Advertising has always had bad press with economists, but consumers discover that a product either works and works well, or it doesn't. Consumer wants are not artificially created by business itself. Advertising as a selling cost seemed evil. The free market benefits every participant. But intervention benefits one group at the expense of another. Political advertising - propaganda - gets a free pass.

Lecture 3 of 16 from Austrian Economics: An Introductory Course, presented at New York Polytechnic University in 1972.