A review by sde
Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture by Ellen Ruppel Shell

4.0

The reader may already suspect many of the things the author outlines in this book - that the focus on getting the cheapest price possible is leading to depressed wages, poor working conditions, less real choice in the marketplace, decline of craftsmanship, and a decline of innovation - but she pulls it all together so well, with lots of research to back it up. I will never eat shrimp again without thinking of this book! I am married to an economist, so I recognized many of the names of people she interviewed for this book. For the most part, they are very well-respected people in the field, and they are mainstream - not particularly left or right-wing - which made her conclusions all the more striking to me.