CONSUME Series by Hal Hefner x thoughts on consumption

Consumer capitalism represents a change in the nature of praxis for the transition from advanced capitalism to a post-capitalist social formation. Marx’s concepts of social isolation and commodity fetishism are completely relevant but weakly articulated or absent from contemporary economic analysis. The literary works of western marxism, primarily the Frankfurt School and the Situationist International, advanced and deepened Marx’s concepts through the lens of sociology and philosophy. However the tendency to distance their theories from the structuralist discourse leaves conceptual gaps in the systemic mechanisms of propagation of the capitalist form.

Guy Debord’s Society & the Spectacle is an enlightening inquiry into the nature of objectification and commodity fetishism and provides an analytical framework by which to understand the social reality of advanced capitalism. However, without the context of its genealogical emergence it ignores class struggle and is thus void of proletarian praxis. Debord describes the spectacle not as “a collection of images” but rather “a social relationship between people that is mediated by images.” The commodity in advanced capitalism, materialized as image-objects, reified and imbued with metaphysical properties, is articulated within economic discourse as an ahistorical facet of capitalism. The history of psychoanalysis and its relationship with the evolution of advertising present problematics to this anachronistic tendency. 

The ‘base-and-superstructure’ model of orthodox marxism, holds ideology as a mediating component between the economic base and political superstructure; a justification of the social relations of power and production. In Althusser’s Ideological State Apparatuses he conceives of ideology as the product of social practices, not the reverse. He believed that “ideology has a material existence” and always exists in apparatuses and social practices. These apparatuses infer and impart ideology as individuals comport themselves to interact with them. If we are to extend the inquiry into the nature and development of commodity fetishism, society as spectacle, we must articulate not the only the ideological apparatuses but also the ideology itself. 

The ideology that comes to light with a genealogical approach to the theories of the situationists is one of consumerism; an ideology of consumption distinct from previous historical phenomena. Consumption broadly speaking is an ahistorical phenomena that all life engages in. Consumption as an ideology is conceived as a means of self actualization; that individual consumption is an expression of individual value, and that value increases as consumption increases. Historically the ideology of consumption adapts to shifts in public opinion vis-a-vis concerted efforts from elites to propagate consumerism, the bedrock of the socio-economic order. Major shifts in the ideology of consumption can be identified during times of social and economic instability. For the US; the two world wars, the depression and the anti-establishment outcry of the 1970’s are important moments in the evolution of the ideology of consumption. The historical development and social application of psychoanalysis provides a uniquely penetrating window into the historical evolution of the ideology of consumption.

The father of psychoanalysis is Sigmund Freud, an Austrian neurologist who was the first to theorize the aggressive and prurient forces hidden inside the minds of all mankind. These dangerous and instinctual drives could be located through psychoanalysis, by analyzing dreams and free association we could understand the hidden parts of the mind, called the unconscious. His theories were reviled by the elite of viennese society, seen as a threat to the social structure and the dynamics of power.

Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays was employed during the first world war by Woodrow Wilson to utilize Freud’s theories to mobilize mass support for the war effort. “Making the world safe for democracy” was a popular slogan of the time and Bernays quickly saw how effective Freud’s theories were at mass persuasion. Bernays realized that “if you could use propaganda for war, you could certainly use it for peace.” He understood that propaganda had become a dirty word, after the Germans usage of it in the war, which necessitated the creation of a new word that didn't carry negative connotations. He coined the term ‘public relations’ and opened up the first firm of its kind, The Council on Public Relations. At the time it was believed that people’s decision making process was related to the quantity and quality of information provided about political and commercial activities. Bernays knew this to be false and after reading a copy of Freud’s General Introduction to Psychoanalysis quickly realized that he could monetize this knowledge by advertising to people’s irrational emotions, and sought to experiment with the effectiveness of peacetime propaganda.

His first experiment with public relations came when he as approached by the head of the American Tobacco Association to find a way to get women to smoke cigarettes. At the time a taboo had been invoked on women smoking so Bernays hired a psychoanalyst in New York to find out what cigarettes meant to women. A.A. Brill told Bernays that cigarettes were a symbol of the penis and male sexual power, and that he could get women to smoke by connecting smoking with challenging male power; that women would smoke because they would have their own penises. He coined the phrase “torches of freedom” and had young debutants in the suffragette movement to march in an upcoming parade and light cigarettes for women’s liberation. At that moment he connected smoking with women's liberation and it became a symbolic act of solidarity. This made Bernays confident in his ability to persuade people to behave irrationally by linking products to their emotional desires and feelings. “The idea that smoking made women freer was completely irrational but it made them feel more independent. It meant that irrelevant objects could become powerful emotional symbols of how you wanted to be seen by others.”

