Lough’s documentary… traces the past and present of America’s century-long romance with capitalism and the psychic, social, and planetary wreckage it leaves in its wake. It’s “the worst thing to ever happen to our planet,” the film concludes. What Lough captures particularly well is the roots of mass consumption in the unregulated post–World War II American economy. This system was built deliberately: corporate America, flush with wartime manufacturing capacity at a time when natural resources seemed infinite, turned its energies to persuading citizens that their happiness was inseparable from the next purchase. Some of the same propaganda-like techniques that had sold Liberty Bonds turned its energies toward persuading citizens that happiness was something you could buy one appliance, car, or cigarette at a time.