The Smartly Attired Philanthropists

Selling requires packaging. Capitalism is based upon packaging. Everything, including lifestyles and consumer goods comes with packaging. Packaging increases resale value exponentially. You can take a £1 item and package it, so that you can charge £100 for it. Brand creation is packaging. Who wants to buy plain old trainers for £5 when you can pay £200 for the latest Nike style instead. A small piece of sewn fabric becomes a fashion item packaged and wrapped around the bosom of a supermodel. Capitalism and packaging go hand in glove. We package our lifestyles and homes, we package our cars, we package our children so that they look like the models in the adverts.

Adverts sell us packaging that wraps up ordinariness in more attractive clothing. Processed food with little nutritional value becomes a value item because the package tells us it is. Packaging and advertising go together like shoes and socks. Socks take on ever new colours and designs, introducing ribbing, none slip coatings and become new items in themselves, a kind of hybrid sock shoe. Ultimate capitalists insist on wearing socks only once. They kindly have them washed, pressed and delivered to charities as a token of their philanthropy. This is the new philanthropy that takes £100 to donate £1 to charity. It is the fashionable packaged form of philanthropy. It is the brand new chic philanthropy, that takes the plaudits and reduces the benefits. Packaging, it wraps our lives and strangles our planet.

Necessity is the mother of invention. Packaging is the father of reinvention. You cannot keep buying yesterdays product - that is so uncool. Try today's newly repackaged product and keep up your cool factor. It's you+. Today you buy the cool packaged product, tomorrow you tire of it and want more. We have just the thing. Tomorrow, we will repackage it as unpackaged and 100% pure squeezed and organic. O consumer, don't lose face. Let everybody know you are in our embrace.