The Magical Power of Products on Personality

By: Stephen Ainsah-Mensah

a. The corrupting influence of engineered products has come to stay on the disquieted psyche of man/woman as if to say: “I want to be parasitic on your psyche and, actually, I am.” This goes to show how there is now no need to talk about human uprightness in relation to luring products. Such products have invaded the psyche and brought it to the level of surrender - to the inanimate power and will of products. One may call this state of affairs the productizing of the psyche. The reality - as one can see - is weird and unacceptable; for it should be asserted: why would the human being, endowed with so special and powerful an attribute as the mind, be directed, in compound conduct, by an external entity, a product that has petty attributes, attributes that have no movement in life, no power of cognition? In fact, the life of a product is lifeless except for the unmoving charm that its external beauty, mechanical characteristics and specific functions draws to the human eye. If the human psyche loses its integrity in relation to the question of the product, then one can understand why engineered products and their affiliates - including, of course, money, stocks, technologically draped patterns of money reproduction and mutation - tend to have a firm grip on the character of a person, the manner of reasoning, the structure and execution of emotions, and, of course, the general doing of things in the society.

b. It is the productizing of the psyche that has pushed man/woman into production and consumption patterns that refuse to yield to the principle of moderation. Amazing engineering and reengineering inspire high-tech products that are produced on a superabundant scale. It is to be expected that production would far exceed consumption. That is why the productized psyche has to be further worked on by leading thinkers, so that it goes on a consumption spree. Man/woman then has to set the emotions in particular on an unrestrained path so as to do impulsive buying. Now, we can see that a certain premise produces the roots that in turn grow the tree of the economic system. It is this: the people's individual psyches are productized. Important architects of this economic design, of this productization, are the thinkers who are prone to say: consuming as much as you want is crucial to sustain and grow the system. Here, the magic of money, the irresistible power of profit mutate a system that bears the visible structure of a free market, of which its dominant practitioners want the hand of government to stay away from.

c. If production must continue unrestrained in order to satisfy, from the producers' side, the glory of profit, there ought to be assurances that excesses do not go unconsumed; so sales and marketing experts, and other people versed on how to influence the productized psyche need to use all the relevant gimmicks and wrinkles to lure consumers to consume more. But how do you, with insufficient income or money, manage to get all these charming products? Well, viable financial institutions are available for you to access their credit facilities. You go in for their credits, but you set for yourself a cycle of borrowing that could surely jeopardize your ability to pay back and buy things according to the money you have for yourself (not borrowed money). The question is: for how long can this practice of borrowing continue? Can this product-money-consumption chain go on indefinitely? Surely not! But, then, it cannot cease either. The problem is that there comes a time that borrowing proliferates so much that it fails to correspond to lending in the sense that borrowed money fails to fit into lent money - borrowing, that is to say, creates a gap in lending, outstrips lending.

d. *Now, from the economic standpoint, who is the productized person?
He/She is the one whose structure of life is built on the pursuit of products as directed by the psyche.
*How does the productized person acquire the products that the psyche prompts the destabilized passion to acquire? By means of a cycle of borrowed money.
*How is the producer stimulated to produce more? By virtue of more consumption that comes from more borrowing of money by the consumer.
*How does the lender increase profits? By lending more to borrowers at high interests.
*Why is this cycle of lending, borrowing, more borrowing, more consumption, and more productivity likely to hit the wall? Because at some point borrowers may be unable to pay back to lenders what they borrowed as stipulated by the mutually agreed plan. Thus, borrowers will lose much, lenders will lose much too, and producers will be prompted to curtail production and, as well, lose much. The economy thereafter shrinks to the discomfort of all of us.

e. The above cycle - beginning with lending and ending with more production - is the structure that has enabled, in the first place, production, consumption, money to multiply and generate so much of all sorts of things for the system to develop. What is risky is that the reproducing and mutating effect of money, forms of money and consumption tend to be so much that they overwhelm direct physical production and may cause the latter's chronic shortfall. You have so much money; you still want much more. You speculate on how to get much more by placing interest on the money you loan to people. Your other fellows speculate on how to get much more money too by buying and selling stocks from allegedly reputable companies and individuals. The spread of money keeps growing and stupendous pressure is put on the money in-use, which can bring the economy to its knees unless this money proliferation and borrowing are expertly put under control. How can this colourful but unsustainable economic system, one may ask, be fixed? Surely, the fix cannot occur without applying a workable alternative other than the dominant elements of the present one.

f. It may be held that you ought to curb your excesses. Why do you, on and on, indulge in computations, peruse the strength of stocks, the trend of money and the present or future strength of producing companies as the basis to cash in on foreseeable advantages? Why not engage in direct physical production, which is far more realistic and secure so as to sustain and grow the roots and branches of the economic system? But now we can understand! Such jobs are just not there. But we comprehend even more that the government has to step in and create jobs. Here, the government's functions should be far more ambitious and momentous than it previously was. We need to, first, comprehend that there is the crucial need to restructure business in a fashion that curtails the preeminence of stocks, the stock market, the incidence of the proliferation of stocks and money, among others, in determining the fate of the system. To be sure, a sustainable stimulus to wealth creation ought to come from the humanized usage of science and technology in producing goods that are vital for human health and life's development, for sanitizing the environment as well as erecting social structures and services that generate employment and life-sustaining activities for all. This is where the government comes in. In fact, the government ought to do more. It has to be part of the dominant economic systems. It's directing hand is crucial in forestalling individual malpractices.

g. You have been listening too much to the voice of your productized psyche. You often do not pay heed to your humanized psyche. Your productized psyche has come to shape the economic requisites of your life. You do not comprehend that excesses in consumption unmatched by worked-for money have a destabilizing influence on the system. We can also see that productized psyche commits us to practise the accursed philosophy of wastes. More is produced, production mutates; more is consumed, consumption mutates; and much more money is lent out, lending mutates. Since the humanized psyche is not the one directing these rather freehand mutations, wastes torment the environment by way of pollutants; engineered products, despite their sophistication - whether consumed as food or used as external products - are so massively produced without the desired risk-free caution.

h. So we come to this point - perhaps again: the charm of technological products, the magic of profits, via the route of money, rule, for the most part, the psyche of the technologicalized man/woman. Moderation has been eclipsed by excesses. Calmness of the environment has been supplanted by turbulence. The long-held optimism that the natural character of the environment could be retained to sustain - and enhance - the health of man/woman is giving way to a despairing stand.