"Mass demand has been created almost entirely through the development of advertising"
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Coolidge’s line lands like a quiet indictment from a man remembered for quiet. Coming from a pro-business Republican president of the 1920s, it’s not a left critique of capitalism so much as a cold-eyed accounting of how capitalism had changed. The older story said people wanted things, and markets rose to meet them. Coolidge flips the arrow: the wanting itself is manufactured, and advertising is the factory.
The intent is diagnostic, not moralistic. He’s naming a new power center in American life: the engineers of appetite. By the time Coolidge is speaking, the U.S. has mass production humming, radios spreading a shared culture, national brands replacing local goods, and credit turning “later” into “now.” In that ecosystem, advertising isn’t a billboard; it’s infrastructure. It links surplus supply to psychological demand, turning abundance into necessity.
The subtext is where it gets sharp. If demand is “created,” then consumers are less sovereign than the rhetoric of free choice implies. That doesn’t make people dupes; it makes persuasion a civic force, shaping what feels normal, desirable, even respectable. Coolidge’s phrasing - “almost entirely” - is the tell: he’s suggesting a near-total rewiring of motivation, from need-based buying to identity-based consumption.
It also reads as an elite warning about social stability. A country trained to equate fulfillment with acquisition becomes easier to manage in the short term and harder to satisfy in the long term. Coolidge, the steward of a roaring economy, is acknowledging the roar’s hidden engine: not production, but persuasion.
The intent is diagnostic, not moralistic. He’s naming a new power center in American life: the engineers of appetite. By the time Coolidge is speaking, the U.S. has mass production humming, radios spreading a shared culture, national brands replacing local goods, and credit turning “later” into “now.” In that ecosystem, advertising isn’t a billboard; it’s infrastructure. It links surplus supply to psychological demand, turning abundance into necessity.
The subtext is where it gets sharp. If demand is “created,” then consumers are less sovereign than the rhetoric of free choice implies. That doesn’t make people dupes; it makes persuasion a civic force, shaping what feels normal, desirable, even respectable. Coolidge’s phrasing - “almost entirely” - is the tell: he’s suggesting a near-total rewiring of motivation, from need-based buying to identity-based consumption.
It also reads as an elite warning about social stability. A country trained to equate fulfillment with acquisition becomes easier to manage in the short term and harder to satisfy in the long term. Coolidge, the steward of a roaring economy, is acknowledging the roar’s hidden engine: not production, but persuasion.
Quote Details
| Topic | Marketing |
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