Free enterprise

Press, 7 May 1980, Page 18

Free enterprise

Sir,—lan Cosgove (May 3) and other correspondents believe that people determine their own genuine needs by freely choosing where they spend their dollar. These people clearly misunderstand the inherent characteristics of free enterprise. Today the wishes of the consumer are manufactured by the producer.Where would free enterprise be if there were to be no advertising? Advertising is used to impel us to buy things that we neither need nor want. We are not free to choose, because our minds are controlled by hypnoid methods used to persuade us that we need these goods. Thus the result of advertising is to stimulate a craving for consumption. Only when the power of advertising is ended will people be able to decide what they need, and thus determine what is to be. produced. — Yours, etc., ANNA FITZGERALD. May 4, 1980.

The economy Sir, — No-one who believed in the foolishness of our present Prime Minister could find better proof that their arguments were justified than in “The Press” of April 30. While Mr Muldoon tells us that the “reds are now dancing on the bedcovers,” we see the chairman of the Meat Board demanding that the meat exporting companies pay to the New Zealand farmer . a fairer portion of the price which the companies are ob- . taining overseas for lamb. At the same time, we see one of New Zealand’s major processing industries on the verge of collapse, and the only argument seems to be whether management pol-

icies in the company or management of the economy by Mr Muldoon were the prime cause of Mosgiel’s difficulties. When will New Zealanders tell the Prime Minister to get down to making the social and economic changes that will ensure a fair return to the New Zealand farmer, and job security for the New Zealand worker? — Yours, etc. I. A. O. CONNELL. May 2, 1980.