One of the first things every Harvard MBA hopeful learns is that in
1928, Edward Bernays, the father of modern marketing and public
relations, published a book called Propaganda. Not only did it serve as
a guide for controlling consumer habits for corporate America, but its
tenets were also embraced by the Nazi propaganda machine, and it became
a sort of universal bible for the manipulation of the "democratic"
electoral process worldwide. Chapter I, Organizing Chaos, begins:

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and
opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society.
Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an
invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.

We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas
suggested, largely by men we have never heard of [e.g. Edward
Bernays]...

Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware of the identity of
their fellow members in the inner cabinet...

...Whatever attitude one chooses to take toward this condition, it
remains a fact that in almost every act of our daily lives, whether in
the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical
thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of
persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the
masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind, who
harness old social forces [and biases and prejudices I might add] and
contrive new ways to bond and guide the world."

Bernays operated in many economic and political theaters. He did
everything from launch the ad
campaigns to accelerate smoking among women in the 1920's to doing the
public relations work for the U.S. State Department in preparation for
the CIA directed coup against the democratically elected Arbenz
government in Guatemala in 1954. The latter was performed on behalf of
the United Fruit Co., later to be known as United Brands. The
flexibility of his methodology is due, in part, to the then new-found
ability to, for the first time, collect discrete and quantifiable data
on large populations. Further, quantification was the fait accompli for
discretion, one hardly having any utility without the other.