> I fail to see how corporations can be considered anything other than the
> logical consequences of demand for products. It can't be the case that
> supply creates demand. It must be the case that buyers consider certain
> products will make life nicer.
> -- Wat Tyler
>

Couldn't let that one go. OK, sure, that's the *theory*, and we are
all can be led to think that corporations got big only because they
created goods we had a demand for. The corollary, of course, is
that smaller companies went out of business because they created
goods nobody wanted to buy. It's naive, but that's the popular
theory. And so we look at large multinationals in that light, and we
conclude that "capitalism works". And, if only little old me could
create goods that people demand then I will be rich like them.

It never occurs to us that big-money multinationals *create* demand
for products we would never normally desire. They have the
advertising dollars to saturate our eyes and ears with advertising
images and slogans that stick in our minds until we buy the product.
The ability to *create* a demand for products we previously had no
desire for is not only as old as capitalism, but the ability to "sell
ice to an Eskimo" is the mark of a top salesman. Salespeople know
that there are elements of seduction and rhetoric in making the sale,
and more often than not selling less to do with the person's "need"
and more to do with creating a "desire" for the product in the mind
of the buyer.