Illusion and Supply-Side

In the passage in the Republic commonly known as 'The Parable of the Cave', Plato distinguishes fettering desire from the liberating knowledge of the Good.  In contrast, Marx-Engels oppose the "real" interests of an individual to "illusory" ones, thereby inverting Plato's subordination of Materialism to Idealism.  Now, in contemporary America, the illusion has become so codified in Supply-Side Economics, in which desire, i. e. Demand, is created, that Politics itself is Supply-Side, as is expressed in the wide-spread disjunction of the offerings of major party candidates from the real needs of much of the electorate.  Still, even if Marxist Materialism better explains the contents of the illusion, i. e. irreal desires, Plato's image of how it the illusion is inculcated, i. e. a play of puppet-shadows, remains unsurpassed in its relevance, e. g. the refined calibration of a candidate's media image, which, borrowing current jargon, can be called an 'avatar'.