Multiply TAX on PUBLICITY (2x, 3x,..)

Multiply TAX on PUBLICITY for healthier economy and society!

Luxury goods in many countries have a higher tax-rate than consumer or essential goods. This same strategy should be applied on publicity.

To increase TAX on PUBLICITY (multiply by 2, 3, ...) in mass-media for multinationals and large corporations would have important positive effects on the economy and the society as a whole:

1 - More tax income from the ones that can afford it.
2 - Funds for social goals: education, health care, support underdeveloped countries, clean energy...
3 - Mentally healthier, less possession/consumption oriented individuals and society.

I have come to the conclusion that this so called consumer-society in reality is a producer-society. The producers (multinationals and other large corporations) psychologically force people into buying stress (consumerism) through an overkill of publicity, because of their need to sell as much as possible (and make big profits).

The buying stress (to have more things than we all really need/want) is one of the main reasons why so many people engage(d) in loans they cannot pay afterward and as such publicity stands at the base of the current crises.

The buying stress is not just specific to the product that is being pushed through publicity, it has turned into a global (wealthy country's) mindset, the buying craze:
- "You have to have this, you have to have that or you just don't count!" or
- "Buy this or that because it's ON SALE (not because you need it)"
:-(

The biggest companies are at the same time the biggest investors in publicity. And most will at the same time be also the ones that achieve the lowest prices (with the biggest gain) for their raw materials, typically in the poorest countries (labor, minerals and commodities).

If these companies are so eager to spend money to push their stuff into peoples faces and lives, they should REALLY PAY for it, BY LAW!

The extra tax income this would generate for the state could (should) then be used for fundamental social goals on a national AND international scale to improve society:

1. Education
2. Health care
3. Alternative energies / global warming / environment
   
4. Support underdeveloped countries.

This last point is, in fact: a (still too) small backward payment for the resources that the companies, directly or indirectly, "bought" from those countries for peanuts in the first place. The fact that most rich countries have done this for centuries is, in fact, the main reason they are so poor.

An important additional advantage is: LESS PUBLICITY!

Too much publicity is not good for mental health!
Not only is the public in general fed up with the overkill in publicity, it undoubtly is even harmful for the brain and mindset.
It does not add to creating a better society if people are insistently stimulated to "have more stuff" and being told that having stuff makes you a happier person and more loved or popular.
This brings people to not having their priorities straight anymore.

Publicity does not only sell a product; it invades privacy, influences minds, changes mindsets and deteriorates values of both the individual as the society as a whole. The resulting unsolicited subliminal large-scale shift of priorities should be heavily compensated.

The tax should be implemented in different scales, depending on the size of company (small?, large?, multinational?, on the stock exchange??? or local entrepreneur?) and the size of the audience (TV, radio, press, internet, local media,...)
The bigger the game, the higher the tax. And I'd say in an exponential way!

Feb 19, 2009
With your help I will (in spare moments) continue/review/improve or update on this. Here if possible and on my web at
http://www.riccardobarbieri.com/thenexteconomicorder.html