Priceless

Even when advertisers tell us that something is priceless, they manage to put a price on it. In 1998 MasterCard had a campaign with the tagline, "There are some things money can't buy. For everything else there is MasterCard." One commercial shows a father and son at a baseball game. It places a dollar value on lots of things related to the game—tickets, snacks, an autographed baseball—but rates "real conversation with an 11-year old" as priceless. Other commercials in the campaign also link intangible emotions with activities that cost money. The ostensible message of the commercial is that you can't put a price on what is most valuable in life...but the underlying message is that sure you can. You can not only put a price on it, you can put it on a credit card.

- Jean Kilbourne

This is the issue with advertising in that it commodifies human relationships. One must buy something to express one's love. Simply having a conversation with a son doesn't suffice. You have to buy him a new Playstation or a new Lexus if you really want to show him you love him. 

On a related note, this is what capitalism does. It commodifies everything it touches. Traditions and religions are toss asundered. Market price becomes the main determinant of value. Ethics are disrupted as the market becomes the transcendental signifier. The market increasingly mediates relations between people and all things.


But you can't take this argument too far. Karl Marx:

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his "natural superiors," and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous "cash payment." It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom—Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation. 

The Marxist critique of capitalism is interesting to read in hindsight. We all know the wonders that communism did for the working class in countries such as the late Soviet Union, China, North Korea, and Cuba. Capitalism is net-net a good thing. It provided the wealth and foundation from which democracy could grow. Capitalism is a tool and one that needs to be used wisely.