advertising is a necessary evil essay

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Advertising Makes Us Unhappy

• Nicole Torres

The more a country spends on ads, the less satisfied its citizens are.

The University of Warwick’s Andrew Oswald and his team compared survey data on the life satisfaction of more than 900,000 citizens of 27 European countries from 1980 to 2011 with data on annual advertising spending in those nations over the same period. The researchers found an inverse connection between the two. The higher a country’s ad spend was in one year, the less satisfied its citizens were a year or two later. Their conclusion: Advertising makes us unhappy.

• Nicole Torres is a former senior editor at Harvard Business Review.

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Is Advertising Really a Necessary Evil?

• Spike Santee
• October 21, 2013

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If you are in advertising sales you have most surely heard someone say “Advertising is a necessary evil”. It is often said in a begrudging manor, not in a complimentary way. When your prospect tells you this, it rarely leads to a sale. But maybe it should. The prospect is at least acknowledging that advertising is necessary. You have half of the battle won already. Now you just have to show the prospect that by working with you, they will be able to eliminate the evil aspects from their mind.

The primary reason a prospect would say that advertising is a necessary evil is because they don’t like to spend their hard earned money on advertising. They find it hard to measure and confusing. If they have tried something in the past that didn’t measure up to their expectations, they probably consider that an expensive advertising mistake they want to avoid making again.

Despite having a previous bad experience, the prospect still says advertising is necessary. You don’t need to convince them to advertise, you just need to demonstrate that you can make it less painful. Your job is now to demonstrate that with your professional training, expertise and customer service skills, you will be able to make their advertising efforts more effective, you will be able to make them feel better about their efforts.

Selling is all about persuasion. Zig Ziglar says selling is all about the transference of emotions. Zig says that if he can get you to be as excited about his product as he is, then it’s possible to make a sale. But if you’re not excited about your product then selling is going to be difficult for you. That’s why multi-level marketing organizations require you to buy and use the product yourself. You can’t effectively sell the product unless you are on the product. They only way to understand the value and benefits of the product is to be a user of the product yourself.

Consider this, what would your life be like if you were required to write a check to the Radio station every month for your own personal advertising campaign before they would allow you to sell Radio advertising other businesses? Would you do it?

If you were buying your own advertising campaign every month on the Radio station you work for to let people in the community know who you are and what you do, you would be able to speak about Radio advertising from a firsthand perspective. You would be on the product so to speak.

If you were required to buy your own advertising schedule every month you certainly would have a greater grasp for what the local business owner is going through when it comes to advertising their business. You would understand just how hard it is to track advertising results. You would know beyond a shadow of a doubt how hard it is to put out your hard earned money to buy an intangible product like Radio. You would be able to feel their frustration on a personal level.

If you were forced to buy your own Radio advertising campaign you would certainly make a significant commitment to learn how to make your advertising as effective as possible. You would devote your attention to every single detail to ensure you got your money’s worth from your advertising.

If you were buying your own advertising every month you would definitely be much persuasive about the power of advertising on your Radio station.

When your prospect says they don’t think they can afford it you can say “I know how you feel” because you’ve been there. You would have firsthand experience at finding the money necessary to buy your own advertising.

When your customer says they don’t know how to track the results you would be able to say “I know how you feel” because you’ve been there. You would be able to help them learn the same lessons you learned buying your own advertising.

If you were buying your own advertising every month you would be able to identify with your customers when they express their frustration when they try to figure out if their advertising is delivering a Return On their Investment. You would have already figured out just how many new customers you needed to pay for your advertising. You would have already figured out how much each new customer was going to spend with you to make sure the advertising paid for itself.

If you’re not buying your own advertising every month you need to find another way to understand what the customer is going through every month that makes them say “advertising is a necessary evil”.

If you want to take the “evil” out of the equation, you must position yourself in a positive helpful way. You must present yourself as a trusted resource. People buy from people they like. You can achieve a short term limited amount of likability with jokes, gifts, and free lunches but in today’s competitive environment professional likeability comes from becoming an indispensable resource. You must make a meaningful difference in your client’s business life.

You need to make a commitment to a lifelong effort of self-improvement. You may have a lot of years of experience but the possibility exists that you have one year of experience that you just keep repeating over and over. You need to make sure your expertise is up-to-date. What are you doing to improve your expertise, not just prolonging your experience?

