The Engineering of Consent

"The Engineering of Consent" is an essay by Edward Bernays first published in 1947, and a book he published in 1955.
Overview.
In his own words, Bernays describes engineering consent as "use of an engineering approach—that is, action based only on thorough knowledge of the situation and on the application of scientific principles and tried practices to the task of getting people to support ideas and programs." 
Bernays explained, "Professionally, [public relations] activities are planned and executed by trained practitioners in accordance with scientific principles, based on the findings of social scientists. Their dispassionate approach and methods may be likened to those of the engineering professions which stem from the physical sciences."
The threat of engineered consent in democracy has been expressed in a textbook on American government:
To some observers, consumer psychologists have already made the choice for people before they buy a certain product. Marketing is often based on themes and symbols that unconsciously influence consumer behavior.
Essay.
The essay first appeared in the "Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science". The author's observations in the essay include the following:
Book.
In 1955 University of Oklahoma Press published Bernays' book "The Engineering of Consent". In fact Bernays contributed only the first chapter (22 pages) "The Theory and Practice of Public Relations: A Resumé". The seven other chapters were by his associates: "Objectives" by Howard Walden Cutler, "Research" by Sherwood Dodge, "Strategy" by Nicholas Samstag, "Themes and Symbols" by Doris Fleischman and H.W. Cutler, "Organization for public relations" by John Price Jones, "Planning" by Benjamin Fine, and "The tactics of public relations" by A. Robert Ginsburgh.
The longest chapter, the one on strategy, begins with sociological and psychological observations on human motivation drawn from Karl Menninger and Vilfredo Pareto. Samstag illustrates varieties of strategy with sample cases before the public. He details aspects of timing, forbearance, approach, surprise, participation, association, disassociation, crossroads, personalization, bland withdrawal, apparent withdrawal, apparent runner-up, omission, reversal, mosaic, and understatement.
Reviews.
A. Edgar Schuler called the book a "convenient and compact introduction to the field of public relations." He singles out Samstag’s chapter as "interesting, enlightening, provocative, and poignant."
M. Weisglas reviewed the book for International Communication Gazette, writing that "Bernays and company have deluded their readers with false hopes about public relations."
Women’s smoking.
In a practical example of Edward Bernays’ theory detailed in his essay, George Washington Hill, president of the American Tobacco Company, hired Edward Bernays in 1928 to lead a campaign to entice more women to smoke in public. The campaign is believed to have helped converting attitudes towards women's smoking from a social taboo to a more socially acceptable act. Bernays did this by associating women’s smoking with the ideas of "power" and "freedom" which he did by using the slogan Torches of Freedom during a famous parade in New York City.
The idea of “Engineering of Consent” was motivated by Freud’s idea that humans are irrational beings, and are motivated primarily by inner desires hidden in their unconscious. If one understood what those unconscious desires were, then one could use this to one’s advantage to sell products and increase sales.
Influence.
The Engineering of Consent also applies to the pioneered application of Freudian psychoanalytic concepts and techniques to business—in particular to the study of consumer behavior in the marketplace. Ideas established strongly influenced the practices of the advertising industry in the twentieth century.
The techniques applied developing the "consumer lifestyle" were also later applied to developing theories in cultural commodification; which has proven successful in the later 20th century (with diffusion of cultures throughout North America) to sell ethnic foods and style in popular mainstream culture by removing them from geography and ethnic histories and sanitizing them for a general public.
Ernest Dichter applied what he dubbed "the strategy of desire" for building a "stable society," by creating for the public a common identity through the products they consumed; again, much like with cultural commodification, where culture has no "identity," "meaning," or "history" inherited from previous generations, but rather, is created by the attitudes which are introduced by consumer behaviors and social patterns of the period. According to Dichter, "To understand a stable citizen, you have to know that modern man quite often tries to work off his frustrations by spending on self-sought gratification. Modern man is internally ready to fulfill his self-image, by purchasing products which compliment it."