Just a Reminder

This has been coming for a long time.

The plot summary of dystopian science fiction novel ""The Space Merchants":

In a vastly overpopulated world, businesses have taken the place of governments and now hold all political power. States exist merely to ensure the survival of huge trans-national corporations. Advertising has become hugely aggressive and by far the best-paid profession. Through advertising, the public is constantly deluded into thinking that the quality of life is improved by all the products placed on the market. However, the most basic elements are incredibly scarce, including water and fuel.

Excerpt from "The Space Merchants", which was published 58 years ago:

...
He covered the tedious lobbying and friendmaking in Congress, which had given us the exclusive right to levy tribute and collect from the planet—and I began to see how he could expect to get away with a nine-minute commercial. He explained how the government—it's odd how we still think and talk of that clearinghouse for pressures as though it were an entity with a will of its own—how the government wanted Venus to be an American planet and how they had selected the peculiarly American talent of advertising to make it possible.

As he spoke we all caught some of his fire.

I envied the man who would head the Venus Section; any one of us would have been proud to take the job. He spoke of trouble with the Senator from Du Pont Chemicals with his forty-five votes, and of an easy triumph over the Senator from Nash-Kelvinator with his six.
...

A long, long time.