#this implies that being on “the left” is about more than simply having a preference for greater equality within societies, which tends to be how it’s delineated or conceived of. Rather, thoughts about what kinds of practices we should be concerned about, and how those practices influence people’s psychology and well-being (or indeed, whether they have any such influence at all) seem pertinent too.#

Maybe some sort of cultural quango could be established? Obviously there’d need to a high proportion of broad-minded but tolerant Oxbridge humanities graduates balanced by appropriate numbers of BME, GTLT , faith group and disability advocates (after all…as you say you lot “on the left” are concerned with equality). You could all get together and decide just what appropriate for the working classes to watch, read, listen to and encounter when out on one of their interminable lager fuelled rampages. I’m sure that with the right balance of worthy, life-affirming, diversity-celebrating media-management, you could ‘cure’ our sick and twisted society in no time.

How is it that you liberals, having given up the ghost when it comes to economic equality, organised labour and the traditional concerns of democratic socialism in favour of identity, only claim to be “of the left” when your thoughts turn to authoritarian policies aimed at social engineering? Is it that you suddenly get to embrace your inner Stalin?

OK, you don’t actually spell out that you wish to engage on a cultural clampdown, but how else would you achieve your aim? Self-regulation or an awareness raising campaign for ad execs and Murdochs middle management? To say that perhaps the left should focus on “… thoughts about what kinds of practices we should be concerned about, and how those practices influence people’s psychology and well-being (or indeed, whether they have any such influence at all) seem pertinent too.”…is either ignorant or willfully deceptive. The pseudo-Left via the Frankfurt School, ‘Theory’, post Structuralism, any number of cultural studies, literature,social science departments..right down to the apparatchiks of New Labour have done lttle else for years. Isn’t your quote more or less a mission statement for this very blog?

Ever since 1968 at the latest when the ‘New Marxists’ gave up the ‘economic base’ as a lost colony, the “left” which you refer do has done little else. Result..identity politics, freemarket ‘TINA’ attitudes across the political classes, a disenfranchised, disadvantaged working class and…best of all…Oxbridge graduates bogging as radicals, calling for aesthetic controls of civil society and thinking themselves “of the left” as a result.

There’s another reason for the left to be anti-advertising, which is that it distorts the priorities of other media. Since newspapers, TV, etc. all rely on advertising to function, they have to broadly toe a line that is favourable to advertisers (or at least, they might feel they have to). This, I think, hugely distorts political reporting which has severe knock on effects. So I for one cheer the collapse of advertising money for news sites, newspapers, etc. and look forward to the day when they have to charge for content.

“And this is a point where I think people on “the left” can broadly be said to part company with “the right”. The former will tend to think there is something both intrinsically dubious in the practices of modern advertising, and undesirable in its effects. The latter will tend to think this is silly: advertising is (on one conception) simply the process of rational economic actors seeking to maximise their utility by making other rational economic actors aware of their products, thus prompting a mutually beneficial exchange with likewise beneficial effects for wider society, or (on another related but different conception) just something that human beings left to their own devices as free individuals will end up engaged in, and not something to be unduly concerned about.”

Err, no, you’ve not delineated a left/right division there. There are just as many Conservatives (even conservatives) who wibble about unconstrained consumerism, the way in which rampant capitalism disturbs the essential structure of the society and….well, read any page of Chomsky or Naomi Klein and you can find just as many “rightists” as lefties who would sign up to the dribbling nonsense. The “who are the evil bastards doing this to us” might change, but the insistence that someone is indeed doing something bastardly to a formerly better place is there.

The division you’ve pointed to there is between the authoritarian, statist, elitists (those who, in effect, insist that they alone know what the proles should be doing and that doesn’t include slapping on the make up, desiring a foreign holiday or being conned into buying Shaken’Vac) and the liberals. The liberals being those who are, umm, liberal: you know, this idea that we can each chart our own course through life from cradle to perdition and that not only can we, we should be left free to do so.

