28 January

Gabriel Tarde, predicting social media a century ahead of time. And in the process completely redefining economics as the science of passion and desire. Economics is fascinating when you realize it’s really about how people feel and what they desire, and not about boring as batshit supply and demand curves. “Conversation is eminently interesting to the economist. There is no economic relationship between men that is not first accompanied by an exchange of words, whether verbal, written, printed, telegraphed, or telephoned. Even when a traveler exchangers products with islanders whose language he does not know, these swaps only take place through the means of signs and gestures which are a silent form of language. In addition, how do these needs for production and consumption – for sale and purchase – which have just been mutually satisfied by a trade concluded thanks to conversation arise? Most often, thanks again to conversations, which had spread the idea of a new product to buy or to produce from one interlocutor to another, and, along with this idea, had spread trust in the qualities of the product or in its forthcoming output, and, finally, the desire to consume it or to manufacture it. If the public never conversed, the spreading of merchandise would almost always be a waste of time, and the hundred thousand advertising trumpets would sound in vain. If, for just one week, conversation ceased in Paris, it would show very quickly through the singular decrease in the number of sales in stores. There is no manager more powerful than consumption, nor, as a result, any factor more powerful – albeit indirect – in production than the chatter of individuals in their idle hours.”