Reflections on Consumerism in a Global Era

The day that Martha Stewart, the stylist of classy consumption for the masses, was found guilty, her company lost twenty-three percent of its value on the stock market. It even lost more before it made its surprising recovery. Corporations are like churches; they are hard to kill (although they can be bought out more easily). Now, after her release, sales of her household goods continue to flourish, television shows sponsored by the corporation are developing further the kinds of products she offers, and she has become the pop-heroine of entrepreneurial capitalism. In the long run, people want what she offers: a sense of style in the ordinary things of life?food, home d?cor, gardening, entertaining, and business opportunity. Now here is a question: Did her corporation create that desire by ad vertising, or did she build her fame and fortune by serving the unarticulated wants of the general population? Advertising can help define new wants and articulate new desires; but as I understand it, advertising campaigns do not always work. They have to connect with a latent range of desires already present among the populace. Think of Christmas as a time of massive buying. It was not always the case that purchases were so high for that holiday that they equaled another fiscal month for merchants, so that the overall earnings for the season determined whether profits for the year went up or down. There are studies of these things. Leigh Eric Schmitt, in his