CONSUMERISM. As long as business has existed - since the ancient beginnings of commerce and trade-consumers have tried to protect their interests when they go to the

As long as business has existed - since the ancient beginnings of commerce and trade-consumers have tried to protect their interests when they go to the marketplace to buy goods and services. They have haggled over prices, taken a careful look at the goods they are buying, compared the quality and prices of products offered by other sellers, and complained loudly when they feel cheated by shoddy products. So, consumer self-reliance has always been one form of consumer protection. The Latin phrase caveat emptor - meaning 'let the buyer beware' - has put consumers on the alert to look after their own interest. This form of individual self-reliance is still very much in existence today.

However, the increasing complexity of economic life in the20th century, especially in the more advanced industrial nations, has led to organized, collective efforts to safeguard consumers. These organized activities are usually called consumerism or the consumer movement.

At the heart of consumerism in the United States is the attempt to expand the rights and powers of consumers. The goal of the movement is to make consumer power an effective counterbalance to the rights and powers of business firms that sell goods and services.

Within an advanced, industrialized, free enterprise nation, business firms tend to grow to a very large size. They acquire much power and influence. Frequently, they can dictate prices. Typically, their advertisements sway consumers to buy one product or service rather than another. If large enough, they may share the market with only a few equally large competitors, thereby weakening some of the competitive protections enjoyed by consumers where business firms are smaller and more numerous. The economic influence and power of business firms may therefore become a problem for consumers unless ways can be found to promote an equal amount of consumer power. Most consumers would feel well-protected if their fundamental right to fair play in the marketplace could be guaranteed. In the early 1960s when the consumer movement in the United States was in its early stages, President John F. Kennedy told Congress that consumers were entitled to four different kinds of protection: 1. The right to safety: to be protected against the marketing of goods which are hazardous to health or life.

2. The right to be informed: to be protected against fraudulent, deceitful, or grossly misleading information, advertising, labeling, or other practices, and to be given the facts to make an informed choice.

3. The right to choose: to be assured, wherever possible, access to a variety of products and services at competitive prices and in those industries in which competition is not workable and government regulation is substituted, to be assured satisfactory quality and service at fair prices.

4. The right to be heard: to be assured that consumer interests will receive full and sympathetic consideration in the formulation of government policy, and fair and expeditious treatment in its administrative tribunals.

The consumer bill of rights, as it was called, became the guiding philosophy of the consumer movement. If those rights could be guaranteed, consumers would feel more confident in dealing with well-organized and influential corporation in the marketplace