They are keenly aware of our needs and do everything they can to control means of production of those things to use as leverage over us. Its an endless war between us, who want freedom to live, and them, who use our fundamental desire to exist as means of making our lives serve their ambitions. We're always being enslaved. You can debate the niceness of the cage across time and place, but none of us are free of the relentless attempts to *re-*enslave us.