Wake Up Call Segment Host/Producer MK Mendoza speaks with author, Dr. Gerrit DeGeest about his latest book which argues that marketing has driven the huge rise in inequaliy since the 1970's. He exposes how marketing exploits artificial profits and causes inequality in a variety of ways; from brand names, to extra added fees like extended warranties, to lock-in effects such as the razor and razor blade marketing methodology, to name only a few. "Network externalities" also contribute which is when one person is forced to use or buy a product by the fact that the majority of others use that same product. And he covers many other marketing tactics in his book. He estimates that 35 out of every 100 dollars the average consumer spends goes straight into the pocket of the 1%. He attributes the income differentiation between owners versus wage earners and the ability for marketers to gain increasingly larger profits to why someone like Warren Buffet can make 52,ooo times as much as the average line cook. Finally, his book examines all the ways and levels at which marketers have outsmarted both law and traditional business practices. He reveals how companies can now get away with what would otherwise be considered fraudulent activity if placed into a truly competitive market and how much marketing contributes to creating and maintaining both oligarchies as well as monopolies only furthering the income gap. The solution he says is not in greater taxation for the rich, but rather at getting to the root of the problem and reinstating a more competitive market environment via anti-trust legislation. His book is called "Rents: How Marketing Causes Inequality".
For more information on his book, see link below: