Manufacturing Discontent

ISBN: 9780745324067

出版社: Univ of Michigan Pr

出版年: 2005-9

页数: 224

定价: $ 33.90

装帧: Pap

内容简介

Corporate 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.

Summary: The illusory freedom of consumer choice

Rating: 4

"Manufacturing Discontent" by Michael Perelman is a thoughtful study and analysis of corporate power. Mr. Perelman deconstructs the myth of individualism and consumer sovereignty to reveal how corporations exploit workers and material resources for profit. Written with passion and intelligence, this highly readable text should appeal to everyone interested in gaining a greater understanding of the interrelationship between corporate influence and individual powerlessness.

Mr. Perelman explains how corporations in the U.S. enjoy legal standing as individuals but can use their immortality and deep financial resources to extend control over government, thereby engendering laws that mostly frees them of the burden of public accountability. According to Mr. Perelman, the illusory freedom of individual consumer choice is a poor substitute for economic and political power; the author points out that while corporations enjoy free speech rights and access to a sympathetic media, governments have done little to protect worker and consumer rights. Interestingly, Mr. Perleman attributes the inflated cost of material goods with increased corporate marketing and advertising budgets while alerting us to the growing dissatisfaction of individuals who pay dearly for their addiction to consumerism.

Mr. Perelman discusses how business risk has shifted from corporations to individuals. We learn that large international banks are usually backed up by their host governments to help shield bankers from loan losses. Structural adjustment policies are often imposed upon debtor nations, who in turn extract wage concessions from workers in order to secure repayment. Mr. Perelman goes on to explain how the airline, asbestos, biotech, nuclear and other industries have benefited from government largesse while worker's rights and social benefits have been cut. Overall, the author succeeds in illustrating how a peculiar form of socialism prevails for the corporate sector while a brutish sink-or-swim individualism has become the lot of the poor.

Mr. Perelman is also perceptive in his unmasking of how fear has been used to cow the public into unquestionably accepting corporate policy. From the Cold War's fear of communism to the fear of terrorism today, the media often prepares the way for citizens to vote for politicians who advocate massive funding of dubious defense projects or to support policies that protect corporate interests in general. Mr. Perelman critiques the paucity of investigative journalism and editorial independence, submitting that the public cannot fulfill its citizenship role without access to unbiased information. However, the author remains hopeful that individuals may be able to collectively assert their democratic rights; he reasons that people can not forever tolerate a corporate agenda that threatens the destruction of human creativity and the environment.

I highly recommend this excellent book to everyone.