No One Makes You Shop At WalmartBetween the Lines, 2006 M05 15 - 256 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 examines 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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... common goals. Indeed, the successof the wareffort was built on afoundation of collective struggleand shared individual sacrifice – a foundation perhaps best expressed inBritain's “spirit ofthe Blitz.” Thissense ofthe strength of ...
... aspects of MarketThink that I've outlined here. But the logic that is common to these arguments can befound liberally sprinkled through mostoftoday's political debate. In the United Kingdom, for instance, Prime Minister Tony Blair.
... common alternativeis to suggest thatJack was fooled or tricked in some way, perhapsby advertising. Yet WalMart did not offer anythingit couldnot deliver. Jack's story isnot atale of consumer ignorance:he madehis choices in aperfectly ...
... common way of saying that people makethe best choice available to them is to say that they are “maximizing their utility.” Cooperate. and. Defect. Thestructure ofthe prisoner's dilemma is presentin many places, and it ishelpful tohave a ...
... common to refer to freerider problems as “public goods” problems. A public gooddoes nothave to bephysical. Itcan be anything thatis, likethe litterfree nature of WhimsleyPark, inherently shared. Inthe freerider problem any one person's ...
Contents
Arms Races and Red Queens | |
Chapters 5Cooperation andIts Limits | |
Chapter6 Divide and Conquer | |
Choosing Our Technologies | |
The Devil You Know | |
Choosing Our Culture | |
ABasket ofLemons | |
Chapter10 Free toChoose but Exploited | |
Chapter 11Beyond Whimsley | |
Notes | |
Bibliography | |
Other editions - View all
No One Makes You Shop at Wal-Mart: The Surprising Deceptions of Individual ... Tom Slee Limited preview - 2006 |