U.S.A: A society of experiment!

I was recently watching the "The century of self", a B.B.C documentary. The documentary shows the various cultural transformation which were pushed and influenced by some major psychologists/psychoanlaysts.

Some highlights of the documentary:

Phase A:

• Invention of public relations. Invention of Advertisement, appealing to the irrational self of a consumer (Sigmund Freud: human behavior is guided by unconscious sexual and aggressive drives). However, this approach failed after recession. (due to over production)
• Paradox of making people choose (the elite want people to have a rational choice which is better for all) and still making it look like democracy. (so ultimately manipulating the choice of consumers)

Phase B:

• Free society by liberating the consumer, over feeding the desire.
• Lifestyle marketing.
• Self actualization. (Focus groups vs psychological market research)

So , the open question is "if people are irrational", building a feedback mechanism as in ideal democracy will make irrational decisions. Do we need a leadership which takes the vision of people beyond their own selfish needs or they must just cater to their short term demands.