Humans -- Consumers to Products?

[DaveJ]

This is a question as well as a complaint meant to challenge the minds of people who are a little more experienced in economics than I am. As we know, people are often categorized simply as consumers in economic terms. A lot of people including myself don't enjoy being categorized. Even though we know it's strictly for academic purposes, it's kinda uncertain really whether terminology in academic theories could possibly lead to some dehumanization treatment and attitudes among us and ultimately have an effect on the way society is structured. If that's not bad enough, it looks like we human beings have been demoted from the level of consumers to products. I wonder what will hapen next.

It goes beyond the fact that our labor and skills traded on the free market. The same corporations that either directly or indirectly hire and pay us (corps can have a controlling effect on private businesses) are so interconnected that they know what we can and can't afford to buy. And therefore they know what we probably will buy. So we are not so much consumers in that we choose what to buy -- everyone buys mostly the same things like the basic necessities and appliances, while the non-necessities are becoming uniform -- cell phone, computer, video games for the kids, maybe cable, and if we are lucky we'll purchase a vacation package at some point. People aren't too unique it seems. After that there's isn't much disposable income left. So who's in control, us or them?

So my point is that this makes us Products because this predictability on our parts might enable corporations to trade us among themselves. For example, corporation X can control of 21% of the cell phone buyers, corporation Y controls 18% of the video game buyers, corporation Z controls 42% of the vacation buyers, etc. They can trade controlling interests in us among themselves, and perhaps, modify prices based on what they want us to buy. Make sense? Are there economic theories that already deal with this?

[Sinti]

1. I don't know about economic theories, but they do trade us

For instance, Microsoft a long while back was trying to sell its MSN service, so it made a deal with Compaq. They referred to it as "buying X pairs of eyes," Compaq was quite happy about the deal also and referenced their increase in install base in the home market. Literally, Microsoft bought customers for MSN. I can find other instances, but this is a pretty prime example. They kind of trade us between themselves, makes you feel like a commodity if you get enough exposure to the thinking behind it.

[Warpy]

2. There was a BIG change in the 50s

when the GI Bill sent guys who ordinarily would have been happy with a quiet life in a small business to college and propagandized them all into saying "consumer" instead of "customer." Man, what a difference there is between those two words: the former implies a mindless gobbler of whatever is put before him, the latter implies a person who makes a choice and whose business must be sought. I remember noticing the change before I turned ten, and I found it a grating one. It was the first shot in the corporate war to dehumanize people.

[IronLionZion]

3. The only thing similar to humans...are viruses.

we like to consume and destroy stuff. we take resources from the earth and return.... pollution. And we spread out over more and more of the earth.