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Journal of Business Ethics
Published in: Journal of Business Ethics 2/2020

10-09-2019 | Editorial Essay

‘Freedom Through Marketing’ Is Not Doublespeak

Authors: Haseeb Shabbir, Michael R. Hyman, Dianne Dean, Stephan Dahl

Published in: Journal of Business Ethics | Issue 2/2020

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Abstract

The articles comprising this thematic symposium suggest options for exploring the nexus between freedom and unfreedom, as exemplified by the British abolitionists’ anti-slavery campaign and the paradox of freedom. Each article has implications for how these abolitionists achieved their goals, social activists’ efforts to secure reparations for slave ancestors, and modern slavery (e.g., human trafficking). We present the abolitionists’ undertaking as a marketing campaign, highlighting the role of instilling moral agency and indignation through re-humanizing the dehumanized. Despite this campaign’s eventual success, its post-emancipation phase illustrates a paradox of freedom. After introducing mystification as an explanation for the obscuring rhetoric used to conceal post-emancipation violations of freedom during the West’s colonial phase, we briefly discuss the appropriateness of reparations. Finally, we discuss the contributions made by the articles in this thematic symposium.
next article Addressing the Ethical Challenge of Market Inclusion in Base-of-the-Pyramid Markets: A Macromarketing Approach

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Footnotes
1
Wilberforce’s persuasive counterarguments to the ‘sham of Negro inferiority’ (Baker 1970), which helped end slavery, were his lasting contribution to society. To commemorate him and the first centenary of the Abolitionist Act, in 1933, the University of Hull established a National Wilberforce Memorial Committee to fund an endowed Wilberforce Chair of History (Hayward 1985). In 1983, a lecture series and conference on the intersection between freedom and slavery was established. “The intertwining of cultural and political themes, inseparable from the history of West Indian slavery and its contemporary legacies…was the leitmotif of the international conference” (Hayward 1985, p. 2). More recently, the University of Hull’s Wilberforce Institute of Slavery and Emancipation helped to shape the U.K. government’s Modern Slavery Act of 2015.
 
2
In contrast to de-marketing, which seeks to reduce product demand without maligning the product, counter-marketing treats the product as inherently harmful (Kotler 1973; Kotler and Levy 1971). British abolitionists meant to eliminate demand for slaves by impugning slavery, which is counter-marketing.
 
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Metadata
Title
‘Freedom Through Marketing’ Is Not Doublespeak
Authors
Haseeb Shabbir
Michael R. Hyman
Dianne Dean
Stephan Dahl
Publication date
10-09-2019
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Published in
Journal of Business Ethics / Issue 2/2020
Print ISSN: 0167-4544
Electronic ISSN: 1573-0697
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-019-04281-x

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