And it seems to be a division that you’re on the wrong side of: the illiberal one.

this idea that we can each chart our own course through life from cradle to perdition and that not only can we, we should be left free to do so.

But Tim. Don’t you see that it’s the statists and the advertisers who have got it right.

Whilst you may want freedom and choice, most people are happy sitting on their DFS sofas watching X Factor and eating a Big Mac.

They are much more interested in the size of Jordan’s breasts than the they are in the consequences of RIPA.

It’s you who is out of step, mate.

I bet you don’t even watch Eastenders.

Years ago, I worked with many people working in advertising, marketing and (my role) market research who held lefty liberal values. They didn’t see their activities as “fooling the public” — it was just promoting a brand, doing a job. At the same time, they needed to believe in what they were selling (which required a lot of self deception on occasions).

I recall producing a draft report for a coffee company that suggested, contrary to the adverts they were producing, consumers did not regard their instant coffee product as a substitute for real coffee “at a dinner party”. The final report eased some of the statistics in order to support the dinner party adverts, but it reduced the impact of the real analysis: that the brand of instant coffee was regarded as a good substitute for real coffee when consumers were pushed for time. If the company had accepted the draft report, they would have understood their brand and their consumers better. Companies do a much better job at fooling themselves than fooling the public.

With regard to consumers, I don’t think that that the left-right argument holds up very well. It is patronising to believe that women are “fooled” by cosmetics adverts; from the age of 14, they learn the rules of advertising and airbrushing. We’ve had 40 odd years of TV advertising in the UK, and if you open the handbag of a typical British woman it will contain cheap cosmetics that cost £3 -£10. Ask them why, and the answer is that they have tried the expensive stuff and it works no better.

OP: “But for me advertising becomes troubling when you take note of the status-anxiety and unhappiness that is fostered in people…”

Advertising can work in (at least) two ways:
1. By mirroring social and aesthetic ideals portrayed in other media.
2. By creating a new ideal.

So whilst it is fair to say that adverts may raise false expectations, argument 1 suggests that we should be more concerned about other media. Why are companies so concerned about product placement in TV programmes and films?

Classical Marxists would argue that advertising merely adds to the cost but not the value of any particular good.
@1 I don’t think the ‘New Marxists’ have given up the economic base, but acknowledge that since Marx, the state (once considered part of the superstructure) is now firmly entrenched within the economic base, consequently a different analysis is required.
But going back to the point about the misleading claims made by ads re; fat content, – a few years ago I researched this area and found that claims made about items which use fat, e.g cakes, biscuits etc, it was quite legitimate to find a recipe with a great deal of fat content and then reduce it by 50%, for example, and then claim that the item was half the fat.
Some recent research has shown that this encourages people to eat more because of these claims.

Pagar: “Whilst you may want freedom and choice, most people are happy sitting on their DFS sofas watching X Factor and eating a Big Mac.

They are much more interested in the size of Jordan’s breasts than the they are in the consequences of RIPA.”

Perhaps, Pagar, I spend more time in the real world than you. The real world with DFS sofas, X Factor and Jordan. But in that real world, I have learned an awful lot. I have met people who have worked out what National ID cards would mean to them or close friends (ie government tracking) and the benefits of minimum wage (work opportunity).

I hate car adverts. But that’s because I don’t like cars, and think there should be far less of them in the UK. Similar story with Microsoft ads. It has nothing to do with an aversion to advertising per se.

I have to grudgingly agree with those above who equated banning (commercial) advertising with Stalinism. That’s exactly what it is. Commercial speech is (almost always) not political speech and is widely recognised to be subject to greater restrictions as a result, but that doesn’t mean that we should… what? How exactly would you ban advertising as such? Mandate that all shop windows be blacked out? Ban price stickers, because they could be used to attract attention to the cheap price of a product?

