Manufacturing Discontent: The Trap of Individualism in Corporate SocietyCorporate power has a huge impact on the rights and privileges of individuals -– as workers, consumers, and citizens. This book explores how the myth of individualism reinforces corporate power by making people perceive themselves as having choices, when in fact most peoples' options are very limited.Perelman describes the manufacture of unhappiness - the continual generation of dissatisfaction with products people are encouraged to purchase and quickly discard - and the complex techniques corporations employ to avoid responsibility and accountability to their workers, consumers and the environment. He outlines ways in which individuals can surpass individualism and instead work together to check the growing power of corporations. While other books have surveyed the corporate landscape, or decried modern consumerism, Perelman, a professor of economics, places these ideas within a proper economic and historical context. He explores the limits of corporate accountability and responsibility, and investigates the relation between a wide range of phenomena such as food, fear and terrorism.Highly readable, Manufacturing Discontent will appeal to anyone with an interest in the way society works - and what really determines the rights of individuals in a corporate society. |
Contents
The Individual Subsumed in the Corporate Economy | 1 |
1030 | 16 |
The Democratization of the Potlatch | 24 |
Copyright | |
10 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Manufacturing Discontent: The Trap of Individualism in Corporate Society Michael Perelman No preview available - 2005 |
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accountability activities advertising American asbestos associated automobile bankruptcy Bush administration cent Chapter Cheney choice Citibank Congress consumer sovereignty corporate crime corporate interests corporate media corporate power corporate sector corporate society cost-benefit analysis costs court create crime dangers deaths defined benefit demands economic economists effect employers Environmental Protection Agency estimated example fear Federal Reserve Ford funds Grace Graham Halliburton harm human increase individuals industry injuries Journal labor legislation less litigation million Monokote Motors National Nike offer organizations overtime penalties planned obsolescence political potential precautionary principle president product liability profits regulation regulatory relatively responsibility result risk assessment safety schools social strategy supposedly terrorism terrorist threat tort reform unemployment United wages Wall Street Journal War on Terror workers workplace World Trade Center Wriston York