 | I finally got around to finishing this book today.
The premise of the book is to defend the general idea of advertising from many of the criticisms people have of it. Some of the criticisms involve suggesting that advertisements are in poor taste. Some people argue from a determinism perspective that advertisements control our minds and force us to buy their products. On top of this, there are economic arguments against advertisement. The economic arguments suggest that advertising creates some anti-competitiveness in the market (which is economics for competition in the market).
The book attempts to defend advertisements from two schools of thought: Objectivism and the Austrian School of Economics. Through Objectivism, he argues that advertisement is moral and is an act of self-interest. He shows that objective morality allows for morally "optional" values, and that judging advertisement must take that into consideration. He rejects intrinsic values. He uses the Objectivist theory of concepts to disprove some of the false economic theories. He uses an Objectivist defense of free will, and consequently an attack on determinism, to show how advertisement does not 'control' us, and that persuasion is not the same of force. I found that argument particularly interesting. Under determinism, people can be controlled by external stimuli, and that would undercut their own decision making process. It wouldn't be any different from physical force. Both make one person the slave of another. Sure it's riddled with contradictions, but that's determinism for you.
Through the Austrian Economics, he takes on the "pure and perfect competition" model, the neoclassical school of economics, and the Chicago school of economics. He shows how this theoretical construct leads to an understanding that advertisement promotes monopolistic tendencies (or inelasticity of demand). He shows how advertisement is viewed as unnecessary or actually damaging from the collectivist perspective of treating economics as a resource allocation system. He challenges the understanding of monopoly, and the entire methodology behind it.
While there was some interesting parts about the book, let me just add my own views to the way it was written. The first chapter must be the worst chapter I've ever read in any book, ever. There's very little in terms of arguments, but there's a ton of very strongly worded conclusions. For instance, instead of trying to identify altruism and its effects on the topic, he just jumps in without any background and attacks people for being altruists. It's like he added every strongly worded conclusion of Objectivism, most of which would seem insane without the background, into that first chapter. He almost never explained any of the ideas, including things like "pure and perfect competition". He just jumps in assuming you already know it all. Since I've actually studied this stuff, I knew the ideas, and still felt it was too poorly written. It was like he was trying to beat people to death with the ideas. I left it on my shelf for months because of how bad it was.
Happily, the first chapter is a complete anomaly. The other chapters actually explain the ideas, provide the relevant context, and do a good job of explaining his points. He as an appendix or two for the chapters that seem like after-thoughts, but are probably the best written parts of the book in terms of clarity. The rest of the book is more systematic, and he takes some very complicated ideas and does a pretty good job of tackling them. So don't judge the book by the first chapter! Not even close!
There are some other possible criticisms. I try not to criticize a book or article for what it didn't cover, since they wrote it and they get to decide what to add to it. If I want a book with more, I can write it myself. But still, a few things should be pointed out. First, there was no discussion of the internet, which is interesting since so much of it is dominated by advertising and it has really changed the whole field. Second, there was no discussion of politics.
I find that remarkable because criticisms of economic advertising are not that prominent today (although maybe they are in economic circles). But political advertising is incredibly criticized. There are beliefs that whoever has the most money wins the Presidency (as if advertising alone controlled the minds of the voters). There are spending limits. There are complaints that political adds are too negative. There have been attempted restrictions on free speech in an area where the whole first amendment right to free speech was designed for.
Is it worth reading and buying? I don't know hot to answer it. Certainly there are some great insights, especially about why some people resent advertisements. But very large parts of the book focus on explaining Objectivist ideas, Austrian Economics, and the "pure and perfect competition" model including his arguments against it. If you already have some exposure to it, the amount of new content might seem small. Where he is insightful, I get the impression that he could write to an educated audience and make most of the points in an extended essay, instead of an entire book.
Still, if you ever have arguments about the morality of advertisements, or if you work in that area, or have some other reason to want to defend advertising, then it's certainly valuable. And as a book that successfully integrated Objectivism and Austrian Economics, it would be valuable to people interested in how those two schools of thought can work together. And even if you already think you know a bit about each, his explanations in the later chapters are good enough that you may benefit from his presentation of those ideas.
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In Defense of Advertising: Arguments from Reason, Ethical Egoism, and Laissez-Faire Capitalism by Jerry Kirkpatrick
