Consumer choice

“ If you wish the consumer to be guaranteed, both as to value and as to healthfulness, you are forced to know and to determine all that constitutes good and honest production, to be continually at the heels of the manufacturer, and to guide him at every step. ”

“ They consist also of what may be called the policy of the whole business—the quick comprehension of the fluctuating wants of the consumer, the extent to which these may be led, the extent to which they must be followed, the constant power of adjusting the supply of a commodity to the demand. ”

“ I urge consumers, businesses, educators, community organizations, labor unions, the media, and government officials to identify, emphasize, and promote activities during National Consumers Week that draw attention to the consumer's rights under the Constitution. ”

“ National Consumers Week 1987 is dedicated to reminding us that the exercise of these rights helps to maintain the vigor of our economic system-creating positive pressure for better products, services, and warranties-and that consumer education is a lifelong process. ”

“ As regards all those things which are likely to remain in the hands of individual enterprise, as, for example, things in which taste plays an important rôle—garments, hats, wallpaper, furniture, musical instruments, other instruments of pleasure such as athletic goods, bicycles, automobiles, steam launches, photographic apparatus—the retailing of these is likely to remain as much a matter of private enterprise as the production of them.
As regards the necessaries of life the consumer should be able to get them at the lowest possible price. ”

“ Consumers need to understand the market economy, both here and abroad, and their options for earning, spending, saving, and investing income. Increased consumer and economic education in schools, workshops, the media, and the distribution of informative materials from government and business give consumers a greater appreciation of their rights and responsibilities in our incomparable American economy. ”

“ The essence of this pseudoresponse to an unanswerable communication is the acceptance and consumption of commodities. The consumer’s compulsion to imitate is a truly infantile need, conditioned by all the aspects of his fundamental dispossession. ”

“ Under the circumstances, it is safe to conclude that whenever the State undertakes to make goods or render services for which there is a demand it does so without regard to the wishes of the consumer. ”

“ Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer. ”

“ In this same process of evolution we are keeping before us the objectives of protecting, on the one hand, industry against chiselers within its own ranks, and, on the other hand, the consumer through the maintenance of reasonable competition for the prevention of the unfair sky-rocketing of retail prices. ”

“ I urge all business persons, educators, members of the professions, public officials, consumer leaders, and the media to observe this week by emphasizing and promoting the fundamental importance of consumer rights in our marketplace. ”

“ Every article in this list, which might be lengthened, can now be made or prepared for use out of the house of the consumer, not only better but more cheaply by the concentration of capital and labor in large industrial enterprises. ”

“ It has furthermore been the Institute's special province to express to each manufacturer the trend of consumer demand as seen, not only through the Institute's use of appliances, but through the thousands of consumers who report their experiences. ”

“ To all interested in or concerned with this great industry, there is one thing to be remembered above all else—study and test not only the mechanical construction and perfection of your product but know from every conceivable angle what the user or consumer is going to demand of it. If this be done, and done thoroughly, and exhaustively, you will build the appliance of the best materials obtainable, because it must wear well ”

“ Consumers should have access to a wide assortment of competitively priced goods and services produced here and abroad; accurate information on product content and care, on contractual agreements, on the cost of credit-essentially whatever facts are needed to make an informed choice. ”

“ The consumer must also be indirectly benefited as well as the producer, from the fact that such a policy would prevent a glut in the market of such perishable articles and the consequent discouragement on the part of the producer, sometimes ending in a resolution to grow no more fruit for market, owing to the loss entailed. ”

“ Those who are sensitive to consumer needs and services and recognize that well-informed consumers mean business-repeat sales and sound market relationships-can expect to be rewarded with continuing opportunities to serve and profit. ”

“ Does the manufacturer exist for the consumer or does the consumer exist for the manufacturer? If the consumer will not--says he cannot--buy what the manufacturer has to offer, is that the fault of the manufacturer or the consumer? ”

“ The standardization that effects large economies for the consumer results in profits of such gross magnitude to the producer that he can scarcely know what to do with his money. But his effort must be sincere, painstaking, and fearless. ”

“ A major function of our competitive free enterprise economy is to satisfy consumer demand. The effective demand of consumers is what keeps producers in the business of supplying goods and services and is vital to keeping the wheels of industry turning. ”

“ If this custom were universal, and strictly adhered to, competition indeed would still operate, but the consumer would not derive any benefit from it, at least as to price; the way in which it would diminish the advantages of those engaged in the retail trade, would be by a greater subdivision of the business. ”

“ The ideal is that where a society exists the main raw materials of the industry shall be bought wholesale instead of retail, and the main products of the industry sold retail instead of wholesale; that thereby middlemen’s and other profits shall be reduced to a reasonable figure, and that the consumer shall get the most efficient possible service with regard to his supplies. ”

“ It is universally conceded that combinations which engross or control the market of any particular kind of merchandise or commodity necessary to the general community, by suppressing natural and ordinary competition, whereby prices are unduly enhanced to the general consumer, are obnoxious not only to the common law but also to the public welfare. ”