It’s ridiculous.

Advertising is a form of communication – a form of technology – and is neither intrinsically good nor intrinsically bad!

So why do some of my fellow lefties/liberals talk as if they want to ban all advertising? It doesn’t make sense to me.

“the benefits of minimum wage (work opportunity).”

Clearly the advertising has worked then and they are indeed deluded. For the minimum wage of course reduces work opportunity by limiting the number of jobs.

BTW, does anyone’s opinion of advertising change when they find out that MG is the largest advertiser in the country?

Do those who say that it is all about dunning stupidities into hte populace then say that this just proves it? Or that this is different somehow?

Tim: “the benefits of minimum wage (work opportunity).”

Bad Tim. National Minimum Wage and Tax Credits are steps towards National Basic Income. Live with the situation.

The ridiculous thing about the T-Mobile campaign is that the free texts are for life only as long as you pay their monthly fee for the rest of your life.

@7 Sorry, Charlie.

Most people are not concerned about freedom. Not even remotely concerned.

If you tell them that ID cards are required to keep them safe from the bogeymen- the terrorists, the feral youths, the rapists, the kiddy fiddlers and the illegal immigrants they will happily buy into them.

This pernicious government and their corporate cronies have taken from our citizens the responsibility for their own lives, the responsibility to feed, house and clothe themselves. Even the responsibility for fulfillment and amusement.

In return for docility and acquiescence the state has promised to keep them safe and well and most people think that’s a good deal. A few understand that, by accepting their deal, we are, in fact, trading our souls. But, sadly, such people are a very small minority.

If a person really does believe that modern advertising really is “simply the process of rational economic actors seeking to maximise their utility by making other rational economic actors aware of their products, thus prompting a mutually beneficial exchange with likewise beneficial effects for wider society,” then they are of limited intellect or have their understanding of the world is skewed very seriously by ideology.

Advertising aims to influence minds and create wants by any means possible, no matter how pernicious they may be and without regard to the wider or longer term consequences.

One of the amusing things is that people will, quite generally, refuse to admit that they themselves are manipulated into pointless consumption yet the billions upon billions upon billions of dollars spent every year on advertising tells us how effective capital knows it to be.

As I think Chomsky has pointed out, in an economic environment which really consisted of a collection of agents acting in their own rational self-interest (the picture underlying economic theories quite generally), “advertising” would be little beyond simple informative descriptions of the available product or service. Instead we have whizz-bang psychological manipulation aimed at generating profits whatever the merits of advertised item.

jb

“@1 I don’t think the ‘New Marxists’ have given up the economic base, but acknowledge that since Marx, the state (once considered part of the superstructure) is now firmly entrenched within the economic base, consequently a different analysis is required.”

Oh, I think they did. Go and look at Althusser…”Reading Capital”, not just the economic base but any hint of Hegel and dialectic. They decided to target the superstructure as they saw it as the major obstacle to an authentic working class consciousness…and their tactic..”to get Bolshevik..with Texts”. The result has been as lame, disjointed and ineffective as anyone might have predicted. Look around to see the results..identity, celebrating diversity, mutually antagonistic “communities” demanding affirmation and rights, educational mediocrity, ..the list is endless..but most significantly a divided and apathetic working class with no representation.

The greatest irony however is the fact that these ‘textual revolutionaries’ simply stepped up and became the new bourgeois establishment but through a process of wishful thinking and self-delusion managed to convinced themselves that despite the big mortgage, second home, private health and education etc..they were still “of the left”, marginal and not the useful idiots of the corporate state. Look at the Bea Campbells, the Toynbees..and the up and coming wannabes-the Hundals, the Sagars etc.

“the state (once considered part of the superstructure) is now firmly entrenched within the economic base”

Not sure about this either. Classical Marxism always had a role for the state. Countering the classical economists’ line on Capitalism as a self-righting system; the “equilibrium hypotheses”, Marx regarded it as inherently unstable and requiring state intervention, whether through direct economic action or indeed aggressive acquisition of new markets..just how many times have we seen the proof of that little insight?