Your clients essentially hire you to be their advertising representative for your station. When they don’t buy, you didn’t get hired. When they cancel you get fired.

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Advertising itself is not evil, but it has certainly got out of control

A s one of the authors of the recent Think of me as evil? report on the impact of advertising on social and cultural values, I've been frustrated in the past few weeks by the way we've got stuck on the question of whether advertising is evil, rather than getting into the deeper questions. Admittedly, I made my own bed to some extent, but let's see if we can go beyond the headline.

So should we think of advertising as evil? No, despite the provocative name of our report, we shouldn't – but I would propose that it is certainly out of control, and the resultant impact on social and cultural values is doing our society and our economy a great disservice.

I want to start by setting out the context for advertising, and looking back to where we have come from. Then I'll offer a thought on how that context is changing, and what that means for advertising's role in society. Finally, I'll offer a suggestion or two for what we should do from here.

So, where are we coming from? What is the deal between advertising and society as it stands today?

The history of advertising

My first boss in advertising, noting both my geeky and my idealistic streaks early, sought to answer this for me with a book.

The book was The End of History, by Francis Fukuyama. For those not familiar with it, the hypothesis is that in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the contest between social systemsended. All that remained was to spread the word of a particularly fundamentalist strain of capitalism across the globe. Growth was good, and that meant more people buying more stuff more often. Advertising, then, which sought to sell more stuff to more people more often, was very much a "good thing". It's a sweeping description, but broadly speaking, that's still the story we live by today, with our key measures of Consumer Confidence, with school competitions identifying the Young Consumer of the Year, and so on.

As a result, advertising has an access-all-areas pass in our lives, a pass of which the industry is taking full advantage. Organisations such as the Advertising Association exist to promote and protect "advertising freedoms", and the big game is to push advertising ever further – from naming football stadiums to product placement on television, to schools, buildings exteriors and beyond. There are media companies that will carve your brands into trees and claim they are environmentally friendly for doing so. As Linda Kaplan Thaler, CEO of Kaplan Thaler Group in the US, says: "Ubiquity is the new exclusivity".

A new shift

However, something is changing. As economist and commentator Will Hutton put it a couple of weeks ago at the launch of a report on the contribution of advertising to the UK economy, we can't count economic contributions "with one eye closed".

We are starting to understand that measuring the success of a nation by GDP is like measuring the success of a company by turnover alone. We are on the brink of developing true cost-benefit – or profit and loss — analyses of nations and of major industries. And when that happens, the advertising industry needs to be very careful, or else, to quote Hutton again, it will find itself in the dock.

Why is this? Well, you'll have to read our report for a full answer, but the hypothesis we pose is rooted in the study of cultural values. This field of social psychology poses a model of human behaviour that says we are by nature at least as co-operative as we are competitive, as least as selfless as narrowly self-interested, and at least as driven by the desire for fulfilment and purpose as we are by the desire for status and success relative to our peers. In short, it poses that we are by nature at least as intrinsically (on our own terms) as extrinsically (relative to others) motivated in our lives.

Note the phrase "by nature". Because when you introduce advertising into the mix, especially in its current ubiquity, the scales tip. A wide range of studies, which we review in more detail in our report, provide statistical evidence that higher levels of advertising lead to people working longer hours, saving less, and borrowing and buying more. Advertising in aggregate serves to normalise and validate the pursuit of status, of financial success, of sexual prowess, of self-interest as individual and societal goals, at the expense of fulfilment of purpose, of selflessness, and so on.

The consequences

The impact of this is terrifying purely on economic grounds, with personal debt in the UK already over £1.5tn. That's nearly double the current national debt, and it's predicted to rise 50% by 2015. If advertising is adding to this debt burden then it is doing a great disservice to our economy. But the wider impacts are even more concerning.

When extrinsic motivations dominate, our likelihood to care about the problems of others diminishes – whether those others are people, animals, or the world as a whole. Where extrinsic motivations are prevalent, social equity is less, and negative environmental impact is greater.

And the impacts are not just on others. Individuals for whom extrinsic motivations are prevalent tend to be less happy, and are at significantly greater risk of mental illness – again unsurprising, given some of those numbers for personal debt, and again related to considerable costs to the UK economy.

