Slavery (or getting poorer people to do the work for you) is the central concept of civilization. It cannot be done without it. It's not capital or advertising that makes all this work, it's forcing the poor to work and pay tax that makes the world go round d

The pyramids were not built by slaves, and while we can waffle around about "all labor is exploitative to some extent", it doesn't take exploitation-maxxing to drive great achievements. Most great modern achievements are driven by a desire for self-actualization or recognition, not survival.

https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/were-the-egyptian-pyram...

You might as well have said that without advertising, we wouldn't have charities, freedom of thought, and literature: the argument is as strong and might make you feel even better about yourself.

Oh, turns out that you did say that advertising solved slavery in another comment. Carry on, mate.

It is then useful to ask: if innovation is what we want, do there exist engines that aren't quite as expensive?

If the market economy has more of a human face than outright slavery, there's no reason to believe that it's impossible to do better: a Copernican position would say that we'd be no more likely to be correct than an ancient Egyptian who claims it's impossible to do better than state slavery.