Viewpoint of the Consumer

When Adam Smith described his self-regulating economy in the 1770's, he assumed that its motive power would be provided by the interplay of mutual demands and concessions between economic entities, and that such interplay would result in a balance of power. Since that time, the growth of huge corporations that employ modern technology, complex manufacturing processes, mass production, and mass advertising, into "clusters of private collectivisms" has substantially upset any such supposed balance of power.