I think the planet can handle us consuming non-essensital products moderately; it's current mentality of excesses what does the irreparable damage.
I don't think the men in charge of corporations are evil by themselves... but, at some point, when a corporation gets big enough, it "takes a mind of its own" and starts doing anything it can to produce more money. This doesn't happen because of intentional greed (I like to believe), and certainly NOT by necessity in any case... it happens simply out of inertia (by the physic definition of the word). When this happens, it doesn't matter what the long term consequences are: an entire town can be unemployed if the machines are more efficient and less expensive, a lake can be polluted if it costs too much to take the waste somewhere else, etc... If it's making more money, that's all the corporation understands.
If being perceived as a polluting or unfair corporation lowers our income: fine, let's pretend we care. Let's make some news ads. Let's redesign the logo to make it more friendly looking. But do they really care? Of course they don't: they can't. Do corporations stop polluting lakes because it's illegal or because they care? Of course they do it because it's illegal... if it wasn't, every corporation would drop their waste wherever it was more convenient for them. That means that, at the moment they find a way to pollute that isn't technically illegal or that can't be detected easily, it becomes acceptable.
By this same logic, if a corporation can, in any way, get us to buy excessive amounts of shit we don't need, no matter what the long term consequences may be, they do it. If they could get away with mind control, they'd do that to make sure we buy their shit.
