First, you identify a market in which a need is either present or in which
a need can be created. It doesn't matter whether the need is perceived or
actual. You do this by eavesdropping and spying on the people in the
market, either directly or indirectly (by defining a market, you classify a
group - this is essential to note - you _must create a specific class_).
This is what market research is and it tells you how people in a particular
group make decisions based on their perceived needs. Very little
sociological knowledge is needed to define this group because all you want
to know is how they make decisions and what they perceive their needs to
be. This is what you want access to: the forum in which particular people
make purchasing decisions - how they come to perceive a need-in-common.
Next, you infiltrate this forum with propaganda about the benefits of your
product and how it will transform the lives of the people in the market. It
doesn't matter whether, in itself, it will or not. You just need to
convince them it will, and it does; magic!
When producing your product, you must sell it for more than it costs you to
produce, otherwise you won't have enough money to expand your business.
Start-off costs are not a problem: your idea is collateral and, if you're
slick enough, someone will bankroll you. But. you must commit yourself to
always robbing the people who buy from you.
Back to production. You can't do this yourself, neither should you do the
selling. Otherwise, you will have no time left to create new ideas for new
products for new markets for new needs which are created by the old needs
being fulfilled (destroyed). Thus you must employ other people. But you
must _never_ pay these people the amount they add to your product,
otherwise you won't be able to expand your business. Each person who works
for you, then, must be willing to give away part of their time to your
business. You can rationalise this by saying "the business gives you work".
Normally, people will accept your nonsensical explanation and remain
completely unaware of its ironic implications for them. In short, you must
rob them of their time and tell them it's for their own good, when in fact
it's almost exclusively for yours. They will believe you for the most part,
because that's the way things work.
But the staff will always be problematic, even if they agree to be robbed
by coming to work for you. This is because they will sense the
contradiction in what they are doing for you. Perhaps it's because they go
home on the bus and you drive the latest model car around and go home
early. If you are successful, you will buy houses for cash; they will buy
debt for life. But you must remind them that they would only be able to be
in debt if they had a job. In the end, you must always seek to minimise the
number of staff you have: you must technologise and systematise.
The best part about all this is that you are satisfying people's needs,
giving people jobs, and making money. What's more, you don't need any
ideology at all. You can be the most well-intentioned fundamentalist
minister or the most unctuous bully, you can even be both at the same time.
The reason for this is that profit is the only necessity for continued
business prosperity and survival. As long as you make profit, you can grow
your business, win friends, and influence people.
In fact, that's how you make money in a business: you influence people.
Create and destroy needs as quickly as possible. Consumption is the key.
Influencing decisions is the key to creating consumptive needs. Producing
and selling is the way to destroy the most up-to-date needs.
If our public schools are run as businesses, business will have almost
complete control over the creation of needs, perceived or otherwise, in our
children. This is why business wants schools. Business doesn't care if
education itself is not so profitable, so long as the correct paths to
consumption are moulded at the earliest possible age. Marketing is now a
cradle-to-grave activity. It's also the key to economic growth.
Phil
Phil Graham
p.graham who-is-at qut.edu.au
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Palms/8314/index.html
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"Another damned fat book, eh, Mr Gibbon? Scribble, scribble, scribble, eh,
Mr Gibbon?" - The Duke of Gloucester to Edward Gibbon upon the publication
of "Decline and Fall".
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