It's these findings that have led Oxfam, WWF, Action for Children, PIRC and many other leading NGOs to come together in the Common Cause project, which you can find out more about at valuesandframes.org . And it's these findings that mean we have to look very hard at advertising.

And the question we have to ask now is this: for all the benefits that advertising brings, what are the costs, in the undermining of informal support networks, of ecosystem services and of personal mental and physical wellbeing? Is advertising – in its present form, and at its present level of ubiquity – contributing to economic growth, or to what former World Bank economist Herman Daly calls "uneconomic growth", where the marginal costs of an increase in GDP exceed the marginal benefits? The evidence strongly suggests the latter.

What should we do?

The most important thing we can do is to stop advertising creeping further into our lives. As I have been careful to say, it is not necessarily that advertising is evil, but that, in its current state of ubiquity, its impact on our values is. Advertising is neither evil nor useless; but it is out of control. We must create space for our intrinsic motivations to be expressed and validated. We need to nurture and celebrate what's great about culture: not strive to strengthen our already dominant role as consumers. And for that to happen, advertising has to give us some room to breathe.

This requires quantitative action, removing advertising from certain parts of our lives. Qualitative shifts, such as encouraging advertisers to endorse intrinsic values instead of extrinsic, are not the solution. Although campaigns such as John Lewis' current Christmas effort are arguably more focused on the intrinsic than the extrinsic, they're still associating the fulfilment of those motivations with the act of consumption; and while the little boy brought a tear to my eye as much as the next man, we need to be a little circumspect. There is no evidence to suggest that advertising that makes a surface appeal to intrinsic motivations is any better in the long run, and it may even undermine and trivialise the pursuit of intrinsic motivations.

Once we have found a way to halt the spread, we then need to go deep into the cost-benefit analysis and start to remove advertising from the places it should not be. At the point where advertising revenue becomes an uneconomic way to fund our society, we'll need to find alternatives. If the great rebranding exercise of recent decades was the renaming of debt as credit, the next great task might well be to revisit the concept of tax in order to make it a more popular alternative. This cost-benefit debate is the debate that needs to be had, and this is where the research needs to be done.

The need to act now

But I and many others believe we already know enough to act in one area – by removing advertising from childhood. We know children cannot form the implicit social contracts that we adults do when we open a magazine and know advertising has subsidised its cover price. We know from recent work by Unicef that materialism is a major factor in why UK childhood wellbeing is the lowest in any OECD nation. We teach media literacy in schools in a vain attempt to equip children with some defence, even though we know that such classes operate at a conscious level while advertising operates at an subconscious level, so that the net effect is rather like building a fence to stop a mole. A ban on advertising to children could never be complete, but it would give us the chance to start our lives as something other than consumers, and it would set a very important tone.

As a new society emerges, the advertising industry would do well to withdraw itself from the arena of childhood, and to start understanding where else its borders should retract. It also needs to embrace research into the social and economic costs it incurs. If it does not, it will soon come to be seen as evil, whether it deserves it or not.

Jon Alexander worked as a planner at several leading London advertising agencies until 2010, and is co-author of the WWF/PIRC report 'Think of me as evil? Opening the ethical debates in advertising'

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Nevada Today

Is advertising manipulative, professor laura crosswell breaks down strategies some advertisers use to mislead consumers to sell their products.

Advertising is in nearly every form of media, from newspapers to videos.

Find more answers here!

Advertising is more calculated, sophisticated, and personalized than ever before. If you look closely though, you will notice some time-honored techniques that still appear in ads today.

Here are a few tricks of the trade that motivate consumer behavior:

• Simplicity . Research shows that as our choices increase, so do our levels of anxiety and dissatisfaction. Advertisers simplify complex issues, often as either/or scenarios, to make decision-making less daunting.
• Emotion . Advertisements appeal to emotion rather than reason. Promotional material for a sleeping medication might show friends enjoying dinner together or a father engaged in family activities rather than focusing on the product itself. Ads are designed to remove thinking from the equation.
• Color . Color substantially influences immediate consumer judgments. Advertisers will use specific color strategies to shape brand perceptions and purchasing behaviors (i.e., Apple using white to convey clean, simple design).
• Deals . People are more emotionally invested in avoiding loss than earning reward. Flash deals and pseudo-urgency ads tap into our loss aversion and fear of missing out.
• Basic human needs . Advertisers appeal to basic human needs (such as food or sex) to trigger consumer cravings. Clever tricks like substituting glue for milk in cereal commercials, adding dish soap to soda for surface bubbles, or meticulously gluing sesame seeds to a hamburger bun make products appear more appetizing and drive feelings of unmet needs.
• Symbolism . Advertisers use symbolic codes to establish brand connections to certain values or identity systems. A laundry detergent label might feature a smiling baby wrapped up in a soft blanket to encourage product associations with safety/love/good parenting.

