A couple days after the beautiful chaos of family gathering, endless kid energy, and just a whole lot of loud people in one place, I found myself in the post-holiday comedown.
As someone that's worked in marketing for over a decade, I've struggled with this a lot. And, perhaps as a consequence, I write about it a lot.
I was born and have lived in a communist country - now democratic republic. I've seen the after effects, and can tell you communism is decidedly not the solution (not saying that's what you're implying but people tend to think in these 2 binary ideologies)
Capitalism, had a form of meritocracy wrapped into it, it motivated people in a way that was more natural to our psychology, but it's been pushed to such an extreme that it's made life... what it is today.
The promise was that as long as you created good useful products people would buy and you would get rewarded. That's not a bad premise.
But now... Now you don't know if really want/need that product or if you are just beaten into submission with all of those remarketing campaigns. Is it really still capitalism at this point or something more insidious? Anyway. I think about this a lot.
And I do agree that in the US it is a LOT worse. My wife's American and we've decided to never ever live there.
Love these reflections. I think most of us think that there's a binary choice between capitalism and communism (part of why "socialism" was considered such a dirty word among Americans for so long). I think that's a big part of the problem is that the systems we were given have taken away a lot of our creativity on better ways to live our lives. What I do know what capitalism that beyond it being harmful mental health-wise, is that it's completely unsustainable. It's built on neverending growth, yet we do not have the resources to support that constant growth model. I'm hoping that we see more creative solutions come about beyond capitalism, ones rooted in community and climate justice. Doughnut Economics is one of those creative examples (https://doughnuteconomics.org/about-doughnut-economics). I know there's more there and I need to do more research on alternatives, because they're out there if we look hard enough!
Yesss, I'm very familiar with doughnut economics and am a big proponent of it.
I often say marketers are the stewards of demand and we have a responsibility to understand the workings within our system, hence my writings on humane marketing.
We're too focused on "all or nothing" thinking, extreme socialism or extreme capitalism, you're either on this side or the other, but the ideal place to be, as is the case with with most things, is balanced somewhere in the middle.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this convo I heard between Dax Shepard and Kristin Bell (maybe on AE?) where they were asked to describe the other’s ideal day. He put online shopping on her list, and she corrected him. She said something like, “When I’m stressed, I love to browse and just put things in carts. Not even buy them, just put them in the cart. But no, if I’m truly happy, shopping is not in my ideal day.” (NOT a direct quote)
Totally feel this! When I'm stressed I do the same thing -- either online shopping or I'll take a trip to a thrift store. While it's better than online shopping, it's still shopping and even then I need to recognize that I'm trying to fill some strange void.
As someone that's worked in marketing for over a decade, I've struggled with this a lot. And, perhaps as a consequence, I write about it a lot.
I was born and have lived in a communist country - now democratic republic. I've seen the after effects, and can tell you communism is decidedly not the solution (not saying that's what you're implying but people tend to think in these 2 binary ideologies)
Capitalism, had a form of meritocracy wrapped into it, it motivated people in a way that was more natural to our psychology, but it's been pushed to such an extreme that it's made life... what it is today.
The promise was that as long as you created good useful products people would buy and you would get rewarded. That's not a bad premise.
But now... Now you don't know if really want/need that product or if you are just beaten into submission with all of those remarketing campaigns. Is it really still capitalism at this point or something more insidious? Anyway. I think about this a lot.
And I do agree that in the US it is a LOT worse. My wife's American and we've decided to never ever live there.
Love these reflections. I think most of us think that there's a binary choice between capitalism and communism (part of why "socialism" was considered such a dirty word among Americans for so long). I think that's a big part of the problem is that the systems we were given have taken away a lot of our creativity on better ways to live our lives. What I do know what capitalism that beyond it being harmful mental health-wise, is that it's completely unsustainable. It's built on neverending growth, yet we do not have the resources to support that constant growth model. I'm hoping that we see more creative solutions come about beyond capitalism, ones rooted in community and climate justice. Doughnut Economics is one of those creative examples (https://doughnuteconomics.org/about-doughnut-economics). I know there's more there and I need to do more research on alternatives, because they're out there if we look hard enough!
Yesss, I'm very familiar with doughnut economics and am a big proponent of it.
I often say marketers are the stewards of demand and we have a responsibility to understand the workings within our system, hence my writings on humane marketing.
We're too focused on "all or nothing" thinking, extreme socialism or extreme capitalism, you're either on this side or the other, but the ideal place to be, as is the case with with most things, is balanced somewhere in the middle.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this convo I heard between Dax Shepard and Kristin Bell (maybe on AE?) where they were asked to describe the other’s ideal day. He put online shopping on her list, and she corrected him. She said something like, “When I’m stressed, I love to browse and just put things in carts. Not even buy them, just put them in the cart. But no, if I’m truly happy, shopping is not in my ideal day.” (NOT a direct quote)
Totally feel this! When I'm stressed I do the same thing -- either online shopping or I'll take a trip to a thrift store. While it's better than online shopping, it's still shopping and even then I need to recognize that I'm trying to fill some strange void.