The split isn’t between the Left and Right, it’s between those who subscribe to the hyperdermic model of media effects and those who actually understand how people invest meanings in commercial products.

Marx never spoke about ‘false needs’, he spoke about ‘wants’, and a ‘want’ by it’s very nature, can never be false. In order to be successful a product has to satisfy some degree of longing for Utopia. Advertising is ‘excessive’ in the sense it promises more than it can deliver; and so as long as commercialism survives it keeps alive that drive towards a better world. ‘Status-anxiety’ is a far better motivation for social change than simply being content with your pitiful share of economic output, which is what you get in societies without advertising.

Apart from encouraging people to want a better life in general the effects of advertising are minimal. Nobody will continue to buy something which fails to meet a genuine need. What advertisers sell, primarily, is air-time and advertising space to companies paranoid about losing their market share to companies who are more visible than they are.

@12 Pagar: “If you tell them that ID cards are required to keep them safe from the bogeymen- the terrorists, the feral youths, the rapists, the kiddy fiddlers and the illegal immigrants they will happily buy into them.”

Change the question. Ask them whether they want an ID card that tracks a battered spouse, for ever. If an abused person changes name, national ID will track them down. Isn’t that good grounds for resenting National ID?

Apart from encouraging people to want a better life in general the effects of advertising are minimal. Nobody will continue to buy something which fails to meet a genuine need.

I would say both of those statements are fairly obviously false.

Pagar: “Whilst you may want freedom and choice, most people are happy sitting on their DFS sofas watching X Factor and eating a Big Mac.”

It might surprise you to learn that on a recent edition of the X Factor it was revealed that Umbongo..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcKabu50-J8

..isn’t in fact drunk in the Congo.

Following the bombshell that Guinness isn’t actually ‘good for you’ and the revelation, from courageous left-liberal bloggers who managed to infiltrate the Military-Industrial-Savoury Snack Complex, that Monster Munch doesn’t really form part of a nutritious and balanced diet, I think we can satisfactorily conclude that the Left-Wing Blogosphere will soon bring the Advertising industry to its knees.

Obviously advertising does have an effect or companies wouldn’t pay for it. Actually it doesn’t matter how it works – whether or not it influences people’s minds to want things they don’t want or whether it just makes it more difficult for competitors to succeed. The end result is that companies with more money get disproportionately richer because of their wealth. Standard capitalism – destructive, monopolistic and inegalitarian.

But even though I absolutely hate advertising I wouldn’t ban it, and I don’t think most lefties would suggest that. It’s just the prejudices of rightists that they think lefties want to ban everything. Tedious and predictable. Advertising does need regulating at least in some cases, e.g. advertising to children, but I’d rather advertising died a natural death than a state enforced one. The internet, bittorrent, etc. are helping with that. With Firefox and AdBlock, and TV, films and music downloaded without adverts from torrent sites – there’s almost no need to see any adverts except in public spaces. Great!

OK, let’s take one thing that a lot of Guardianistas seem to be concerned about: representation of women in adverts, and in particular, how they look.

What exactly do you propose? If you’re content to just sit on the sidelines and criticise, fine – but that’s not politics, that’s media studies at best.

If you want to do something about it, what do you propose? Regulation to ensure diversity of fat people, ugly people, and old people in things like adverts for beauty products? That just seems silly. I mean fine if Dove (owned by a huge multinational by the way) wants to go in that sort of direction for self-interested reasons, but why force products primarily targeted at teenagers to go in that direction?

The reason I am coming up with silly ideas is because I can’t see what the sensible ideas would look like.

And remember, people will always want to attract a partner, and, well, looking more attractive is one way to do that. It’s bloody obvious, but it seems like some people lose sight of things like this. Don’t be like the Soviet Union and classify make up as frivolous.

