Marketing (A good or a bad world?)

The first thing that stroked me when i first heard the word marketing was "what is this marketing?"

Which i believe is same for everyone. Is it peeping into the minds of people and changing their thoughts, their needs, their ideas, their dreams, their taste, their aspirations, their habits, their desires and moulding them according to your products, your services, your ideas. It can also end up creating a new need.

So the idea that i am trying to come up with is, does marketing hits your privacy, does it end up creating more aspirations leading to more needs and stress among the people? Or it helps the economy as a whole by generating more needs which leads to more products which further leads to more work and employment for people and the growth for the economy as an whole.

Its just like two sides of a coin if you look at the first side it is like infringement of your privacy and making your own thoughts paralyzed on the other side if you look at the bigger picture it makes you think that Marketing is not a support function but the heart and soul of any business...Now its up to us how we look at the scenario and from which angle.