You're over thinking this, we're just recovering from the invention (social hack) of PR as defined by Edward Bernays.
I am writing about an immutable attribute of human society since Mesopotamia and you cite a man that was born in 1928.
No. I'm talking about Plato and the Allegory of the Cave, the TPTB at every reset (like in the Matrix) co-opted technology and refine the management algorithm, we're at the metaphorical 7th reset. (To fit in your narrative it's been happening since before Mesopotamia.) Edward Bernays, is just the inventor of the technology that was used to co-opt the system at the last reset.
The wisdom is in the crowd, in the 70s PR was used to disrupt the wisdom of the group so it could be managed, and before that it was the use of recordings and radio exploited to perfection by the Nazis.
It's not that people want what you think they want, you are making a judgment based on a technology that is being circumvented by the internet and knowledge age..