@14
When Marx referred to ‘the equilibrium hypothesis’ I don’t think he envisaged the emergence of institutions such as the NHS or the government determining fiscal policy eg the Bank of England deciding interest rates, although the recent banking bail-out might fit into the category of the state intervention that Marx, correctly identified.
I had a quick look at Althusser on Wiki (I did read him years ago), but like many recent Marxist analysts, he (correctly) identifies that the model of base/superstructure and the linear dialectic borrowed from Hegel, was far too simple, however, the concept of overdeterminism does not rule out the importance of the base.
For me, Jurgen Habermaus, and particularly ‘Legitimation Crisis’ more accurately represents today’s complex society.
Other than the above (probably nit-picking) comments, I agree with you totally.

Ok hi all, sorry for not replying, I’m stupid busy. A product of being busy is slightly shoddy pieces like the above get rushed out. FYI there was an LibCon admin communication breakdown today and the above version wasn’t what was supposed to go out (a sub ed was supposed to happen etc, mes cest la vie)

slightly better, more focused version here: http://badconscience.com/2009/11/20/the-left-the-right-and-advertising/

it covers a bit better some of the objections Tim raises.

Incidentally Tim, you are right that this is a q about legitimate state intervention – but I think it’s over simplistic to reduce it to a dichotomy of tyranny vs freedom. Seems to me there are legit extents to which the state can interfere with market practices in the name of the good of individuals. I think the extent to which people believe the state can and/or should so interfere will broadly track left/right lines. Which implies that the left is about more than JUST equality.

Which seems an interesting upshot. Now Tim, youmight argue this inevitably leads to tyranny of some sort. I would disagree. But it seems to me a different issue from identifying how the left might be delineated.

Apologies for not making this clear in the OP. Mea culpa, etc.

How bizzare, the excerpt on P1 is different to the main body.

“I hate advertising”

” About the author: This is a guest post. Paul Sagar is a part-time researcher for the Tax Justice Network and blogs at Bad Conscience.”

How many people now go on to look at either the network or the blog?

If you want something, you have to pay for it. If you don’t want to hand over cash, then you hand over a bit of your attention.

Funnily enough, I see a lot of blogs, and it was only now that I realised LC doesn’t actually carry any direct advertising – although it’s a link farm dream with newspapers, blogs, and even Twitter.

Plus, of course, the chance to provide links to important Youtube videos like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLsJryWc5XE

#Incidentally Tim, you are right that this is a q about legitimate state intervention#

State intervention and advertising?? A big mistake: see…”Heroin screws you up”, “Aids-fuck around a bit” and anti-bullying campaigns which kinda legitimise bullying or at least encourage maximum sympathy for the bully given that the victims, self-righteous geeks, forced to whine in a strange ‘Enid Blyton meets Ali G/ “every child matters” teenspeak’ and so obyiously had it coming.

I’m guessing they pull in a few media-savvy, communications professionals fresh from Oxbridge and so clearly ‘down wid da yoof’.

“Seems to me there are legit extents to which the state can interfere with market practices in the name of the good of individuals.”

Which if we alter it slightly:

“Seems to me there are legit extents to which the state can interfere with individual practices in the name of the good of individuals.”

Is why you’re not a liberal. QED.

“I think the extent to which people believe the state can and/or should so interfere will broadly track left/right lines.”

Entirely bollocks. The “right” thinks that the State should interfere on who you have sex with (“Those Awful Buggerers!”), what you ingest (“Can’t have people having fun on drugs now, can we?”) and even who is a righteous person to take a child out of the hell that is council care (“Teh Gays!”).

The “left” thinks the State should interfere with who you trade with (“No, no, trading with poor people is exploiting them!”), what you ingest (“But that food is from outside your bioregion!”) and even who is a righteous person to take a child out of the hell that is council care (“You’re too hideously white to care for that child, why, she’s an octoroon!”).

