Benefit Of Commercialism example essay topic

People enjoy deviance and shock value so much, that even before any studies on deviance and media sales were used by the media industry, any newspaper in the early 1900's could tell you that crime and bad news sells more papers than good news will (Fox, p. 112). In fact in the early 20th century, many papers would make up fake stories of horrible acts and scandal committed only to sell more papers, also known as yellow journalism, until this was deemed as illegal. Channel 1, the education channel used by many schools for further education to students, has been accused of being even more commercialized than public television. It tries to appear "hip" to spark interest in the child not only for learning purposes, but also for advertising purposes. It makes up words or uses words used in popular subcultures (surfers, skateboarders, etc.) thus spreading and overusing these subcultures in order to spark consumer interest. This again destroys traditions and values, and defeats the purpose of subcultures, to separate from the norm.

Channel One also uses preferred music and overly popular "news bites". It also commercializes children and brainwashes them to what they should be, rather than letting them ultimately deciding for themselves, such motives cause children to be less original and more bounded by the limits of commercialization (Fox, p. 147). Apparently these types of media are working, however, because consumers end up purchasing the items seen on television, due to this desire to spend and our lack of self-control to overspend, we then notice another problem with commercialization, debt. Most middle class Americans have some sort of debt to banks or credit card agencies. In a recent non-profit organization commercial I witnessed on television, it stated that the average middle-class American has around 10,000 dollars of debt; even our government has a debt near 4 trillion dollars.

Why so much debt? Because commercialization, although extremely effective, forces unnecessary spending, causing inflation, poverty, greed, and possibly social collapse. Although commercialism is destroying our traditions, raising our crime rates, promoting violence and poor quality, and dragging us further into debt and possibly Armageddon, there are benefits that make commercialism functional. The most beneficial is the promotion of advancement, solving the wonders of the universe and making work less time consuming, or at least, less hard labor.

Another benefit of commercialism is its adaptation to change, as long as there is an economy there will always be some form of stability. (Swartz, p. 129) Another benefit, although more like a product of commercialism, is its ability to provide goods and services to whomever desires and has enough funds to buy a product, it also provides a means of showing the product to anyone around the world, also known as marketing. It also can stimulate the economy, another product of commercialism, and create jobs for those who have the proficient skills to fill them. Although we are losing many of our lower class jobs, the United States economy is also creating new higher paying jobs due to technological enhancement. Unfortunately, many of the lower classes do not have the skills to fill these jobs, and thus the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer (another reason for the fall of the Roman Empire). Subsequently, although commercialization is ruining American values and traditions, is generating more crime than any other factor, putting us further into debt, and promoting deviant behavior, it all depends on the person whether the benefits outweigh the stigmas or vice versa.