Comment by Geee
5 hours ago
A lot of growth activity in businesses is zero sum, if it isn't increasing the efficiency of production. Businesses can't create demand from thin air with marketing.
Total productivity of the world is number_of_people * productivity_of_human. There's growth whenever these terms grow. People want to produce at least as much as they want to consume. So, growth is caused by more people being born, or people adopting more efficient methods of production, up to a limit where their all needs are met.
> Businesses can't create demand from thin air with marketing.
I would never suggest ex nihilo demand. There’s always some seed.[1]
Women back in the day didn’t smoke. Untapped market. A marketing campaign convinced a lot of women that smoking was something that liberated women did.
I’d say convincing people that replacing clean air with carginogenic fumes gets pretty close to a manufactured want.
[1] For cigarettes: maybe stress relief from nicotine.