TEXT № 3

Usually our clothes are psychologically worn out and discarded while the material is still good. We dispose of our automobiles when they become obsolete rather than when they are physically worn out. How different is this viewpoint from the practices that are current in other nations, England and France, for instance! It is difficult for the European to understand the economic importance of the individual in our country and the American idea of psychological obsolescence. It is also incomprehensible to most that in America we spend nearly eight billion dollars a year for advertising!

Why do we do it? What is advertising's role in our economy? What useful purpose does advertising serve? Advertising makes more jobs for more people. Yes, it is a fact that by creating a growing demand for new products, advertising makes jobs. A few examples:

When you think what has been accomplished in the era of the automobile, when you think of all the jobs that are made possible by the five million and more automobiles sold in the United States every year, when you think what this has meant in the way of new jobs, ranging all the way from the thousands of motels, restaurants and gas stations, to the enormous development of our national parks, it gives some idea of what the automobile has contributed to our society. Was it the first automobile, or the first hundred, or the first thousand that brought this about?

No! It was the mass production of customers for automobiles that has brought the automobile to its present importance in our economy. Mass consumption made mass production possible and advertising is largely responsible for bringing about mass consumption, and the jobs, that the development of the automobile has created. To cite another example, let’s look in a totally different field - deodorants. Today the deodorant business has grown to major proportions, and this has been accomplished without taking away from any other business, including perfumes! This is another example where demand created by mass consumption methods resulted in a new industry with attendant jobs, and one which has been developed without taking away from any existing business.

It all adds up to the fact that mass consumption makes mass production possible and mass production means more jobs. Advertising, because of its ability to accelerate the regular acceptance of new products and to lift the level of acceptability of established products, unleashes a tremendous flood of new demand, and new employment. The critics say advertising causes people to spend needlessly. The more want able goods become, the greater the prospect that money will be exchanged for those goods and this in turn spells continued employment and more jobs.

By Jon Weaver

Vocabulary:

obsolete ['ɔbsəli:t] - adj. вышедший из употребления, устаревший

obsolescence [ɔbsə'lesns] - n. устаревание

incomprehensible [inkɔmpri'hensəbl] - adj. непонятный, непостижимый

accomplish [ə'kɔmpliʃ] - vb. выполнять, достигать