Which powerful interests am I talking about? Becca Rothfeld describes them in her brilliant, highly Spyplaney, celebrated new book, All Things Are Too Small: Essays in Praise of Excess. Discussing the 19th century “advent of mass manufacture,” Rothfeld writes that, “as factories churned out identical wares with unprecedented efficiency, limitations on production began to vanish. The final barrier to soaring profits was the stingy consumer, who could not be coaxed to continue wanting what she already owned. The ideal product was therefore something that a person would go on wanting even when she had it — something that would induce desire so pronounced that even possession could do nothing to dispel it.”