arts and culture on Supply and Demand

How much does a world-class violinist make? Well, that depends on how he markets himself. Have you ever heard of Joshua Bell? He’s one of the finest classical musicians in the world. He plays to pac...

Have you ever heard of a Stradivarius violin? It’s the gold standard of violins—instantly recognizable and famously expensive. These aren’t $29.95 instruments. One sold for $1 million, another for $4 ...

Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfactions, our ego satisfac...

The tighter you squeeze, the less you have.

The drive to possess is an engine for hurry.

We must shift America from a needs to a desires culture…. People must be trained to desire, to want new things, even before the old have been entirely consumed. We must shape a new mentality. Man’s de...

Work supplies the physical, psychological, artistic, and religious needs of communities extending to the ends of the earth. Furthermore, through work, we create abundance out of which we help meet the...

Ads sell a great deal more than products. They sell values, images, and concepts of success and worth.”

When we keep purchasing, keep consuming, and keep envying and coveting, we are pining for what the objects represent: peace, ease, meaning, beauty, stability, adventure, knowledge, renown, connection,...

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will.

People who demand neutrality in any situation are usually not neutral but in favor of the status quo.

The world says: "You have needs — satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don't hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more." This ...

The consumer is never satisfied. Rather than being transformed into a life of sacrifice and service, the consumer will demand more and more of others.

But even in the much-publicized rebellion of the young against the materialism of the affluent society, the consumer mentality is too often still intact: the standards of behavior are still those of k...

Retail therapy gives us the thrill of the hunt and a hit of dopamine (the love hormone) as we anticipate a purchase, but it cannot feed our hungers. We know this. But we return each time, hoping it wi...

Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don't have for something they don't need.

We are rapidly reaching the point in Western consumer societies where people confuse freedom with choice, as they are dazzled daily by an ever-expanding array of external choices in consumer goods and...

We live in a culture that is obsessed with the right to have what we want.

Part of the suspicion of desire undoubtedly has to do precisely with the fact that it threatens a rational, controlled, and protected understanding of a mature human being.

Just as the church needs members with different skills, our world must have various forms of labor, interdependent and thus valuable. A world full of ministers would be without churches, bread for the...

It is not objects that people really desire, but their lush coating of images and dreams. . . . It is never the object which is consumed—instead it is the relationship between us and the object of des...

There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pa...

Advertising - A judicious mixture of flattery and threats.

The digital age is about getting what we want, when we want, how we want, and as much (or as little) as we want.

For all our time and attention, no matter how carefully we curate our stuff or how much we might enjoy ourselves along the way, we’re all merely stocking and staging someone else’s opportunity for bar...

In his thought-provoking book, Twelve Lies That Hold America Captive, Jonathan Walton uncovers some of the hard truths about American culture. In this excerpt, he describes the consumption associa...

History will see advertising as one of the real evil things of our time. It is stimulating people constantly to want things, want this, want that.

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.

Great needs grow from great possessions.

Avarice is fear sheathed in gold.