Markets primarily fabricate felt needs rather than conveying goods to those in need

Evidence

Once upon a time, this oversight was deemed a devastating criticism of orthodox economics. In a sense, this was the original accusation of the bait-and-switch complaint, now blown up to system level: what goes on in markets is not primarily the conveyance of goods and services to those in need, but rather the conjuring of symbols and the fabrication of felt needs. The market, it was said, is not your humble servant, but rather a Svengali or a Stromboli. This point was popularized by John Kenneth Galbraith in his New Industrial State: Most goods serve needs that are discovered to the individual not by the palpable discomfort that accompanies deprivation, but by some psychic response to their possession. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 388

Categorization

• DEFINE: Captures the historical critique of markets as symbol-conjuring rather than need-serving — the bait-and-switch at system level.
• BMF: The market as a Svengali/Stromboli manipulating felt needs echoes the puppet-master themes in White Noise (Delillo’s Jack Gladney navigating manufactured consumer desires and media-constructed realities).
• XREF: connects to: Under capitalism consumption targets abstract value rather than bodily need — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 753; Mediatized market societies increasingly waste resources producing demand rather than goods — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 172; Predetermined needs reduce the consumer to the eternal object of the industry — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 110 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Most consumer goods satisfy psychological cravings rather than felt deprivations #corroborates (0.85) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 389
• Under capitalism consumption targets abstract value rather than bodily need #expands (0.82) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 753
• Mediatized market societies increasingly waste resources producing demand rather than goods #corroborates (0.78) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 172
• Predetermined needs reduce the consumer to the eternal object of the industry #corroborates (0.75) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 110