In sum, advertisements influence us in ways we don’t always realize. But knowledge is power! Stay informed, do your research, and attend to the ways in which commercial messages try to manipulate your purchasing behaviors.

Laura Crosswell is an assistant professor in health communications at the Reynolds School of Journalism. Her research focuses on the cultural implications of consumerism and persuasive texts with a specific concentration on public health messaging. Her research is showcased in Politics, Propaganda and Public Health: A Case Study in Health Communication and Public Trust .

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Student Essays

Essay on Advertising- Meaning, Importance & Benefits

Advertising is everything in today’s life. It follows us from our mobile phones to display advertising on busy streets. It’s literally everywhere. It’s meant to advertise the product, bring customers and maximize the product value. The following Essay on advertising discusses the meaning, purpose and importance of Advertising along with benefits and disadvantages of advertising in our life. It’s quite helpful for children and students.

Essay on Advertising | Meaning, Purpose, Importance Benefits of Advertising

Advertising has become an integral part of our lives. It is hard to imagine going about our daily lives without encountering some form of advertising. It is everywhere – on television, on billboards, in magazines, and even on the Internet. But what exactly is advertising? And what is its history?

Advertising can be defined as a form of communication that typically attempts to persuade potential customers to purchase or to consume a particular product or service. Advertising can take many different forms, including print ads, television commercials, and Internet ads.

Advertising has been around for centuries. The first known advertisement appeared in the Bible. It was a message from King Hezekiah encouraging the people of Jerusalem to rebuild the city walls. This message was written on a piece of pottery and then placed in a public area for all to see.

The first form of advertising that we would today recognize as such appeared in the 17th century, with the advent of newspapers. The first newspaper ad appeared in London in 1652 and advertised a lost gold watch. Since then, advertising has grown exponentially, with billions of dollars being spent on advertising each year.

Today, advertising is more pervasive than ever before. We are bombarded with ads from the moment we wake up to the time we go to bed. They are inescapable and omnipresent. And while some people may find them annoying, there is no denying that advertising is an important part of our economy. Advertising is a necessary evil. It is annoying, and it can be intrusive, but it is also necessary for businesses to promote their products and services. And as consumers, we need to be aware of the advertising messages that are being communicated to us so that we can make informed decisions about the products we buy.

>>> Related Post:  “ Essay on Entrepreneurship ”

Impacts of Advertising in Life

Advertising has a huge impact on our lives. It can affect not only what we buy, but also how we think and behave. Advertising can influence the way we dress and the way we eat. It can also affect the way we view ourselves and the world around us. In some cases, advertising can even be dangerous, as it can promote products that are harmful to our health or that are not actually effective.

That being said, advertising is also a necessary evil. It is necessary for businesses to promote their products and services, and it can be used to raise awareness about important issues. Advertising can also be used for good, such as when it is used to promote products that are beneficial to our health or the environment.

So, while advertising can be a nuisance, it is also an important part of our lives. We need to be aware of the messages that ads are communicating to us, and we need to make sure that we are making informed decisions about the products we buy. Otherwise, we risk being manipulated by the ads that we see every day.

>>>> Read Also : “Paragraph On Daily Newspaper” 

Therefore, it can be rightly said that advertising in any form has become an integral part of our lives. It is something we cannot do without. Even though it can be annoying and intrusive at times, it plays an important role in our economy and in our ability to make informed decisions about the products we buy.

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Advertising Has Gone Too Far and Is Now a Necessary Evil.

“Advertising has gone too far and is now a necessary evil. ” This essay will discuss the topic “advertising has gone too far and is now a necessary evil”, especially referring to advertising directed at children. For the sake of this essay, “advertising” is defined as any public promotion of something, mainly products directed at children. “Gone too far” is defined as crossing the line of moral values and is now harming the safety and welfare of society. “Necessary” is defined as needed and inevitable, and something we cannot live without. Finally, “evil” is defined as something that is extremely unpleasant, harmful, and/or morally wrong.

