The Evil Tool of Marketing

In this comic strip, Dilbert discovers the "evil tool" of marketing.  Apparantly unaware of this concept, he comically announces it as a tool that is manipulating society and therefore has to be destroyed. He explains this tool as one that causes people to be enticed by certain products and services that they don't need, and therefore is harmful to us. He would be astounded at the thought that companies spend money on such as evil tool as this in order to persuade consumers to make unnecessary purchases.

The representation of marketing in this comic can be related to our discussion in class on rent-seeking. We defined rent-seeking as "the expenditure of resources in order to obtain rents when the source of those rents is socially wasteful." Similar to how Dilbert views marketing, rent-seeking is wasteful spending because it diverts resources away from better uses in order to "get the rent", something that is socially wasteful in itself. These resources are being used to obtain government favors and certain power rather than being spent on new products and services. Once the rent is obtained, the market power of the rent-seeker will cause its pricing and output decisions to lead to dead-weight loss. Additionally, the rent-seekers assume the risk of unsuccessful rent-seeking/lobbying in which they pay out, but do not win the government favor and do not get the rent.

Bringing the discussion back to Dilbert, his criticism of marketing (although he doesn't know that is the official term for this evil tool) can be related to arguments against rent-seeking as they both can be means of wasteful spending. While companies use marketing as a means of advertising and promoting their products, it is not a guarantee that sales will increase, just as it is not a guarantee that a rent-seeker will obtain the rent. In both cases, resources and money will be spent and wasted.