The division is not between those who would impose one set of fantastical stupidities upon the population and those who would impose some other set of fantastical stupidities upon said population. That’s like arguing about whether teeth or no teeth should be mandatory in a blow job.

The division is between those who would perhaps cajole, persuade, argue about the way to live a good life and those who would use the compulsion of the law to insist that all do as they say.

The former are liberals, the latter are not: whether of left or right.

STFU, Worstall.

Tim,

v.briefly: I actually agree to an extent re liberal vs non-liberal dichotomy.

Consequnce: are significant sections of the left actually rooted in non-liberalpolitical outlooks, e.g. ‘communitarianism’?

Not going to take a stand on whether that’s true, or if it is, what value judgements follow. I just think interesting political theoretical anatomisstions arise.

Idiot troll “Apart from encouraging people to want a better life in general the effects of advertising are minimal.”

Which is why multi national firms spend billions on advertising. because it is so useless. Yea right.

It always makes me laugh how the right and advertising agency’s go on, and on about how advertising and the media has little effect. Yet funnily enough, they always work themselves into a frothing mess when ever the BBC is mentioned. I wonder why? I wonder why Cameron has decided to sell his party out to Murdoch if the media has no effect. I wonder why the Conservative party is whoring itself to the Israel lobby for money to spend on advertising if it is so ineffective.

Advertising works. Not all of it but a lot of it. And the Right knows this, they just have not got the integrity to own up about it.

Tim Worstall,

We interfere with what people do all the time (for example, we have laws prohibiting rape. These interfere with rapists satisfying their desires). There’s nothing necessarily wrong with interference, it just depends what we’re interfering with. Trying to reduce it to interference vs non-interference is just a sloppy move that plenty of internet libertarians often make. The argument should be about which interference is warranted etc.

(obviously, I don’t think that advertising is like rape. It’s just an example)

Paul Sagar – would you ever consider writing a piece in which you argue shit tastes of shit?

I only ask because I’m curious to know if Worstall would rock up, thumbs in lapels ASI standard-issue bow tie a twirlin’, to argue that the market does, in-fact-if-you-do-some-reading (huh-huh-er-huh), prove that shit taste like truffles, before eating several handfuls of the stuff, sticking his fist down his throat and vomiting it back onto keyboard just to prove the point.

It’s got to be worth a try.

I see what the article is trying to get at – but I’m not sure I agree advertising itself is the problem. The issue is not the fact advertising exists, it’s the fact that our economic system means that it’s corporations that do the vast bulk of the advertising.

Modern corporations exist not to provide people with what they need or want (as their adverts always claim) but to maximise their own profitability. Sometimes this co-incides with providing people with what they need or want, but certainly not always. It’s all about generating demand, as many have observed very often by convincing people they will be looked down upon by others, won’t ever get a boy/girlfriend, or will be missing out on some profound happiness, unless of course they buy the product.

Tim Worstall appears to be claiming that we’d be vicious “elitists” denying “the proles” happiness by getting rid of such advertising. That just illustrates how successful this type of advertising can be: they certainly seem to have fooled Tim Worstall into thinking that happiness cannot be attained without first being made to want and then of course buy advertised products.

In reality, almost nothing is more elitist than subjecting the population to endless propaganda trying to convince them they are socially below par unless they’re one of some mythical set of beautiful wealthy people who can afford to buy all these fantastic things.

@ Robin Green

People get annoyed by how women are portrayed in adverts mainly because they take pictures of women, and then airbrush them and manipulate them so that they don’t have ordinary human flaws. I’m thinking about stuff like ordinary skin tone or not being stick thin.

So one different way of regulating the industry would be banning that practice, or putting some kind of warning label on adverts that have been manipulated (I think the Lib Dems have proposed the latter, but I don’t know the specifics). Does that count as sensible?

