From Dr Roman Wolczuk.

Sir, It is difficult to tell whether the sleight of hand played by Richard Shiller (“A failure to control the animal spirits”, March 9) is deliberate or not. He says “capitalism will produce not only what people want, but also what they think they want”. Isn’t he rather missing the point? Surely, the genius of capitalism has been to produce what people need, and also to produce (and sell them) what they don’t need – by creating a “want”. (These are not mere semantics: walk through your average shopping precinct and ask yourself how many of the things on sale are essential to your existence).