“ This will create steady and long-term domestic demand to sustain economic development.
We will strengthen the foundational role of consumption in promoting economic growth. To adapt to the trend toward high-end consumption, we will remove policy barriers, improve the consumer environment, and safeguard the rights and interests of consumers. We will support the growth of consumption in elderly care, health services, housekeeping services, educational and training services, and cultural and sports services. ”

“ These principles of freedom and fairness are the basis for consumer rights in the marketplace: the right to choose among products, services, and suppliers; the right to adequate information about what we buy; the right to expect that products offered for sale will conform to reasonable safety standards; the right to be heard; and the right to consumer education. ”

“ The undertaking is praiseworthy, and has accomplished some good. But its effects are limited by obvious causes. It is extremely difficult in many cases for the consumer to discover the conditions of production of what he wishes to buy. It is a nuisance to have to burden himself with such perplexing considerations. ”

“ But in the final analysis it is the knowledgeable consumer and the responsible business person whose decisions will determine the success or failure of products and services in the competitive marketplace. ”

“ They saw only the cheapening of the product, the vast increase in the total amount produced, and the piling up of profits, and they beheld in all three results nothing but social advantage. Verily both manufacturer and consumer were benefited. When the more thoughtful turned their attention to the actual makers through whose labors the cloth and the shoes and the pins of specialized industry were produced, they satisfied themselves that the worker must also be a sharer in the benefits of the new system; for, said they, everyone who is a worker is also a consumer. ”

“ Every citizen can benefit from knowing more about consumer laws, rights, and avenues of redress. Many people-including the young, the elderly and the poor-need help in learning about buying skills, financial management, resource conservation methods, and self-help or alternative solutions to economic constraints. ”

“ High prices in the cities lead the residents there to seek relief by direct dealings with the producer. The consumer will reach him if he puts himself in touch with the man who is seeking, and the desire to sell his goods and do business, should lead the producer to inquire how best it can be done. ”

“ Its importance lies in the fact that it obliges us to regard what is called economic choice not as a balancing of utilities, marginal or otherwise, but as a process of "constructive comparison." The new commodity and its purchase price are in reality symbols for alternatively possible systems of life and action. Can the old be relinquished for the new? Before this question is answered each system may be criticized and interpreted from the standpoint of the other, each may be supplemented by suggestion, by dictate of tradition and by impulsive prompting, by inference, and by conjecture. ”

“ The interests of the consumer of any commodity whatsoever should always prevail over the interests of the producer. ”

“ The portion of her people who are engaged as factors,--for this is the true calling of the man who is a regular agent between the common producer and the common consumer,--are of a high class as factors, but not of the high class of merchants. ”

“ I call upon Government officials, industry leaders, and advocates across the Nation to provide our citizens with information about consumer rights, and I encourage all Americans to take a proactive role in strengthening our economy. ”

“ There is not enough encouragement in the present situation to lull to inactivity any one who is interested in the improvement of the producer’s conditions, but just enough to prevent complete discouragement and to suggest promising fields for future work in the interest of those who make what others use.
MORE CONSCIENCE FOR THE CONSUMER THE consumer is he who uses wealth. Each of us, therefore, is a consumer. The wealth which we use is of two classes. The first includes natural products; the second, those commodities which have been made from natural products through human agency. ”

“ Seeing that production is limited by consumption, what rule must be followed in distributing the results of production to be consumed in order to develop consumption to the highest possible point, and thereby in turn to create the greatest possible demand for production. ”

“ In short, all these vices, besides many others which I omit, are multiplied by the extreme complication of mercantile affairs; for products do not pass once only through the greedy clutches of commerce; there are some which pass and repass twenty or thirty times before reaching the consumer. ”

“ Economic goods may, therefore have a greater or smaller utility depending upon the place, the time, and the consumer. Bear in mind, moreover, that each consumer matches the utility of one commodity with the utility of other commodities which he finds available, and his demand follows the direction 41of the greater utility. ”

“ Food is set on our tables ready to eat. It might as well have been created that way, for all our concern. The thousands of operations that go into an article before the consumer buys it—no, there is no reason why use and want should make us callous and indifferent to the hows and wherefores. ”

“ In short, every person should either be a producer or a paid agent or officer of consumers and producers, and our entire system of shopkeeping reduced to a magnificent system of immense public markets. ”

“ Not only the manufacturer and the merchant must guide their transactions by calculations of supply and demand, based on numerous facts, and tacitly recognising sundry general principles of social action; but even the retailer must do the like: his prosperity very greatly depending upon the correctness of his judgments respecting the future wholesale prices and the future rates of consumption. Manifestly, whoever takes part in the entangled commercial activities of a community, is vitally interested in understanding the laws according to which those activities vary. ”

“ As regards the mass of civilized mankind, the idiosyncrasies of the individual consumers are required to conform to the uniform gradations imposed upon consumable goods by the comprehensive mechanical processes of industry. ”