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A review by eberico
Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture by Ellen Ruppel Shell
5.0
Wow, this book made me feel bad about the fact that I was reading it while reclining in my IKEA bed. Though others have pointed to problems in copyediting, overall the author does a really good job of examining the shifts in culture that have led to our current "cheap is better" mentality.
There were a lot of good things about this book, but one of the things that stood out was her mention of social justice conflicts that exist in relation to cheap/discount culture. This was discussed particularly in context of local eating, and was treated as a systemic problem - that only the middle and upper classes can really afford to eat in the ways that nutritionists and food advocates recommend. This is not directly the fault of the farmers who charge too much at the markets, or of the consumers who are able to make these lifestyle choices - it's endemic in a system where the government subsidizes certain crops, which are then used to feed animals kept in lousy conditions, which are then processed into a burger that costs less than a green pepper at an urban farmers market. This makes NO SENSE AT ALL, but it makes a lot more sense in the context of the consumer/producer culture presented in this book.
Seriously, read it.
There were a lot of good things about this book, but one of the things that stood out was her mention of social justice conflicts that exist in relation to cheap/discount culture. This was discussed particularly in context of local eating, and was treated as a systemic problem - that only the middle and upper classes can really afford to eat in the ways that nutritionists and food advocates recommend. This is not directly the fault of the farmers who charge too much at the markets, or of the consumers who are able to make these lifestyle choices - it's endemic in a system where the government subsidizes certain crops, which are then used to feed animals kept in lousy conditions, which are then processed into a burger that costs less than a green pepper at an urban farmers market. This makes NO SENSE AT ALL, but it makes a lot more sense in the context of the consumer/producer culture presented in this book.
Seriously, read it.