Status Updates From The Space Merchants

Almost every issue had good news in it for us—the same news that these Consies tut-tutted over. Increase of population was always good news to us. More people, more sales. Decrease of IQ was always good news to us. Less brains, more sales. But these eccentrically oriented fanatics couldn't see it that way, and I had to pretend to go along with them.

Five words from you, and in a matter of weeks or months half a million consumers will find their lives completely changed. That's power, Mitch, absolute power. And you know the old saying. Power ennobles. Absolute power ennobles absolutely.[...] Nobody should play with lives the way we do unless he's motivated by the highest ideals. [...] The "highest ideal" I had been about to cite was Sales.

It was an appeal to reason, and they're always dangerous. You can't trust reason. We threw it out of the ad profession long ago and have never missed it.