What did you find interesting or uninteresting about the piece? Was there something that seemed intuitive or counterintuitive? Explain.
The WWII propaganda posters' messages don't correctly coincide with the laws of supply and demand. All of the posters urge the people of America to consume less of specific materials (i.e. rubber, certain metals, etc.) in order to ensure that there are ample amounts of these goods to input into aircrafts, weapons, tanks, and other war necessities. This advice is juxtaposed with supply and demand laws because demand is the driving force behind supply. In fact, it would make more sense for Americans to consume the same amount, if not more, of the raw materials needed for the war effort during times of conflict. For example, if United States citizens demanded more rubber erasers, suppliers of such products would have to create more erasers. Thus, more rubber would have to cultivated in order to meet the demands of the people. By the laws of supply and demand, there would have been more rubber circulating in the American market in that instance than if the United States people took the advice of the posters. Not only that, but the existence of more rubber in the market would have lowered its price. Overall, this would have improved the war effort.
Discussion Questions
Presumably, Americans followed the advice of the posters and consumed less than they normally would due to the war. What affect would this have on the prices of specific goods they were told to reduce usage of? How would listening to the propaganda messages skew the price system as a whole? Explain.
Annotation
Pointing out the flaws in the suggestions of the propaganda posters enforces our understanding of how supply and demand work. Demand is the driving force behind supply. Producers make more of something when the demand for it is higher. This, it turn, makes a product less expensive because price decreases when there is more of something in a particular market.
Great work. Interesting questions as well. As we'll learn in class over the next week, these types of campaigns are historically very BAD at getting people to reduce their consumption of goods. There's a parallel to be drawn here to when we were trying to get students to switch recitations so each TA had the same amount of students...
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