Ever wanted to know what neo-Marxist analysis can tell us about shopping?

[LightTripper]

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/nov/24/black-friday-shopping-lies-consumerist-hell

[Torran]

Great link!

I liked in particular:

"In 1921 the Phoebus cartel created lightbulbs that would break after 1,000 hours instead of providing the 1,500-2,000 hours previous bulbs managed. Why? To make profit from, as far as I can tell, consumer misery. The nightmare of ending-is-better-than-mending consumption imagined by Aldous Huxley in 1932’s Brave New World has been realised"

I remember watching a documentary about built-in obsolescence and how it started in the 1920s after all these companies AGREED to do it. The inexcusable waste of it all. I remember thinking 'and this is why humanity is doomed'.

[Eco_eco]

It's great when a mainstream media raises good questions about the consumer treadmill our global society seems to blindly stuck on.

Black Friday spread over here to New Zealand this year. We don't have thanksgiving and Black Friday used to be something that people used to talk about the 1987 stockmarket crash. Our biggest  shopping day of the year was Boxing Day with its Boxing Day sales. Suddenly this year every major retailer started having Black Friday sales. After some initial head scratching and asking 'what's Black Friday' people quickly understood 'it's another sale' and our usual conditioning took over.

It's a little said to see yet another shopping 'festival' day be born.   

[zolotiyeruki]

Yeah, Black Friday has lost its appeal for me.  Once upon a time, it represented actual good deals.  Now it's a mix of junk you don't need, junk that's manufactured specifically for BF, full- or near-retail prices, and if you're lucky and/or willing to camp out, a few actual decent deals.

And I agree with a lot of the points in that article.  BUT!  I take issue with #3 and #4.  The plural of anecdotes is not data, and a few horrifying anecdotes don't add up to an inescapable destiny for every company.  Yes, it's possible to buy quality, and there *are* brands that can be trusted.