There’s a TERRIBLE Ricky Gervais film out at the moment called the Invention of Lying. I haven’t seen it, I’ve only read the script, but one of the few moments that made me laugh is what an advert looks like in a world where people can’t lie. Basically, a man sits behind a desk and says. “Coke. You know what it is; it’s a sort of sweet tasting drink. We like it, and you might too. Just to let you know, we’re still here. Thanks.” Then there’s a later advert which says “Pepsi. When they’ve run out of Coke,” which I think’s a little cheeky.

Tim seems to have a bee in his bonnet about trading and advertising, but deception and coercion are not the same as product advertising. We have laws against physical violence so that the physically superior cannot dominate their inferiors. It is right that we have laws against mental and social intimidation to protect those with lesser capacity as well.

And it’s certainly right that we shouldn’t be seen to give tacit or express consent to companies paying penurious wages in other countries. Our market might not be the whole of the problem, but we don’t remove child pornography restrictions because the UK isn’t the majority of the market. In a free market world; slave children work for cheaper than paid adult sex film workers, so it would seem to make sense for the consumer to go for the product with lower production costs, provided those savings are passed onto the consumer. The market charges what the consumer will bear and all that.

“Consequnce: are significant sections of the left actually rooted in non-liberalpolitical outlooks, e.g. ‘communitarianism’?”

My answer is sure. The dividing line being between those who embrace voluntary communitarianism and those who would enforce it at the will of the majority.

Tinkers Bottom (or whatever that commune Monbiot was involved with): liberal. Everyone is there voluntarily so whatever arrangements they come up with for life are liberal (as long as everyone willingly stays there as well, of course).

Those who would say that we must all live like that (“to save Gaia” for example, although of course 6 billion people living as peasants on the land would destroy her pretty thoroughly) and that the law must be changed to make us…..there are elements of this in the Green New Deal wherre capital controls are slapped on (meaning that your or my money is no longer your or my, rather, the communities to be used as said community desires): illiberal.

“We interfere with what people do all the time”

The usual clarification is needed: Of course we interfere with people who interfere with the rights of others. The liberal point is that we cannot (or should not) interfere with those who are doing as they wish: as long as they’re not damaging either the rights of others or the ability of others to do as they wish.

It is therefore entirely liberal to have laws against rape and illiberal to have laws against any form of sex that consenting adults might want to get up to. It’s entirely liberal to have laws against doping others with drugs against their will (or knowledge!) but illiberal to have laws against consenting adults ingesting what they wish. It’s entirely liberal to have laws against drunk driving but not against drinking more generally.

“Tim Worstall appears to be claiming that we’d be vicious “elitists” denying “the proles” happiness by getting rid of such advertising.”

No, not quite: we’d be vicious elitists because we would be elitists in saying that the proles can cope with “this” sort of advertising but not with “this”. We would be making the decisions for others…..a reasonable description of elite behaviour, don’t you think?

“to argue that the market does, in-fact-if-you-do-some-reading (huh-huh-er-huh), prove that shit taste like truffles,”

Sadly, the real world beats satire, as so often happens. There is a brand of coffee marketed made of beans that have been through the digestive system of some jungle cat….

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopi_Luwak

“Kopi Luwak (pronounced [?kopi 'luak]) or Civet coffee is coffee made from coffee berries which have been eaten by and passed through the digestive tract of the Asian Palm Civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus) and other related civets. “

Not one mention of th biggest advertiser of all. Odd.

Tim Worstall,

“The usual clarification is needed: Of course we interfere with people who interfere with the rights of others. The liberal point is that we cannot (or should not) interfere with those who are doing as they wish: as long as they’re not damaging either the rights of others or the ability of others to do as they wish.

It is therefore entirely liberal to have laws against rape and illiberal to have laws against any form of sex that consenting adults might want to get up to. It’s entirely liberal to have laws against doping others with drugs against their will (or knowledge!) but illiberal to have laws against consenting adults ingesting what they wish. It’s entirely liberal to have laws against drunk driving but not against drinking more generally.”

