It is a fact that “need” is often mistaken for “desire” and that “desire” can be created and manipulated out of nothing by the advertising industry. As a species we are unique in that we are highly suggestible. You try convincing any other animal it needs something that it clearly doesn’t – no other species will have any of it

Now I’m not advocating a dismantling of the world economy or a move to any sort of pastoral anarchism, but a bit more regulation on advertising wouldn’t go amiss. We are already comfortable with the idea that we shouldn’t advertise things too freely that will kill us, maybe we need to look at this in a broader context, because there are lots of things that are produced that in one way or another do more harm than good. For example things that take time effort and resource to produce, have a life span of a millisecond, and then present nothing but a disposal problem – the crap that gets given away to kids with fast food for instance. All this will do is challenge our creative types to look for products with a more clearly demonstrable public and social good. And I think that where there’s a will there’s a way