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 7
... situation is a result of the choices made by that individual . And once you accept that our situation is the result of our choices , there really is no need for sympathy or solidarity with the poor or disadvantaged . That point might ...
... situation is a result of the choices made by that individual . And once you accept that our situation is the result of our choices , there really is no need for sympathy or solidarity with the poor or disadvantaged . That point might ...
Page 21
... situations that encourage or dis- courage co - operation . It is a rare person who does not respond to incentives to some ... situation . Yet although there are very few situations in which the dilemma holds exactly , there are many ...
... situations that encourage or dis- courage co - operation . It is a rare person who does not respond to incentives to some ... situation . Yet although there are very few situations in which the dilemma holds exactly , there are many ...
Page 201
... situation is no longer one that calls for bargaining . It is instead a situation that calls for altruistic action . And here the MarketThink picture of free exchange falls down : whether we acknowledge it or not , almost all of us at ...
... situation is no longer one that calls for bargaining . It is instead a situation that calls for altruistic action . And here the MarketThink picture of free exchange falls down : whether we acknowledge it or not , almost all of us at ...
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 environment 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 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