The system of mass production flourished during the war but after it ended businesses became worried about over-production and under-consumption. American business was worried that a point would come where people had enough goods and would simply stop buying. Before this moment a majority of product were sold to the masses on the basis of need, advertised as necessities in functional terms and showcasing products through their practical virtues.

Corporations realized they had to transform the way the masses thought about products, to shift society from a needs to a desires based culture. Bernays was at the heart of this explicit effort to change the subjectivity of the American citizen; spearheading the concepts of mass consumer persuasion like product placement and celebrity endorsements. He was the first to tell American automobile manufacturers to sell cars as symbols of male sexuality. He employed psychologists to say that products were good for you and then presented them as independent studies. He organized fashion shows in department stores and paid celebrities to repeat the new message of consumer society, that you buy things not for need but to express your inner sense of self to others. With the help of Edward Bernays the shift of the American identity from active citizen to passive consumer began.

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.” Edward Bernays - Propaganda (1928)

As Freudian psychoanalysis garnered traction in the US, intellectuals and journalists started to fear the underlying primitive motivations in the human psyche and how in groups, can be coerced to create chaos and destruction. These hidden forces fascinated and frightened the elite, who saw their potential to mobilize the frenzied mob to easily destroy governments; something they believed to have happened in Russia. The belief that human beings could be trusted to make rational choices was central to democracy. Leading political writer of the time, Walter Lipman, said that if in reality human beings were driven by hidden irrational forces that it was necessary to rethink democracy. What was needed was a new elite, who could manage what he called the “bewildered herd”. This could be done through psychological techniques that could control the unconscious feelings of the masses.

When Hoover came to power in 1929, he became the first president to articulate that consumerism could become the central motor of American life. Writing to Bernays in 1928 he said: “You have taken over the job of creating desire and have transformed people into constantly moving happiness machines, machines which have become the key to economic progress.” The consuming self became a tool for running mass democracy, which made the economy function while being happy and docile. Bernays’ and Lipman’s ideas about managing the masses, takes the idea of democracy and turns it into a palliative, relieving pain without dealing with the root causes. Their conception of democracy was antithetical to its very roots. Historically it was about changing the relations of power, while Bernays’ democracy was about maintaining the relations of power through stimulation of the irrational self, so leadership could do what it wants uncontested.

The consuming self facilitated the continuity of capitalism in the western world even in the midst of the Great Depression. The primitive irrational forces of the individual became a vehicle for ongoing consumption. This would soon be marred as the dark side of these underlying drives emerged causing the fall of the Weimar Republic and the birth of the third reich. Many soldiers participated in psychoanalytical studies to understand the roots of the mental breakdowns experienced by roughly 49% of all soldiers evacuated from combat. These studies revealed and supported the Freudian claims of individual irrationality. The psychoanalysts believed that the mental breakdowns were not the direct result of fighting, but merely triggered the men’s childhood memories of repressed violence. 

Freud and his daughter escaped Nazi Germany to London in 1938. Freud died soon after due to cancer of the jaw, but was succeeded by his daughter Anna who became the leading voice in the psychoanalytical community. Freud’s daughter believed you could teach people to understand and control the animalism of the base human psyche, by strengthening the ego through conformity. She believed that the road to happiness was through adaptation to the external world in which they lived.

The victory of WW2 was publicly celebrated as a triumph of democracy but the implications of the study of American soldiers’ psyche worried policy makers. They feared that the irrational could do to American society, that which happened in Nazi Germany. Psychoanalysts were convinced that they not only understood the hidden irrational but that they could could control it too. They took up the charge of changing the inner structure of the individual, to create a human being which can internalize democratic values and maintain them. In 1946, Truman signed into effect the National Mental Health Act to address the findings of the psychoanalytical studies on soldiers. Principle architects of the bill believed that you could use Anna Freud’s findings to change the individual psyche of the masses in almost limitless ways. In this way the primary thrust of the psychoanalytic movement was in the promotion and propagation of lifestyles of conformity as a means of combatting emotional irrationality.

