Cheap
Subtitle: the high cost of discount culture
By: Ellen Ruppel Shell.
Publisher: Penguin Press; Penguin Press HC, The
Published: 2009
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 296
ISBN-13: 9781594202155
Subjects: Discount houses (Retail trade) -- United States; Consumer behavior -- United States
Description: An Atlantic correspondent uncovers the true cost--in economic, political, and psychic terms--of our penchant for making and buying things as cheaply as possible. From the shuttered factories of the rust belt to the look-alike strip malls of the sun belt, America has been transformed by its relentless fixation on low price, instead of durability and craftsmanship. This pervasive yet little examined obsession is arguably the most powerful and devastating market force of our time--the engine of globalization, outsourcing, planned obsolescence, and economic instability in an increasingly unsettled world. Author Shell traces the birth of the bargain as we know it from the Industrial Revolution to the assembly line and beyond, and marshals evidence from a wide range of fields to show the vast effects of this insidious shift: a blighted landscape, escalating debt (both personal and national), stagnating incomes, fraying communities, and a host of other socioeconomic ills.--From publisher description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Discount nation; title: The founding fathers; title: Winner take nothing; title: The outlet gambit; title: Markdown madness; title: Death of a craftsman; title: Discounting and its discontents; title: Cheap eats; title: The double headed dragon; title: The perfect price.