Appeals to product quality conceal class-based market strategies

Evidence

In the world of production these words mean nothing more than “inexpensive” and “expensive”—i.e. satisfaction or failure to satisfy the basic needs of the popular classes and a tendency respectively to raise or to lower their standard of living. All the rest is just an ideological serial story, of which Guglielmo Ferrero has written the first episode. In a nation-enterprise which has at its disposal a large labour force and a small amount of raw materials (which is a dubious hypothesis, since every nation-enterprise can “create” its own raw materials) the term “quality” simply means the intention of employing a lot of labour on a little material, perfecting the product to the maximum. In other words, it means specialisation for a luxury market. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1133

Categorization

• XREF: Gramsci’s unmasking of ‘quality’ discourse as ideology anticipates later critical readings of how taste and quality labels mark class distinction. — connects to: Competitive consumption substitutes for class conflict rather than triggering it — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology: Key Readings, 2268; Appeals to quality over quantity mask class privilege; Equalized consumption conceals rather than dissolves class division. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 122 (+2 more)
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: what ‘first episode’ had Ferrero written, and how does Gramsci read his whole ideological serial?
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Competitive consumption substitutes for class conflict rather than triggering it — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology: Key Readings, 2268; Appeals to quality over quantity mask class privilege; Equalized consumption conceals rather than dissolves class division. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 122 (+2 more)