> I really don't like the idea of living in a society where companies I buy things from are trying to scam me by using Pavlov-esque techniques of using fake discounts to get my attention, especially because that works. Really, is that the society we want to have?

I concur with this sentiment strongly. I use websites such as CamelCamelCamel to see how long it has been at this "sale" price. But this only works for Amazon. I would love to see an equivalent site that tracks for many more websites.

It's particularly disgusting when you see "Black Friday Sales" that are an actual increase in the price. I saw a picture of a price tag of $219.99, with a sticker overlaid with a price of $249.99 with a "sale" price of $229.99. The kicker was the sticker was slightly transparent, and you could clearly see the original $219.99 underneath.

I've heard there are places with legislation that says you can only have on sale for as long as it was at the pre-sale price. I think this could help fight places with perpetual sales. The sad thing is this has become so ingrained in our culture, that when JC Penny tried to stop doing this, they lost a ton of customers, and a significant amount of money [0]. There would have to be a significant culture shift to go away from this.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxfkWZPAUg4

A lot of products you buy, especially those featured on The Price is Right, aren't sold directly to you they're sold to other companies/distributors for wholesale prices then they sell it on to you (or sometimes another step through a distributor). The manufacturer has no association with you at all and having them fix a price would remove competition from all those stores. It's coming really close to being a price control cartel too, it'll just mean stores can't compete on price to get you into their doors which will probably mean higher prices.

You should see the documentary PROPAGANDA: Engineering Consent, on Edward Bernays' theory.

I think about this (in different flavors) all the time. It all comes down to: how much government control do you want in society? For places like the US, well, the answer was at the time of its founding: as little as we can afford (but then again, I don't think the founding fathers could have predicted how absolutely gargantuan the federal government was going to get). The idea of "as little government as possible" was a rough model that continued to thrive as people migrated westward and states were incorporated. With such little oversight came eras like the Gilded Age, during one can see the birth of the modern corporation and the freedoms they took to grow and exploit their markets as they saw fit, all in the name of profits.

We're now arguably in the middle of a 2nd Gilded Age; the size and scope of tech companies today would make the JP Morgan's/Rockefeller's of yester-century red with envy, and we've done jack shit as a society to hold them accountable for just about everything. And if we're in the middle of a 2nd Gilded Age, are we also in need of a 2nd wave of Progressivism? Most likely. I don't know how much they could get done though. The modern model of policymaking (especially at the federal level) is so choked with so many voices trying to get the attention of politicians that you often need a hefty budget to get anything done. Even then, it's at a snail's pace. And even if something smelling of a 2nd Progressive wave started to percolate, the sky-high polarization of public discourse on the Internet would make it nigh-impossible to get the facts straight. It makes it an even tougher sell to Americans that hate big government that we need to implement sensible legislation that is in their best interest.

This is probably one of the biggest hurdles today to getting anything done: convincing the general public that corporations are not your friend and do not/never will have your best interests at heart.