That's hardly difficult. Why do people buy branded clothes when no-label clothes of equivalent quality are available at much lower cost?
What else except branding justifies the ticket on a $5000 handbag? Even if you accept the fact that it's (allegedly) hand-made from the finest raw materials, the BOM and labour cost a negligible fraction of the consumer price.
And here's the real problem - people think they're buying handbags, clothes, cars, and computers, but really they're just buying capitalist fetish objects.
Advertising doesn't sell stuff, it sells a distorted and rather mad morality where conspicuous wealth and status display is the ultimate moral good.
Should we question that? Damn right we should. It's effectively a repackaging of the religious mode of discourse with a novel moral payload, and it's as destructive to rational freedom of thought as any other religion.
What else except branding justifies the ticket on a $5000 handbag? Even if you accept the fact that it's (allegedly) hand-made from the finest raw materials, the BOM and labour cost a negligible fraction of the consumer price.
And here's the real problem - people think they're buying handbags, clothes, cars, and computers, but really they're just buying capitalist fetish objects.
Advertising doesn't sell stuff, it sells a distorted and rather mad morality where conspicuous wealth and status display is the ultimate moral good.
Should we question that? Damn right we should. It's effectively a repackaging of the religious mode of discourse with a novel moral payload, and it's as destructive to rational freedom of thought as any other religion.