The capitalist system has been in a state where growth depends on new and higher quality products, and the success of these products depends on technology plus effective marketing. Unlike economists' projections, marketing predictions get tested quite brutally in the market: if a new product flops the people who planned its introduction are in the firing line. Marketers, like engineers, have to build things that work most of the time. The invasion of marketing departments by failed economists is a transient phenomenon, caused in part by the reluctance of good marketing professionals to let their income sink to academic levels. Economists in the marketing schools are like creationists in the biology department; they get caught out sooner rather than later,
I note from Slate that Wall Street's erstwhile darling, Chainsaw Dunlap, has screwed up Sunbeam: marketing takes more than bluster, a West Point commission and a claque of adoring economists,
John
-----Original Message----- From: Brad De Long <delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Date: Sunday, 10 May 1998 15:24 Subject: Re: social science production (was: Dark Sides of 'Solidarity'?)
>>John:
>>
>>Since you have taught marketing, the field has been overrun by
>>econometricians and experimental psychologists, whose only contribution to
>>marketing is marketing themselves into an easy, well-paid gig!
>>
>
>The problem with marketing is that you can't complain about the people who
>are teaching it. They must know something about how to market, or they
>wouldn't have managed to market themselves into the job of teaching
>marketing, n'est ce pas?
>
>Brad DeLong
>
>