capitalist economy
I WAS SITTING in a large auditorium full of market researchers. A speaker suggested that, by selling wrinkle cream, we were helping to make the world a better place because women would feel better about themselves. I looked around the room, thinking, “Is everyone buying into this? Do people really think this is true, or do they see that it’s just a corporate pep talk?”
I had worked in the world of international market research for nearly 10 years. Though there were a few moments like this one when something just didn’t feel right, in many ways I still didn’t see the issues I see so clearly now — marketing techniques are the air we breathe.
I eventually left my work in marketing to pursue a master’s in social justice and a doctorate in theological ethics. I began to investigate how marketing practices negatively impact how we live as human beings and how we think about marketing in the church. In contemporary society, we tend to view marketing techniques as neutral tools that can be applied in different contexts — whether for businesses, nonprofit fundraising, or church communication. But can we adapt tools that have been developed in the context of capitalistic profit maximization to the mission of the church? Are there fundamental differences in how the church views and relates to human beings?
I had worked in the world of international market research for nearly 10 years. Though there were a few moments like this one when something just didn’t feel right, in many ways I still didn’t see the issues I see so clearly now—marketing techniques are the air we breathe.
Rather than reflecting the truth of the motivations of both workers and employers, the "labor shortage" conversation is a tactic to adjust public perception and create the political will big corporations need to capture cheap labor –– it's propaganda at its most straightforward.
WE LIVE IN AN AGE of “market morality”: In our market system, we believe that money grants value and meaning to the moral and social questions of life. It doesn’t. Nevertheless, we’re under its spell.
Market morality interprets life in economic terms. For instance, many corporations do not believe they have a moral duty to vulnerable communities affected by their business practices. Instead, they assert that their primary duty is their fiduciary responsibility to shareholders and other stakeholders in the company. In this case, the moral domain of corporate practice is about securing profit returns to the exclusion of broader social and communal practices of care.
We have witnessed, repeatedly, poor communities and their environments polluted by toxins associated with corporate practices. This is readily seen in the Flint, Mich. water crisis, which persists. These companies offer no apologies, because their moral obligations are defined in economic terms, shaped by the bottom line of profit.