Blah blah blah.

The individualism here is a method, so it's not even a truth claim that could be falsified. But the question is about its insinuations. In so far as economists are in the habit of deducing social results as aggregates of individual behaviours, they can come to justify the aggregates as wholly earned--because they're supposed to be produced by individual calculations and choices. Capitalist inequality, then, is supposed to be merited and private property should be respected because these things are supposed to be earned by our mental and physical labours.

But when most economists set aside complexities like advertising, their individualistic method ends up whitewashing capitalism. No, the results of business aren't entirely earned because the competition doesn't proceed on equal ground. Some players have much larger megaphones than others to affect the discourse, as in the Overton window, the social conventions, prejudices, and so on which are explained in psychology and sociology.

If the aggregate outcome is deduced from the individual behaviours, and advertising affects the individuals, does that mean economists must treat advertising companies as mere individuals? If so, doesn't that make "individual" vacuous? And if not, how is that economic modelling of advertising consistent with methodological individualism?