- I basically agree (though the attempt to reduce all political morality to rights is another libertarian sleight of hand, one liberals need not agree with). But now you see, you need an argument to say that people have a right to use misleading adverts and so forth (I’m thinking here of photoshopped models, or dietary supplements advertised by men who are on anabolic steroids, for example). Fine, nothing wrong with that. Maybe there’s a good argument out there. But it shows that you can’t just appeal to “interference”, you need a theory of the good (eg. to tell us which rights people have). And there’s no reason why left-liberals such as Paul need share your theory.

Peter,

you need an argument to say that people have a right to use misleading adverts and so forth

No – the person who wants to interfere with a particular exercise of freedom (publishing misleading adverts for example) must (or should) show that it causes harm.

But it shows that you can’t just appeal to “interference”, you need a theory of the good (eg. to tell us which rights people have).

We need enumerations of our rights because some people insist on interfering with us. The default position is (or should be) that “That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant”. We are (or should be) free to do whatever we wish so long as we do not harm others (non-consensually). I do not have a right to express myself, I have the freedom to express myself – limited by laws against such things as defamation, incitement of violence. I do not have the right to engage in sexual activity, I have the freedom to engage in sexual activity provided the other party consents – and if they don’t, it’s sexual assault or rape.

So, again, the onus is on the person who wants to interfere with me to show that interference is necessary to prevent harm, not for me to show that I should be able to exercise my freedom without interference.

UKLiberty,

Tim Worstall thinks that we should be free to do whatever we have a right to do (roughtly). You don’t think he needs to spell out what rights we have in order for that to make sense?

“Tim Worstall thinks that we should be free to do whatever we have a right to do (roughtly).”

No, Tim Worstall thinks we have a right to do whatever we wish (or at least attempt it….such a right does not extend to successfully defying gravity, however hard you try) as long as our exercise of this right does not harm another or limit their rights to do similarly.

Presumably convincing a small child (or perhaps an adult with a learning difficulty) that jumping from an upper story window is safe would be perfectly fine behaviour, then? *I’ve* caused no harm, after all.

Neil, how is persuading someone to kill themselves not causing harm?

@41 – I don’t know. But then, I don’t work in advertising.

Neil @42, if you “don’t know” how you “caused no harm, after all”, why have you reached that particular conclusion?

Because I’ve never done it.

Neil @44, do you want to make your point a bit more explicit? I’m sure you find it as obvious as me that “convincing a small child (or perhaps an adult with a learning difficulty) that jumping from an upper story window is safe” is unacceptable behaviour and causes harm.

Tim Worstall,

“No, Tim Worstall thinks we have a right to do whatever we wish (or at least attempt it….such a right does not extend to successfully defying gravity, however hard you try) as long as our exercise of this right does not harm another or limit their rights to do similarly.”

- this doesn’t make sense without a specification of the rights we have. Or else how are we to know whether or not an action conflicts with the rights of others etc. Christ, why do libertarians (almost always) insist on being so interminably shit at political philosophy?

(and on the “do similarly” point. The very robust private property rights favoured by libertarians clearly violate this constraint. If you own a piece of land, in the libertarian robust sense, then nobody else can own that bit of land).

You’re being disingenuous. Enough!

“Christ, why do libertarians (almost always)”

“Libertarian”? This is straight JS Mill isn’t it?

No. Mill’s harm principle does not state that one can do whatever one wants provided one does not violate the rights of others. It’s more determinate than that – we don’t need to specify what rights there are to implement Mill (we do have the problem of specifying what counts as a harm though).

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Stephen Isabirye

Talking about Enid Blyton, I am glad to inform you that I have just published a new book on the author titled, The Famous Five: A Personal Anecdotage (www.bbotw.com).

Stephen Isabirye