Dang.

I was hoping that you'd go for something more than just consumerism, but for the foisting of a lifestyle of one class onto another; and how class envy creates the seeds of the destruction of the class being promoted as normative through a dialectic.

I think the only thing more potentially destructive than selling an unaffordable and unsustainable lifestyle to the have-nots in one's own country is the way that broadcast media, through satellites, sells it to the third world.

However, before I sound like I've converted; I believe this not to be evil-by-design, but through sheer laziness. True, modern technology makes it easier to use cookies, track previous purchases and pitch you comic books, Griffith vodka, and SGLOAT wizard-hats. However, its still cheaper to send a spam advert to all.

In creating targeted advertising, the TV audience has been turned into demographics. Soul Train sold AfroSheen, not Bylcreem. But, of course, they still must sell to someone in order to afford to broadcast; even in those areas where nobody is buying.

I could also argue that disproportionate imprisonment, the threat of violence, and welfare-state incentives for familial abandonment create an effective sumptuary-law not unlike that of feudal Japan; where the incentives to spend on ones descendants or to even better ones own material conditions are absent. In the absence of such things, one spends on fleeting experiences, and on temporary status symbols associated with the entertainment-culture.

In the Ukiyo, it was a night with a courtesan, or a night at the theatre, or on woodblock prints of famous Kabuki actors or courtesans. And people spent on fashion to emulate their media heroes/heroines. I'd say that although there are no sumptuary laws today forcing folks to spend only on ephemera, that we've recreated the Floating World.

Dante