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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 satisfy.(1)____ Others accuse advertising for creating a materialistic society full of people think that happiness lies in owning things and who are obsessed with buying consumer goods.(2)____(3)____ These critics think we are creating a society in which private goods are plentiful and in which public goods, which are seldom advertised, are ignored-a society rich in private cars but whose highways and streets are disintegrating.(4)____ Ads drive selfish consumption on the expense of friendship, community, art, and truth.(5)____ Further more, advertising allows the system to "buy off" political unsatisfied people with promises and consumer goods, leading to political apathy and the undermining of democracy.(6)____ However, there are many who think these sorts of criticismsexaggerate the impact of ads on society.
Major social changes are caused by advertising; ads follow social trends, and they don't create them.(7)____ This debate centers on two perhaps resolvable issues.(8)____ 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 objective.(9)____ Perhaps it is more helpful to look at specific issues rather than the social impact of advertising in the general.(10)____
