According to the ideology of capitalism, the more choices of products there are, the better off people are, regardless of the nature of each product in question, because the logic of capitalism treats all products as first and foremost as exchange values.
If we look at products as use values, i.e., means that satisfy our needs and desires, however, we can see qualitative differences among kinds of products that the logic of capitalism, for which all commodities are _equally_ exchange values, obscures:
1. Of one kind of products, it is desirable to have a wide variety of choices. Products of mental labor such as works of art, products that satisfy our whims such as clothes and other adornments, etc. fall into this category.
2. Of another kind of products, such as consumer electronic products that cost more to make than books and clothes, it is desirable to have a moderate number of choices. Such products in a hypothetical socialist world would be standardized enough that there won't be many problems of incompatibility between products, but varied enough that those who just want to use them can buy simple models and those who enjoy tinkering with them, programmable advanced models.
3. Of yet another kind of products, "consumer choices" are unnecessary and undesirable. Public utilities such as water, electricity, and natural gas fit into this category.
The ideology of capitalism, which extols the virtue of choices for any and all products and occasions, makes it possible for bourgeois ideologues to argue that, since more choices are desirable in 1, more choices must be desirable in 2 and even 3 -- after all, all commodities are merely exchange values, qualitative differences between kinds of goods and services be damned.
Lastly, if we think of the question of "consumer choices" from workers' rather than consumers' points of view, the idea of offering as many choices as possible doesn't sound so good. Workers would rather offer a limited number of standardized goods and services than try to cater to each customer's individual whim -- the former consumes much less time and energy of workers than the latter. -- Yoshie
* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>