I have written before in these pages about the disproportionate influence that a rampant consumer culture has on all our lives. The no longer ‘hidden persuaders’ like advertising and promotions of all kinds dominate what we see, hear and read.

In this article I want to talk about some of the ideas that have highlighted the power without accountability aspects of this part of our everyday lives, and why the government needs to act on it now. I also want to discuss an idea put forward by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) concerning the key aspects of our personality, and its development, the inter-relation between the id, the ego and the super-ego. In his 1611 play ‘The Tempest’ (one of the shipwreck plays), William Shakespeare created two characters, Ariel and Caliban, both of whom were the ‘slaves’ of Prospero (the boss) and his daughter Miranda. Ariel is benign and complies with Prospero’s demands, However, Caliban is portrayed as a malign misshapen ‘glass half empty’ character prone to plotting the death of his master.

One familiar reading of the Caliban character is the id in our lives, the endless whispering in our ear that our needs are not being met, we are thwarted by forces beyond our control, the authority figure, the super-ego. What we want, need, is denied us, which in turn effects the development of our real self, our ego. Our pleasures and instinctual/cultural needs like sex, shelter and security are out of reach. We are left with diminished options to act. Discontents set in.

Shakespeare was discussing this in the early seventeenth century, but I would suggest is a very common issue in our lives today. This a crude sketch of what Freud outlined in his theory, but I hope emphasises that we still need to consider these issues; we all live in a world where somebody, somewhere, is trying to persuade us that to fulfil our ‘dreams’, we must consume that commodity, this thing, that lifestyle, this body image and so on, endlessly. We are caught in a cycle of doubts about not being the person we want/need to be because? Ironically Edward Bernays, the American responsible from the 1920s for the creation of PR and the advertising industry, was Freud’s nephew! Apparently Goebbels was a fan of his.

We continue to believe that the promises made to us by advertisers, TV etc, and politicians are genuine; you decide on the scale of persistent liars; and are not as the sociologist Jeremy Seabrook once said, ‘the great consumer swindle’.

It is clear that we have been told that we have endless choices, expectations raised. But, as I said in my previous article on access to housing, our actual choices are very limited dependant on several factors, like income, education, and lack of key information we need to make any sensible choices. This is a good example of the idea of false consciousness, people are thinking, but often fixated with impracticable desires. A lot of cultural compensation going on here. The middle classes are prime examples of this situation, seeking cultural compensation, for their desperate desire to make sure they are not missing out on something that reinforces who they believe they should be. ‘Life Style’ is their mantra.

I mentioned dreams earlier, and of course wish-dreams are about illusions, and make us easy prey to the mainly anonymous, very ‘helpful’ providers of all this essential stuff. ‘Pulling our strings’, placating us, and certainly encouraging us to be selfish in the pursuit of the life determined by a part of us, but encouraged by this huge industry of persuasion.

It is obscene that so much human and social energy is poured into grooming wants, when as Anthony Bernard has commented in these pages, more and more people are just struggling to survive.

Time for a re-think?