It is manipulation. Different countries have different values systems and people in there don't need huge cars and huge houses to feel like they are better persons.
with trillions in advertising spending (around 600 billion just in the US) to get people buying,
plus all kinds of experts in customer manipulation, dark patterns, number chunching, and so on, working to get people to buy more stuff,
plus an orchestrated early 20th century campaign to create the modern consumer and be done with thriftiness, debt-aversion and self-sufficiency as common prior ideals,
plus planned obselence,
plus a political system designed to support two party monopoly, allow campaign contributions and lobbying from corporations with big pockets, and discourage active citizen participation aside from voting once every several years (hell, iirc in the US people don't even get a mandatory free day from work to vote)...
then it's manipulation...