ABSTRACT
The idea of evermore extensive consumer choice, which is burnished and proselytized by marketers, is not a blessing, but a curse. While millions across the world have barely enough to live on, we in the minority world suffer an excess of choice between an unmanageable array of alternatives. A standard supermarket in the wealthy developed countries will offer us some 40,000 different products. It takes more than eleven hours just to count to 40,000, and heaven knows how long to work out what that number of different items are and appraise their qualities. Many of these offerings will differ only in the most trivial way – perhaps just in the brand name, or a miniscule variation in performance which we can barely detect. But we are flattered into thinking we can, and get churlish when our discriminatory skills and newly honed preferences are not met. This pandering to whims we didn’t even know we had is turning us into hoity-toity prigs who must have things just-so. A British public that discovered wine little more than a generation ago, now demands specific grape varieties as a matter of course; where once black tea would suffice we now have endless variations on the theme (loose leaf, tea bags in numerous shapes and materials, varying strengths, different blends) as well as green tea, white tea and countless types of infusion.
