‘Murketing’ and the rhetoric of the new sincerity

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that marketing scholars should be paying a lot more attention to the rhetorical form which the economic historian Philip Mirowski – following the novelist David Foster Wallace – calls murketing. Combining philosophical, historical, economic and fictional resources, the paper first produces a synthetic account of what murketing is. Blurring calculated dishonesty with impassioned sincerity, murketing operationalises a double-truth dialectic which treats consumers as both subjects and objects within the process of their own persuasion. In order to indicate how murketing works, the paper then considers recent examples from murketing practice where allusions are made which are both cynical and gnostic, both conceited and intimate, and both earnest and ironic. The paper closes by indicating how its account of the theory and practice of murketing might inform the future study, consumption and regulation of advertising and marketing communications.     

对李嘉图经济伦理思想的一个误读

大卫·李嘉图开启了近现代自由贸易的全新时代,但对于李嘉图的经济伦理思想却鲜有梳理或是有所误读。李嘉图的经济伦理思想主要是功利主义的,其比较优势理论最为集中地体现了“最大多数人的最大幸福”原则,直到今天仍对诸多领域有一般性指导意义。然而,也有一些学者对其持审慎甚至批评的态度,并以“比较优势陷阱”误读李嘉图的经济伦理思想。这种误读从表层来说是使比较优势学说遭到了错误的质疑,从更深层来说则很有可能使得功利主义受到的诘难超越了其应该遭遇的尺度。     

Hedging and flexing : Two ways of choosing under ignorance

Two strategies for making decisions under severe uncertainty—called here ignorance—are contrasted. A popular strategy under such conditions is to forego the best outcome in order to avoid the worst which might happen; this is hedging, and is shown to lead to a number of problems: once made, a hedge can rarely be revised if the worst does not occur; hedging often brings about the worst outcome which is being hedged against; the worst outcome is often undefined; and hedging can lead to a vicious circle, disregarding the benefits which an option might bring. Each problem is illustrated by a decision about technological change, which typically are decisions under ignorance. Flexing has none of these problems. Flexing aims at achieving the very best outcome. This too risks achieving the worst outcome, but the strategy insures against this. The decision maker should ensure that if the worst outcome arises, the original decision can be reserved quickly and without great cost. Ways in which this can be done are discussed through the examples.     

Theological themes in Ricardo's papers and correspondence

Abstract

I review evidence from published and unpublished sources on Ricardo's theological ideas. The main focuses of interest are the existence of a natural morality independent of religious confessions, morality as the essence of religion, uselessness of theological speculation, justification of toleration for everybody, including atheists, and the miscarriage of any attempt at a philosophical theodicy. The paper explores also the connection between Ricardo's interest for theodicy and his views on the scope and method of political economy and suggests that his opinion that political economy should be a secular and value-free science close to mathematics depends precisely on theological reasons.     

Colonising Space: The New Economic Geography in Theory and Practice

The New Economic Geography (NEG) incorporates social space into neoclassical models, and claims to provide an explanation of uneven development within the parameters of economic orthodoxy. It is among the most influential recent innovations in mainstream economics – Paul Krugman was awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics for his contributions to the NEG, and it provided the theoretical inspiration for the World Bank's 2009 World Development Report. Drawing on the work of David Harvey and Henri Lefebvre, this article interprets the NEG as a colonising project in both its theoretical claims and its practical applications. Theoretically, the NEG colonises the disciplinary terrain of economic geography while replacing its substantive content with the abstractions of neoclassical economics. In practical terms, the NEG has been instrumental in the World Bank's ‘new spatial approach to development’, which aims to fully colonise peripheral regions of the global economy through constructing the spatial infrastructures necessary for globalised production and exchange. The social contradictions implicit in this project are revealed in the case of the Plan Puebla Panamá, a regional development programme for southern Mexico and Central America, based on the NEG, and identified by the World Bank as a prototype for its spatial approach to development. The article thus provides a critique of the NEG as a theoretical approach and as a policy tool, demonstrating the increasing significance of the production of space within the neoliberal project, and cautioning against the transformation of socio-spatial reality in the image of technocratic abstractions.     

Salesforce entertainment activities

Sales managers need guidelines for controlling the entertainment costs incurred by their sales personnel. Because of the difficulty in measuring the payoff associated with particular entertainment costs, the decision of whether to spend or not to spend is, of necessity, somewhat subjective. One guide is to compare entertainment activities among different salesforces. A survey of over 1300 salespeople employed in a wide variety of jobs in a large number of industries revealed the extent of entertainment efforts in five areas: taking clients out for lunch, for an evening meal, for a drink, for leisure activities, and parties for clients.     

Ricardo's discovery of comparative advantage revisited: a critique of Ruffin's account

Abstract

In an influential paper, Ruffin has attempted to reconstruct the circumstances of Ricardo's discovery of the law of comparative advantage. Ruffin's paper has inspired a number of further contributions on the precise nature, logical structure, and analytical significance of Ricardo's formulation of the law of comparative advantage. This paper re-examines Ruffin's reconstruction, and in particular his interpretation of Ricardo's three letters of October 1816 and suggests that it lacks textual and contextual support.     

Buyer/seller relationships in international industrial markets

This article examines the hypothesis that industrial purchasers' assessments of their suppliers are not based on views of suppliers' technical and commercial skills in isolation. Instead they are closely associated with their assessment of suppliers' skills in developing a relationship with them.