Consumer Society: Massive amounts of packaging containing nothing. An invention of great scientific value that allows the suppression of real needs by the imposition of artificial ones. However, the Consumer Society meets certain resistance in backward areas. (Statement of Don Pampero Conde, native of Cardona, Uruguay: “What good is the cold if I don’t have an overcoat.”)

— Eduardo Galeano (Dictionary of the New World Order, 1991)