The End of Manipulative Consumerist Capitalism

No more using our own psychology against us

“We live in a society whose whole policy is to excite every nerve in the human body and keep it at the highest pitch of artificial tension, to strain every human desire to the limit and to create as many new desires and synthetic passions as possible, in order to cater to them with the products of our factories and printing presses and movie studios and all the rest.” ~ Thomas Merton on societies born of capitalism

Capitalism in and of itself is a great thing. It’s the opportunity to create products that are needed in the village, offer them, and expand and grow your business as people enjoy and love your products. There’s nothing wrong with that.

There’s also nothing wrong with advertising so that people know that you’re out there. To have a sign or an advertisement so that people know who can fix their furnace or who they can purchase a chair from is a true service to the community — a total win/win.

The twist comes when we try to sell people things that they don’t need — and often don’t even want. But when our desire is simply to make money, to “be successful”, to grow our business, to put money in the shareholder’s pocket, to look good for the neighbours, etc, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that we are actually taking advantage of people.

In the words of Thomas Merton, we are placing artificial desires within people simply so that we can make more money.

In 2003, I returned to university to study psychology. After the release of my first book What If You Could Skip the Cancer? people had started coming to me for counseling help. Maybe they were sick themselves or their family or friends were struggling and they wanted my guidance.

Well, I had no real background in psychology. In fact, I had a Bachelor of Mathematics which definitely wasn’t helpful. So, I went back to school to get some “proper” training.

The most shocking thing I learned there was that 70% of all psychology experiments were done for the sake of marketing. In the class, this was just treated like it was the most normal thing — and perhaps because we live in a consumer-driven economy where constant advertising is the norm, maybe this is why no one blinked.

But for me, a million red flags were going up.

Why were we studying how to make people buy things? Why were we studying what “pain points” were the most effective to hit in order to make sure they bought your product? Why were we studying the effects of mob mentality in purchasing frenzies? Why were we studying how to trick the mind into wanting something that was actually of no value to them?

What in the world were we doing?

Why were we using psychology to trick our fellow man into lining our pockets? What was going on?

There is a strange false world out there that has overlayed the simple (and pleasurable) human experience.

The real joys of being human come from having our basic needs met — a roof over our head and food on the table — plus human connection and community. When we have joyful connection with others, when we lots of fun and love in our days, we are truly happy.

But another world has been pulled over our eyes. In this world, we have advertising (inspired by what we learned from the psychology experiments) that use our fears to get into our hearts and tell us that we want more. They tell us that we need a bigger car, a bigger house, new lawn furniture, flatter abs, the perfect diamond ring, and a trip to Paris this summer.

So, we have to work longer hours, take out a loan, work even longer hours, and stay on the treadmill until we have gotten to the place where we have no idea what we once loved to do. If it isn’t about making money to get that next thing that the advertisers have told us that we wanted, then what would we do with ourselves?

This strange overlay simply feeds itself like a parasite on humanity. It asks us to want things that actually bring us no more value or joy in our lives. It asks us to work longer and harder to make it happen. We become more and more depressed, take medication, smoke drugs, and drink alcohol to feel good enough to continue day to day… just to get that trip to Paris… or the new lawn furniture.

But we are waking up. Maybe it’s the pandemic, the placements of the planets, or the fact that it’s 2021. But we are starting to see through the façade. Maybe the new car isn’t so important. Maybe the bigger house doesn’t change anything. Maybe actually connecting with those we love matters more than all of that.

Maybe creating a life that we truly enjoy is the point after all.

Just imagine a life without any artificial desires. What if we created a life that we love and then went out in the world and acquired only what we truly needed? And imagine that need arising from a moment where we realized that we were missing something — like a chair to sit on or a loaf of bread or a bicycle to go to work.

What if our spending wasn’t driven by those selling — but from our own actual needs and desires? What if we returned to our true human experience? No manipulation of our psyches. No overfilling of anyone's pockets.

Imagine how little we would have to work. Imagine how much time we would have to spend doing new things with friends and exploring new ideas. Imagine how restful and relaxed life would be.

Could we still go to Paris? Sure. Could we still get new lawn furniture? Yes. But the desire would genuinely have come from within — an inner voice guiding us on our path, expanding who we are, opening ourselves to new and exciting experiences.

That’s a world that I truly want to live in.