Besides concerns about how ads affect individuals, critics have raised ethical issues about how advertising affects society. For example, J. K. Galbraith argued that advertising creates the desires that the production of consumer goods then satisfies. This dependence effect, in which consumer desires for goods depend on the process of creating the goods, undermines the usual ethical justification of capitalism based on consumer freedom of choice and the value of supplying people with the goods that they want. Others accuse advertising of creating a materialistic society full of people who think that happiness lies in owning things and who are obsessed with buying consumer goods. These critics think we are creating a society in which private goods are plentiful but in which public goods, which are seldom advertised, are ignored—a society rich in private cars but whose highways and streets are disintegrating. Ads drive selfish consumption at the expense of friendship, community, art, and truth. Furthermore, advertising allows the system to “buy off” politically unsatisfied people with promises and consumer goods, leading to political apathy and the undermining of democracy. However, there are many who think these sorts of criticisms exaggerate the impact of ads on society. Schudson, for example, claims that advertising does not have much impact on society because it does not increase product-type usage; it only leads to brand switching and functions primarily as reminders to people who are already heavy users of a product-type.
Major social changes are not caused by advertising; ads follow social trends, they do not create them. This debate centers on two perhaps unresolvable issues. First, there is the empirical question of how much impact advertising has on society; this is difficult to answer because the effect of ads cannot be separated from other social forces, and because it is hard to determine whether ads cause or follow social trends. Second, there is the ethical question of whether the purported effects, such as materialism, are morally objectionable. Perhaps it is more helpful to look at specific issues rather than the social impact of advertising in general.