This essay will discuss the ways in which advertising has gone too far, if it is indeed evil, and if it is necessary. First, however, the ways in which advertising has gone too far must be addressed. This essay will now enter into the question of advertising being evil – something that is extremely unpleasant, harmful, and/or morally wrong. Looking at this definition, we can see that advertising is in fact, an evil. The careful manipulation, the messages they show, the ways in which they brainwash these children, and even the mere idea of children advertising is extremely unpleasant, with experts calling advertisers “creepy”.

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The brainwashing alone is harmful in that it makes children’s minds compatible with whatever the advertising industry wants, and it is also extremely harmful through the mental health diseases and problems that it leads to mentioned earlier. And finally, it can clearly be seen that this negative impact the advertising industry is having on these young and vulnerable children – the future of this world – is certainly not moral for many of the reasons stated above when discussing its unpleasantness and harmfulness.

Therefore, using the definition of evil that this essay has used, advertising is indeed evil, and is also evil in other ways not already mentioned. Today’s society is putting money, profit, and sold products before the health and safety of children. Mere material items that in the end have no value, and the vision of success and riches, drives advertisers to jeopardize the health and safety, as this essay has already discussed, of children – the generation that will soon become the adults of this world.

If these children are being severely damaged now, how can we be sure they will be able to take on the responsibility of an adult when they leave childhood? These issues need to be addressed, as we cannot keep treating children the way we are today if we want the world to continue in an orderly and sequential fashion. Action needs to take place now. They are growing up now, and change needs to happen within approximately ten years if we are to succeed in fixing the problem. Otherwise, it will be too late. Another factor supporting advertising being evil is the issue of money. 40 billion is spent per year on advertising targeted at children, with this figure rising very radically. If, however, children advertising was regulated, then billions of dollars would be in our hands, which could be used to help the major global issues, such as poverty or the financial crisis. It has been estimated that just $13 billion per year would satisfy the world’s sanitation and food requirements. This money could be easily be obtained if advertising was regulated, still with billions left over for other global issues.

There are more important things than endangering children’s health and safety, and these things can be looked into. However, it is thought that advertising is necessary by many, and this question must also be looked into. Every product needs to have some sort of advertising if it is to sell, so therefore advertising would be necessary for the stabilisation of countless of jobs. However, if the product is not necessary, which almost all of the products advertised to these children aren’t as these products create the want and need, then neither is the advertising or anything to do with this product.

In this world today our children are consumed by the power of want, the desire to have and buy stuff, as they are told stuff will make you happy and cool and that it will give you worth to your life. Because of the importance that one has worth to their life, and the dramatic messages of advertising brainwashing our children, this want becomes ‘need’, and suddenly we lose our grip on the truth – that all we truly ‘need’ is food, water, oxygen, etc. Suddenly all we need becomes food, water, oxygen, SpongeBob Squarepants Mac ‘N’ Cheese, ladybug hairclips, a Kidspiration® 2. , a pirate ship park… Is this really what we want for our children? To be consumed in this world of ‘stuff’, thinking that their lives will only gain worth if they have everything, under the care of an advertiser with the only interest of money, and without any understanding of moral values and ethics? This is not necessary. We do not need all these products directed at children, and it has now come to the point that we, seeing what it is doing to our children, do not want them.

Advertising, as stated before, has gone too far, and it is now “necessary” to regulate children advertising if we wish to maintain a healthy and stable world. We can change the situation; advertising is not unavoidable and the problem can be solved with careful regulation and laws to support the health and safety of children. And, with the support of the government and justice system, the issue of loss of jobs can also be solved. Necessary, as stated earlier, is defined as ‘needed and inevitable, and something we cannot live without. Advertising is neither needed nor inevitable, and is something that we most certainly can live without. In conclusion, the reader can now see the ways in which advertising has gone too far, including how these vulnerable children are bombarded with it every day, with the messages of being either violent and bad or sexy and also the messages that stuff will make you happy, as well as the health risks and issues that it leads to.

Why and how advertising is in fact evil and how we could easily be spending the money on other global issues has also become clear, as well as the reasons why it is not necessary and the importance of regulating. Therefore, the statement “advertising has gone too far and is now a necessary evil” is true with a slight adjustment: “Advertising has gone too far and is now an unnecessary evil. ” {draw:frame}

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Do You Think Advertising is a Necessary Evil?

