There are the economists who proclaim that the essence (and the moral justification) of capitalism is “service to others—to the consumers,” that the consumers’ wishes are the absolute edicts ruling the free market, etc. (This is an example of what a definition by non-essentials accomplishes, and of why a half-truth is worse than a lie: what all such theorists fail to mention is the fact that capitalism grants economic recognition to only one kind of consumer: the producer—that only traders, i.e., producers who have something to offer, are recognized on a free market, not “consumers” as such—that, in a capitalist economy, as in reason, in justice, and in reality, production is the pre-condition of consumption.)

No “anti-concept” launched by the “liberals” goes so far so crudely as the tag “consumerism.” It implies loudly and clearly that the status of “consumer” is separate from and superior to the status of “producer”; it suggests a social system dedicated to the service of a new aristocracy which is distinguished by the ability to “consume” and vested with a special claim on the caste of serfs marked by the ability to produce.

- Ayn Rand. Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966).