As the psychoanalysts theories took hold in American society, a new elite emerged in politics, social planning and business. They believed that psychological techniques of control were a necessary reality as a means of controlling mass irrationality and ensuring the continuity of democracy. Rather than viewing this as inherently undemocratic, this elite viewed their actions as creating the necessary conditions for a functioning stable democracy.

Anna Freud and Edward Bernays set the stage for a type of social control over the behavior and consumption of the American citizen. Ernest Dichter, who practiced next door to Freud in Vienna, moved to New York to do research on consumer motivation to uncover the secret self, the unconscious motivations for purchase. Dichter would interview people about products, not with direct questions but following the methodology of free association in psychoanalysis. From this he moved to group therapy sessions centered around products and advertising, to mine the unconscious for the hidden desires of consumers. Dichter applied his techniques to address product failures, and with his success heralded a new era in advertising. This led to a rush to employ psychoanalysts, notably the “depth boys”, who used focus groups to target and exploit the irrational unconscious of the American consumer. Dichter believed he was doing more than selling products and like Anna Freud, believed that the environment could strengthen the human personality. Dichter figured that products could satiate individual desire and give common identity with their peers; he called this the “strategy of desire”. The increasing reliance on consumption further intertwined the interests of business with those of governments, and solidified their need to employ psychoanalysis to fulfill their goals and manufacture consent.

Propaganda is defined as one directional communication promoting an ideology. Within capitalism, advertising became propaganda for the ideology of consumption. The contemporary semantic separation between advertising and propaganda stems from the idea that advertising is a decentralized effort for a myriad of independent goods thus not meeting the definition of propaganda as one-directional and ideologically focused. However if we conceive of the unilateral discourse of advertising as consumptive promotion than we can understand advertising broadly as a propagation of consumption as an ideology. Advertising is an autonomous self-propagating mechanism for consumption as cure-all for subjective problems or discontent. Advertising became a form of propaganda under modern capitalism. Advertising exists within and outside capitalism for commercial purposes while not conforming to the definitive characteristics and thus not considered propaganda. Advertising becomes propaganda when its specific purpose became the maintenance of political passivity through applied psychoanalytical theory and a distractive technique for societal docility.

The 1953 detonation of the Soviet Union’s first hydrogen bomb signaled a new wave of fear and uncertainty for those in power that marks an explicit example of the increasingly blurry line between advertising and propaganda, and the strengthening relationship between capitalism and the state. US politicians and businessman once again turned to Bernays, who argued that instead of trying to reduce the fear of communism, that very fear should be encouraged and manipulated to become a weapon of the cold war. In 1953, democratically elected President Jacobo Arbenz threatened to remove the US corporation United Fruit’s control over Guatemala, a banana republic, with popular mandate to nationalize United Fruit owned land. Bernays first experiment in manipulating public opinion, in manufacturing popular consent, was directed toward Guatemala for the benefit of the United Fruit. 

Bernays prompted United Fruit to change the perception of Guatemala from popular elected government doing things for the good of the people, into this being a nearby communist threat to American democracy. To keep United Fruits interests out of the argument, Bernays appeared an impartial actor and thus organized a trip for a group of influential American journalists who knew little to nothing about the country or its politics. On this trip he arranged for their entertainment and meetings with selected Guatemalan politicians who told them that Arbenz was a communist puppet of Moscow. During the trip there was also a violent anti-American protest, an event United Fruit insiders believed to be organized by Bernays. United fruit financed Bernays in creating a fake newspaper the Middle American Information Bureau which disseminated information about the communist threat in Guatemala. Eventually Bernays took part in a CIA-backed insurgency to topple the Arbenz government. United Fruit, President Eisenhower and the CIA decided, in secret, to organize a coup whereby they trained and armed rebel army and enacted a terror campaign. In the US, Bernays continued a propaganda campaign to prepare the US population to see the events in Guatemala as the people's liberation from a communist government.

Simultaneously a new strain of thought in psychoanalysis gained popularity, arguing that suffering was not a mistake or an illness; that the problem was not to remove suffering but to allow it to inform our lives. Bernays and the Freud family had a monopoly of sorts over the field of psychoanalysis for the first half of the 20th century. As the fifties came to an end, public opinion began to shift against psychoanalysis with the suicide of Marilyn Monroe and the publication of the Vance Packard’s The Hidden Persuaders a scathing critique of the influence of psychoanalysis in advertising. An awareness of the mass manipulation of psychoanalysis was emerging and with it a comprehensive critique of the ideas it was propagating.