Since the dawn of the industrial revolution, when people started producing goods for profit, advertising has come to play a vital part so that these goods and services reach their intended target market. Advertisement these days plays an important role, especially now that we have so many different companies offering the same products!

Why Advertising?

As a business owner you would want your business to grow, you would want more and more people to know about your products and services! That’s where advertising comes in! Advertisements help a business to make their products or services well known and attract more consumers. From a consumer’s perspective, advertisements help in giving information about various goods and products and in some ways it’s like a direct communication between the consumer and the producer.

Cons of Advertising

Advertising has several pros and cons! Perhaps the biggest con of advertising and the number one reason why most people think advertising is a necessary evil is that it costs a lot of money! And ultimately this cost is transferred to the consumer! So when you go to your local store to buy something, consider that almost fifty percent of the cost of a product goes into advertising.

Another con of advertising is that it taps into the subconscious of a person and makes people buy things they don’t need. And this is why many people consider advertisements as a mode of lying; glorifying products that most people don’t need and telling people that if they don’t buy that product they wouldn’t become a part of the “cool” crowd! Plus, many people consider that advertising just adds to corporate greed!

Pros of Advertising

Advertising helps spread information about new products and services and helps in raising the standard of living for people! Advertisements also help in increasing the sale of goods which helps in keeping the prices in check too. Also, you as a consumer get a variety of information about the products and services of competitors and advertisements can help you make the right choice!

Advertisements on the internet help websites earn revenue! In fact, most websites survive mainly with the revenue that third party advertisements generate for them. You might have seen these advertisements on Facebook, YouTube and other websites. These advertisements are the only reason that most websites continue to run and provide you with a free service!

It’s not possible to call advertisement a necessary evil because it offers several pros as well as cons at the same time. And despite the fact that it does involve a lot of money, in today’s world we can’t do without advertisement!

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Advertisement- A necessary evil

Favorite Quote: skill up or you will be scaled out!

By definition, its something that an industry would probably do to acquaint the customers 'about the product.' Which means that, its quite important because otherwise,we would be unaware of their product. Which brings us to the conclusion that it definitely plays a crucial role. However, is it being practiced in its correct sense? Well, I sure dont share an apartment with kareena kapoor but I am very sure she doesn't use a "lux" soap and neither does shah rukh khan apply that fairness cream or the dentist that promises you strong teeth is actually even a dentist in reality. Its indeed funny to see our indian cricket team players drinking 'boost' .Also, promising fairness in 5 minutes or, the most common,"no preservatives" which is scientifically impossible adds to the fake promises. Misleading. Is that what advertisements are meant for? They have clearly forgotten the real motto of an advertisement. Also the vulgarity adopted for simply cold drink ads, I am sure most of you'll must have understood I am talking about 'slice' Is just too irrelevant. Keeping in mind we have all age group including kids watching television,there should be some "adult" ads, which definitely need not be advertised and even if they are, it should be in a more decent manner. But still, there are few ads of tata tea, jago grahak jago which do justice to the word 'advertisement. Its sad to see that everything needs to have a fancy layer of fakeness to seem attractive. Its adversely affecting the consumers. Advertisement being something which is always on tv, cannot afford to have this kind of filth. It serves as a bridge between the consumers and the suppliers. Well, I think the bridge which looks like being made of cement, is nothing but clay.

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Favorite Quote: "I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." ~Michael Jordan

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Favorite Quote: "Why does it matter who you step on if you're not coming back down?"

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The Economic Mechanisms Behind the Concept of War as a Racket

This essay about the economic mechanisms behind war as a profitable endeavor explores the concept of “war as a racket.” It examines how the military-industrial complex, defense contractors, and financial institutions profit from war, influencing government policies for ongoing conflicts. The essay also discusses the political use of war, its impact on labor and the economy, the human cost, and environmental damage, concluding that war benefits a few at the expense of many and urging a critical reassessment of the motives behind military engagements.

How it works

War has long been portrayed as a necessary evil, a means of resolving disputes and protecting national interests. However, a more cynical view suggests that war is also a lucrative business—a racket where profit, rather than principles, often dictates policy. This essay explores the economic mechanisms behind the concept of “war as a racket,” a term popularized by U.S. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler in his 1935 book.

