“Through opinion polling and market research, government and business were supposed to become more responsive to their masters, the people. But what actually happened, as Tocqueville had predicted, was that the more responsive huge organizations seemed to be, the more they were able to set the boundaries of public discourse. Advertising executives and other practitioners of the ‘human sciences’ promoted this convergence of corporate and government interests, as they shared not only an objectivist cognitive style but also a preoccupation with the management of public opinion.”
— Jackson Lears, Fables of Abundance, pp. 244–45