Life style sales

[nadinbrzezinski]

this is what the companies do these days. Look, when you buy your shit from Nike, Apple, Starbucks, et al, what you are buying is not stuff they made, but a lifestyle. This is what they rely on.

Let me add to the list Microsoft, Seagate, Corel, Best Buy (at least they sell junk)... Target, Walmart... our economy now sells to you a LIFE STYLE. And for the most part we are now in the distribution business. Yes, we still make some shit in this country... like oh Boeing, that we all know is here to give our war fighters what they need (tm).

Truth be told is that there is an ugly underbelly to this, and that is a system of production relying on cheap labor. And the moment it becomes a little more expensive, these companies, not the fronts you know... the actual builders of stuff, will move their factories to cheap labor like moths to light.

If this is to change we need to be aware of the TRUE costs of what we buy... not blame an individual corporation but the SYSTEM and realize we need INTERNATIONAL labor laws... we need a UNION MOVEMENT that goes across borders and at the very least MINIMUM WAGE and LABOR standards... preferably LIVING wages. Until that happens, well our monopolists will continue to do this.

There are ways to do this. First we can start doing this by demanding that we start raising our tariffs (good luck, praise the god of mammon). So this is why I have a problem when a SINGLE company is singled out. Yep, bad company, and as much as it might make you feel good... you ain't gonna make a dent in the systemic problems. And yes I demand that tariffs be put back in place and we develop an Industrial policy, but to be brutally honest I don't think it will happen until we have a full collapse...

[The_Commonist]

1. Yep, that's what Branding is all about.

Buying the lifestyle.
It's shorthand for "this is who I am."

Of course, the lifestyle might also include things like multiple suicides at the factory that subcontracts the work to manufacture your favorite lifestyle product (iPod), but if the Corporate Media is doing its job, you'll never hear about the TRUE cost of your lifestyle.

While I certainly like and applaud the solutions you suggest, it ain't never gonna happen.
The only way out of this is a crash of the system, and a reboot.
Probably with a few billion fewer people on the planet.
Sad, but that's the way our species functions...

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Those are external costs

and it is not a factory that is a Mac factory. They just happen to be making IPODs today, tomorrow it will be X-Boxes... our companies distribute goods they commission.

[annabanana]

2. The Wobblies were aiming at that... way back when.. . .n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Gompers beat them to it, way back when

:-)

People who organize labor understood this.

[wiggs]

5. One step further: The US is helping sell this lifestyle as well. The govt

offsets a LOT of corporate costs with subsidies, expensive treaties, military to protect oil and agriculture and mining interests, pollution clean up, etc that go well beyond the amount of corporate tax collected.

Just as our low cost of gasoline is an illusion (true cost to US is more like 10 bucks per gallon), the true cost of many of our goods is much higher.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Exactly because the economy depends on

our insane consumption. Why saving (as much as they pay lip service to it) is anathema to the system. I swear, by saving I am not being a good consumer drone.

[JCMach1]

7. And it's not because there are not profits to be made... That's the big lie

It's just that if they can get 500% profit as opposed to 50% that's where companies will go.

One thing further... markets and capital also only support the 'new' system.

Let's say you put up your own money and start a successful clothing manufacturing line here in the U.S. Maybe even your profits are quite good. Well, when you go for IPO capitalization, or for expansion loans the pressure is always going to be on the bottom-line... i.e. you can't expand unless you do so in China.

The whole system is rigged against business at home.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Well the other big lie is that labor in the US has

always been expensive. It wasn't at one point. And now they want to bring it back where it was at one point. Since they can't...they go where they can: China.

[Mari333]

9. 'Life is a stage and all the people are just players"

I prefer my own props and staging. and its cheap!

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. Yea but we still consume

unless your computer is made of home made parts, or twigs and nuts...

We are still part of the system, even if we try to reduce our participation in it

:-)

These days I buy my clothes because they fit, not because it was made by Benetton. If they happen to be Bennetton... but I will not go out of my way to find those, or levy strauss, or what have you.

Now my dutch oven IS made in the US... but I was still consuming.

[Mari333]

11. I use 2nd hand shops and dollar stores

thats about it. I majored in theater in college, and eventually figured out this is ALL theater. and its all really SILLY.