>Interesting, what do you think is the distinction? The greatest contributor to flourishing capitalism is strong consumerism. And the biggest driver of the consumerist mind is capitalist manipulation. They feed off of each other, and are so intertwined that it's hardly useful to refer to one without acknowledging that it comes with the other.

It would be disingenuous to pretend the two aren't highly interrelated, but we are still discussing two separate phenomena.

The distinction, I think, can be summarised by "build a better mousetrap". I'll try the new product and mention it to my friends. Soon everyone is buying the new mousetrap. That's competition at work.

You don't need a multi-million ad campaign carrying an implicit, or perhaps explicit, message of "if you don't buy <new mousetrap> your wife will leave you/women won't find you attractive/<insert any other insecurity>".

Consumerism is the encouragement of consumption by encouraging vanity and appealing to emotional insecurities. Fundamentally I object to the application of psychological science to the manipulation of society in order to extract profit by causing psychological distress.