it does, at least to make us used to the idea that consumerism is ´normal´