Why governments who adopt a capitalist economic model, like insecure attachment so much - Part Two

Part Two - How attachment style impacts on our behaviour as consumers

I explained in Part One, that the type of attachment style we develop in childhood, depends on how our parents responded to our physical and emotional needs when we were babies, and how the relationship we developed with our parents sets out a blueprint for our approach to relationships as an adult.

John Bowlby, the leading authority on attachment theory, urged governments to look at the level of support they gave parents, particularly parents at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, for he said parents would struggle to meet the emotional needs of their children, if the parents' basic needs weren't being met by life.  Few would argue with Bowlby's conclusion, that seems to make perfect sense.  So why is our current government so intent on inflicting pain on poorer families, rather than supporting those who already have more to cope with than those higher up the ladder.

It comes down to the theories of another famous psychologist, Sigmund Freud, and particularly the application of those theories, by his American nephew, Edward Bernays, who is considered to be the father of Public Relations.  Bernays used Freud's theories about anger, selfishness and neurosis to manipulate the behaviour of consumers, through advertising, which did not really exist in the modern sense, before he came onto the scene in the 1920s.  Prior to this, people only spent money on a commodity, if an old one broke and it needed replacing and there wasn't a whole range of ovens or kettles or irons to buy, everyone tended to have the same model which the local store or dealer sold.  Bernays tapped into people's desire to be superior to neighbours, siblings and so on; how you could feel superior, if you had this model of car on your drive or you drank  a certain type of beverage.

Bernays' thinking was heavily adopted by both Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Thatcher was particularly focussed on using people's paranoia to encourage them to acquire things, to buy them in order to offer some sense of material security.  Everything from gas shares to houses and those ridiculously heavy early "mobile" phones, were advertised in an unprecedented way, boosting the economy through product sales, and when the economic situation wasn't so rosy, boosting the availability of credit, so that people could still have access to these objects they now needed to maintain a level of self-esteem.

When Tony Blair came to power in 1997, he did nothing to reverse this obsession with the capitalist economic model, but then his father was very much a Conservative who openly admired Thatcher, and this must have impacted on the Labour Leader, as a child. 

One of the problems people of integrity have with capitalism is, the model relies heavily on an endless sea of consumables for people to buy, it has to be the latest iPhone, the most flashy car, a newer kitchen, a landscaped garden, 6 inch heels which are so high, women actually struggle to walk in them.  And the production of all this crap, burns up a horrendous amount of energy, as these consumables are often designed to have a very short life.  However much governments claim they're committed to recycling and climate change, every intelligent person knows it's better to make products that are going to last a long  time, meaning people buy less and the capitalist economy suffers.

The other problem people have with the capitalist model is that it needs to keep a certain percentage of the population in relative misery, because studies show people who are emotionally secure and have good quality relationships, tend to spend less money on throwaway goods.  For these people, their sense of self-esteem is tied up with the quality of the relationships they have, and not so much their car or laptop,  People who consume a lot of these heavily advertised products are seeking  to feel security through objects, because they're not getting that sense of wellbeing from their personal lives.

And this is why governments who are committed to the capitalist model, will never be focussed on helping people become happier in their personal lives.  They can't, even if they wanted to.  The fear is, people will stop buying all this crap if they just want to spend all their spare time relaxing in the company of those they adore.  There is no deep emotional void with these people, which needs filling with big tellies or designer sofas, they feel secure and loved, they don't need anything to boost their low self-esteem, because they absolutely love life!

I don't suppose there's any chance of getting governments to acknowledge the human cost of following a capitalist economic plan, but we could demand a law to make sure the carbon footprint is printed on every single product sold, from high-end Mercedes cars to a packet of cornflakes.  Though personally, I don't think any of the three main parties would be allowed to pursue this, by the corporations and individuals who fund them.