No One Makes You Shop at Wal-Mart: The Surprising Deceptions of Individual ChoiceBetween the Lines, 2006 - 240 pages We live in a culture of choice. But, in an age of corporate dominance, our freedom to choose has taken on new meaning. Upset with your local big box store? Object to unfair hiring practices at your neighbourhood fast food restaurant? Want to protest the opening of that new multinational coffeeshop? Vote with your feet! What if it's not that simple? In No One Makes You Shop at Wal-Mart, Tom Slee unpacks the implications of our fervent belief in the power of choice. Pointing out that individual choice has become the lynchpin of a neoconservative corporate ideology he calls MarketThink, he urges us to re-examine our assumptions . Slee makes use of game theory to argue that individual choice is not inherently bad. Nor is it the societal fix-all that our corporations and governments claim it is. A spirited treatise, this book will make you think about choice in a whole new way. |
From inside the book
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Page 24
... thinking about choice . In this book , when I use the word " preference " I am referring to the causes of making a choice , not to the outcomes . Instead of thinking about choices as revealing preferences , it pays to think of choices ...
... thinking about choice . In this book , when I use the word " preference " I am referring to the causes of making a choice , not to the outcomes . Instead of thinking about choices as revealing preferences , it pays to think of choices ...
Page 55
... thinking , there is much that goes beyond mere selfishness . Many North American cities are now more suburban than urban , with the perpetual development of new subdivisions on the edge of cities adding ring after ring of new houses ...
... thinking , there is much that goes beyond mere selfishness . Many North American cities are now more suburban than urban , with the perpetual development of new subdivisions on the edge of cities adding ring after ring of new houses ...
Page 70
... thinking during the Cold War is hard to estimate , but it was certainly taken seriously . Books such as Thomas Schelling's The Strategy of Conflict attempted to apply the theory to real world issues . Anatol Rapoport challenged the ...
... thinking during the Cold War is hard to estimate , but it was certainly taken seriously . Books such as Thomas Schelling's The Strategy of Conflict attempted to apply the theory to real world issues . Anatol Rapoport challenged the ...
Contents
A World of Choice | 1 |
Good Choices and Bad Outcomes | 17 |
Private Choices and Public Failures | 34 |
Copyright | |
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No One Makes You Shop at Wal-Mart: The Surprising Deceptions of Individual ... Tom Slee Limited preview - 2006 |
Common terms and phrases
Adidas Akerlof argue arms race become behaviour benefit best choice best reply better big-box stores Bill and Adrian buy Nike cent choose Club co-operation co-ordination game collective action common companies competition consumers corporations cost countries culture decision defection Dirty Pretty Things dominant drive Economics economists employees end result equilibrium outcome example externalities factors Figure free exchange free-rider problem game theory graph happy herbicide herd choices idea ideal gas identity incentives increasing returns individual choice industry Jack and Jill Jack's Kranton look market for lemons MarketThink ment move movie Nike offer option payoff person play player points pollution preferences prisoner's dilemma Roundup Ready side sidewalks situation sneakers society Spider-Man Star Wars story strategy success temptation things thinking tion Tit-for-Tat ultimatum game utility Wal-Mart walk Whimsley Whimsley Park word-of-mouth