Published in: What People Want. Populism in Architecture and Design; ed. by Michael Shamiyeh and DOM Research Laboratory; Basel, Boston & Berlin: Birkhäuser, 2005, pp. 98-115. First published in German, in: Konrad Paul Liessmann (Hg.), Die Kanäle der Macht. Herrschaft und Freiheit im Medienzeitalter. Philosophicum Lech Band 6, Wien: Zsolnay, 2003, pp. 36-60. Translated into English by Silvia Plaza Mental Capitalism Georg Franck Everything smacks of publicity. Wherever we look, there are logos, whatever the event, we are reminded of sponsors. Advertising finances mass culture but, increasingly, high culture, too. Consumption has shifted from products to brands. Branded goods are commodity-shaped advertisements. We are witnessing an invasion of brands. Before our eyes, cities and landscapes mutate into advertising media. Publicity settles like mildew on everything open to public view. It determines the shape of everything intent on making a public impression: also the shape of politics. Political parties are advertised like registered trade marks. The thirst of politics for promotion outlays has reached a point where it corrupts the traditional party system and has become a major source of political scandal. What is it that endows publicity with such power? Is it technological progress or dominant economics? Are we confronted with a new phenomenon or with the culmination of old trends? Is publicity a symptom of information society? Or is it a novel manifestation of technology and social economy? The publicity flood: symptom for what? There are standard economic reasons for promotion activities. Expenditure on advertising pays where economies of scale can be exploited. Economies of scale are