Herbert Marcuse was a prominent critic, arguing that humans inner emotional drives are not inherently violent or corrupt. Marcuse argued that individuals adapt to their social world, and the social world they were adapting to was corrupt and evil. He believed that society made the unconscious drives dangerous through distortion and repression; repression that followers of the Freud family had increased through their institutionalization of conformity. This catalyzed a shift in psychoanalysis from repression to expression, a practice which encouraged open and honest expression of feelings.

As power shifted away from the Freud family in the field of psychoanalysis, so too did their influence over society. Advertising was understood as a manipulation, a way to create a person who will consume their goods. In its place grew an individual desire manifest in a widespread protest movement from students across the US, led by Marcuse. They accused governments and businesses of brainwashing and articulated consumerism as both a profit enterprise and construction of docile subjects. This New Left movement was violently repressed by the state, culminating in the death of four students at Kent State University in 1970. In the face of immense state power, the means of fighting the system changed and individuals sought to change society by changing themselves. This manifested socially as the widespread practice of self-exploration known as the human potential movement, buttressed by a new expressive form of psychotherapy that drew upon the libidinal theories of Wilhelm Reich. Two phenomenon are critical to the direction this societal moment would take: the self exploration of the human potential movement was underpinned by existential nihilism and the movements’ skepticism or aversion to most social, political, and religious institutions. If individuals were able to cut through all social conditioning; to remove all the rules and restrictions, they would arrive at a sort of lack of self from which they could create themselves anew. A correlative to the emptiness of selfhood was a perceived emptiness in life, a meaningless quality that lent all meaning to be self-determined. What arose concurrently was the idea that people could find happiness within themselves and that changing society was irrelevant.

The newly emerging “selfs” were not conforming to traditional patterns of consumption and it was beginning to have an impact on business. Daniel Yankelovich, leading market researcher of the time, was hired to address the problems this was causing for the life insurance industry. Yankelovich said life insurance, “more than any other business at the time was built on the protestant ethic, you only bought life insurance if you were a person who sacrifice for the future.” They viewed these self-expressive individuals who lived for the present as challenging the core values of the protestant ethic. 

The conventional interpretation of the time speaks to a culture of political radicalism but Yankelovich’s research located the core as a preoccupation with expression of the self and the inner-self. He also understood that these new selfs were still consumers, but did not want products that represented conformity to American society; they wanted to buy products that reflected their difference and individuality. Yankelovich estimates that from 1970 to 1980 the percentage of individuals who believed their first duty was self-actualization, to be themselves, increased from 3-5% to nearly 80%. 

Abraham Maslow’s ‘Heirarchy of Needs” became a tool for researchers at Stanford to categorize society and the new self-expressive individuals not by class, but “by different psychological desires and drives”. Stanford used a novel questionnaire to articulate these new groupings, and located a large and growing group that cut across all social classes. They called this group the “inner-directives”, people who felt they “were not defined by place in society but by the choices they made themselves.” They realized that these people could be defined, as self-expression was not infinite, and created a system called “values and lifestyles”. This signaled the emergence of lifestyle marketing and the covert resurgence of a new form of capitalism, and created the conditions for the rise of the neoliberal policies of Thatcher and Reagan. 

Capitalism managed to create an industry that evoked a larger sense of self and revealed the limitless potential of consumer demand. They managed to locate an effective way to maintain social docility and secure established institutions against social change, while making intelligible a capitalism without end. Business realized that rebellion against conformity was not a threat to business, but its greatest opportunity. The drive to satiate desire and maintain happiness creates an unending cycle of consumption and latent discontent. This is the great deception of the liberalism of the past thirty years; a vacuous liberalism devoid of shared goals and common interest that promotes only shallow individualism and easing suffering through perpetual consumption.

Sources:
The Century of The Self. Directed by Adam Curtis, interviews with Edward Bernays, Herbert Marcuse, Robert Reich, Werner Erhard, Jerry Rubin, Daniel Yankelovich, Jay Ogilvy, Anton Freud, Howard Hunt, Martin Bergmann and Alfred Pritz, RDF Television & BBC, 2002.
Althusser, Louis. "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses(Notes towards an Investigation)." Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses by Louis Althusser 1969-70, 1970.
Debord, Guy. The Society of the Spectacle. New York: Zone, 1994. Print.