Credit is now being promoted and advertised as never before. People are being persuaded to buy money and then being told by other advertisements what to spend it on. Banks and Building Societies are at the forefront of this onslaught, heedless of the effect of personal debt on the social fabric and the balance of payments and a laissez-faire government refuses to take any responsibility. Artificial needs and desires are being foisted upon us and, because of the employment of evermore sophisticated techniques, we are beginning to believe that they are natural and immutable.

We now have to contend with junk mail, telephone selling and even cold visits by sales representatives to our homes in the evening. There is a new and thriving market for "luxury" goods, often bought on credit, naturally, with the manufacturers of glassware, china, jewellery and leather-bound books promoting their products and the associated "lifestyle" all over the place.

Designer labels have acquired special status and emanated a kind of religious aura. Any pair of jeans will not do; it has to be a pair with the correct label. Not only have we been transmogrified into habitual consumers, but we are increasingly defining ourselves and each other in terms of objects. We have become commodity fetishists. Images of consumers in adverts are largely stereotypes; they have to stand for categories of people in order to strike a bond of identification with as many of us as possible.