The primary economic mechanism that underscores the concept of war as a racket is the military-industrial complex, a term famously introduced by President Dwight D.

Eisenhower in his 1961 farewell address. This complex refers to the relationship between a nation’s military and the defense industry that supplies it. The symbiosis between these two entities can lead to a perpetuation of military engagement not necessarily because it is required for national security, but because it benefits the economy, or more specifically, the stakeholders within the defense industry.

Defense contractors are among the most significant beneficiaries of war. These corporations manufacture everything from weapons to uniforms, and their profitability can hinge on a country’s level of military engagement. During times of war, governments ramp up production and procurement to sustain their armed forces, leading to substantial contracts for these companies. This dependency creates a profit incentive to influence public policy towards ongoing or new conflicts.

Moreover, wars often require financing that leads to government borrowing, which can benefit financial institutions that invest heavily in government bonds. The interest on these bonds becomes a steady income stream for such investors during prolonged conflicts. Furthermore, the economic activity stimulated by military spending often leads to short-term economic growth, albeit with long-term consequences that include national debt and inflation.

Economically, war can also serve as a tool for controlling valuable resources and markets. Historically, many wars have been influenced by the desire to control oil fields, mineral deposits, and other natural resources. The control over such resources can shift economic power and give immense economic advantages to the controlling country. For example, access to oil can lead to lowered energy costs for domestic industries and increased geopolitical leverage.

Politically, war can be used as a means to distract the public from domestic issues. Economic downturns, social unrest, or political scandals are often overshadowed by the rallying effect of a wartime nation. This diversion can be beneficial for incumbent political leaders to maintain power or redirect public focus.

From a labor perspective, war can influence employment and economic structures within a country. Historically, wars have led to full employment and increased social mobility through the demand for soldiers and increased production in war industries. However, these are often temporary and come with high human costs.

However, the concept of war as a racket does not exist without consequences. The human cost of war is tremendous, not only in terms of lives lost but also in the disruption to families and communities, long-term physical and psychological injuries to soldiers, and the destruction of civilian infrastructure. Furthermore, the economic benefits are unevenly distributed, often enriching a few at the expense of many. The aftermath of war typically includes economic burdens for the state and its citizens, manifesting as increased taxes, national debt, and cuts in public services.

Additionally, the environment pays a price. Wars lead to environmental destruction—damaged landscapes, polluted water sources, and destroyed ecosystems. These environmental impacts have long-term consequences for the economic and physical health of a region.

In conclusion, the economic mechanisms behind the concept of war as a racket reveal a complex interplay of defense, politics, and finance where the costs are borne by the many and the profits are reaped by the few. Recognizing these dynamics is crucial for understanding not only why wars are fought but also who they truly benefit. As societies and policymakers reflect on these realities, it becomes essential to critically assess the motives behind military engagements and to consider whether there are alternatives that might lead to more sustainable and equitable outcomes.

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The Economic Mechanisms Behind the Concept of War as a Racket. (2024, May 12). Retrieved from https://papersowl.com/examples/the-economic-mechanisms-behind-the-concept-of-war-as-a-racket/

"The Economic Mechanisms Behind the Concept of War as a Racket." PapersOwl.com , 12 May 2024, https://papersowl.com/examples/the-economic-mechanisms-behind-the-concept-of-war-as-a-racket/

PapersOwl.com. (2024). The Economic Mechanisms Behind the Concept of War as a Racket . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-economic-mechanisms-behind-the-concept-of-war-as-a-racket/ [Accessed: 14 May. 2024]

"The Economic Mechanisms Behind the Concept of War as a Racket." PapersOwl.com, May 12, 2024. Accessed May 14, 2024. https://papersowl.com/examples/the-economic-mechanisms-behind-the-concept-of-war-as-a-racket/

"The Economic Mechanisms Behind the Concept of War as a Racket," PapersOwl.com , 12-May-2024. [Online]. Available: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-economic-mechanisms-behind-the-concept-of-war-as-a-racket/. [Accessed: 14-May-2024]

PapersOwl.com. (2024). The Economic Mechanisms Behind the Concept of War as a Racket . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-economic-mechanisms-behind-the-concept-of-war-as-a-racket/ [Accessed: 14-May-2024]

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