In brief, the narcissistic parent treats their child as a proxy for themselves that they both indulge and manipulate in order to mold them in their own image.
The fact that millions of people subscribed to mobiles is evidence enough that they are economically empowering because low-income people cannot sustainably indulge in purchases that do not advance them economically.
Some of Dichter's preachings--among them: that marketers should offer absolution to consumers who indulge in guilty pleasures like smoking cigarettes or eating sweets--seem laughably simple today.
The Vikings who settled Iceland smoked, dried, salted or pickled just about anything to get them through the long Arctic winter and their descendents still occasionally indulge in the delicacies of their ancestors, washing it all down with Black Death, a caraway-flavored liquor that apparently goes well with rancid shark.