Many people are familiar with the works of Sigmund Freud, the famous Austrian father of psychiatry. His work had massive influence in the world of mental health though many, if not most of his theories have been debunked. His not-so-famous, yet much more influential nephew was a man by the name of Edward Bernays. The Bernays family came to the United States in 1892. Edward graduated from Cornell University in 1912 and made his fortune off the backs of the working man, and has had a direct hand in how we feel about ourselves today.

What he saw in the people of the United States was a large population of people he could influence and take advantage of. He recognized that people are ultimately selfish and discovered that he could manipulate that selfishness for profit. He made millions of dollars consulting American corporations how to extract the savings from the American working class.

Bernays called his method of social persuasion of the masses “engineered consent” and posed this question in his book: “If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it? The recent practice of propaganda proved that it is possible, at least up to a certain point and within certain limits.”