| Description |
1 online resource (x, 258 pages) |
| Contents |
Bit of Bolshevik sociology: workers write about their jobs -- Selling it: the seamy side of the market -- Ignorance: dumb customers and distracted customers -- Ignorance in the "knowledge" society: the technically uniformed customer -- Helpless customers and Potemkin villages -- Scarcity -- Perishability -- Filth -- Petty bourgeios tricks -- Honest business: neighborhoods and saints -- Morality and the marketplace |
| Summary |
Who knows more about a business's shady practices than the people who work there? In this pioneering study, Paul Blumberg examines a wide variety of evidence, including over 600 accounts written by workers who disclose in elaborate detail the deceptions their employers practiced on the public. Employed in a wide variety of business enterprises--supermarkets, restaurants, fish markets, department stores, gas stations, drug stores, pet stores, and many more--these workers pull back the curtain and reveal the hidden recesses of the American marketplace. Blumberg documents these deceptions in numerous vivid stories, providing readers with a trenchant handbook on survival in America. He tells of stores that routinely mark prices up before a sale; gas stations that sell regular gas as high test; auto mechanics who spray-paint customers' old car parts and then charge them for new parts (in one gas stations, the workers claimed that the mechanic's best tool was his paint can); and pharmacists who sell generic drugs and charge name-brand prices. But equally important, he provides an insightful analysis of why deception pervades the American marketplace.; Though at times amusing, The Predatory Society is also frequently disturbing for what it says about private capitalism: how dishonesty is all but built into the American marketplace, and how this dishonesty has potentially disastrous effects on trust and community in our society |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL |
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Print version record |
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digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL |
| Subject |
Economics -- Moral and ethical aspects -- United States
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Capitalism -- Moral and ethical aspects -- United States
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Industries -- Social aspects -- United States
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BUSINESS & ECONOMICS -- Consumer Behavior.
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BUSINESS & ECONOMICS -- Commercial Policy.
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Capitalism -- Moral and ethical aspects
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Economics -- Moral and ethical aspects
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Industries -- Social aspects
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Economie politique -- Aspect moral.
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Capitalisme -- Etats-Unis -- Aspect moral.
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Industrie -- Aspect social -- Etats-Unis.
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United States
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
9780198020806 |
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0198020805 |
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1280525363 |
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9781280525360 |
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