Capitalism II

Capitalism is defined as economic system based on private ownership of the means of production, in which personal profit can be acquired through investment of capital and employment of labor. Capitalism is grounded in the concept of free enterprise, which argues that government intervention in the economy should be restricted and that a free market, based on supply and demand, will ultimately maximize consumer welfare.

Basically, it is an economic system by people and for people. But increasingly, the word people is getting replaced by corporations. And, instead of satisfying the demands of the society these corporations are creating demand for their products, at the expense of community welfare. The strategies employed by fast food companies are fine example of demand generating tactics.

I do not claim to be a master economist and there is fair amount of
probability that I am completely wrong here. The tactics employed by
fast food companies (Americans spend $110 billions on fast food
annually, more than they spend on education!) that augmented their
sales to colossus level in comparison with their business in 1980's,
should be thoroughly scrutinized. These companies did not pay any
attention to the healthy diet, in the name of cost cutting; they pay
extremely low to their employees. They add artificial flavors for some
kind of addictive taste. Also, these companies focus themselves to
children. If a child is addicted to fast food then the fast food
company earns a life time customer. In the book Fast Food Nation, the
authors made a valid point; generally a child associates particular
taste of food to a particular incidence. That is the reason; we always
have nostalgic feeling about mom's food. So, with proper
advertisement, if a child is enticed to fast food outlet and if he
spends happy time there with his or her family then the child will
associate that particular taste with happy family time.

The scary part is, this research is done by fast food companies and not by
author. Manipulating communities demand is probably rampant in every
industry. I quoted fast food industry because I read the book about
it. But cosmetic industry is probably, another fine example of such
tactics. Such kind of capitalism is certainly harmful to the society. Ironically, the cure of this problem is hard to find as society is itself generating the perpetrator.