Remember, there's also a powerful tendency to absolve people of the consequences of their actions by painting them as victims of powerful corporate mind-control

Remember, there's also a powerful tendency to absolve people of the consequences of their actions by painting them as victims of powerful corporate mind-control. If you eat fast food for every meal, is your obesity your fault, or are you a victim of food corporations' incredibly effective advertising? If you smoke a pack a day, despite all the public information that smoking is harmful, is that your fault or the fault of the tobacco industry's advertising? If Doctorow is right, and advertising is ineffective, there's a lot of people who will have to accept that their situation is a product of their own actions. For a lot of people, this is "victim-blaming" and unacceptable. It's a lot easier to have large corporations being evil powerful baddies who control us and therefore absolve us of responsibility for our actions.