- Highlight
- #1
I'm re-reading, and reading for the first time, several books by Vance Packard.
Vance Packard is an author I would bet not a whole lot of Kiwis would be familiar with, but would find fascinating. He wrote books warning about the dangers of consumerism, marketing, privacy, data collection and other issues in the 1950's-1970's. The interesting part now is how his books have been proven terrifyingly accurate. They are very important social histories written before all these things became hard wired into modern society. Books written during the events, when these plagues were taking root but had not yet overtaken American society.
Here are some of the books Packard wrote, and a short synopsis. Some of his books are available as free PDFs, which I linked to when possible, all others are available as e-books or even cheap used hard copies. These are the books I'm reading this summer.
The Naked Society - 1964 -
A book about the dangers of technology, data and privacy.... in fucking 1964 when computers were still the size of small cars.
"The Naked Society", Packard criticized advertisers' unfettered use of private information to create marketing schemes. He compared a recent Great Society initiative by then-president LBJ, the National Data Bank, to the use of information by advertisers and argued for increased data privacy measures to ensure that information did not find its way into the wrong hands. The essay led Congress to create the Special Subcommittee on the Invasion of Privacy and inspired privacy advocates such Neil Gallagher and Sam Ervin to fight Johnson's flagrant disregard for consumer privacy.
The Waste Makers:
An exposé of "the systematic attempt of business to make us wasteful, debt-ridden, permanently discontented individuals," The Waste Makers is Vance Packard's pioneering 1960 work on how the rapid growth of disposable consumer goods was degrading the environmental, financial, and spiritual character of American society.
Packard argues "we overbuy -once we've been persuaded- as industry, facing the ""specter of glut"" for the products they have to sell, force feeds the public through a variety of pressures and mechanisms. These include ""growthmanship"" or needling purchasing appetites; throwaway strategy such as the ""disposable"" concept; and planned obsolescence, whether through styling or the calculated perishability of the product. The artificial aspects are far more extensive and there are sham elements in pricing, servicing, packaging, financing, commercializing to make the hard sell easy and promote prodigality. And the dollar sign on the price tag is not the only price to be paid-- our national resources are being destroyed along with our individual character and our family patterns.
(Link to PDF copy of The Waste Makers)
The Hidden Persuaders:
Right before the midpoint of the 20th Century, American advertisers began appropriating techniques from the burgeoning fields of psychology and sociology to manipulate us as consumers of goods and services, religions and politics, to a great extent without our knowledge or consent. The effects of such manipulation were already pervasive and insidious even at the time Packard was writing, and have only grown more so since.
I was discussing The Hidden Persuaders with some people last month as one of the books that impacted me the most as a teenager. I decided it would be interesting to read it again as an adult in 2020 along with some of his other books. The first that arrived, and that I'm reading right now, is The Waste Makers which is also linked above as a free PDF if anyone else wants to read and discuss.
I've never read "Naked Society". Years ago data privacy didn't seem that interesting to me but is now incredibly relevant and figured it might be of high interest to some Kiwi's since it would detail the foundation of data collection, privacy and use in American Society. The book spurred congress to take a look at the issue for the first time ever, which led to the creation of the first laws/regulations on the subject. (After these three books I think I'll get the Status Seekers.)
I don't expect this to be a particularly busy thread but I'll make some posts with particularly interest excerpts as I go for anyone interested. I hope it might lead to a few dozen people picking up his books. I think reading books written as the events were occurring are far more important and have much better information than books written decades later with hindsight and tainted with the influence of current thinking/author's opinions.
Vance Packard is an author I would bet not a whole lot of Kiwis would be familiar with, but would find fascinating. He wrote books warning about the dangers of consumerism, marketing, privacy, data collection and other issues in the 1950's-1970's. The interesting part now is how his books have been proven terrifyingly accurate. They are very important social histories written before all these things became hard wired into modern society. Books written during the events, when these plagues were taking root but had not yet overtaken American society.
Here are some of the books Packard wrote, and a short synopsis. Some of his books are available as free PDFs, which I linked to when possible, all others are available as e-books or even cheap used hard copies. These are the books I'm reading this summer.
The Naked Society - 1964 -
A book about the dangers of technology, data and privacy.... in fucking 1964 when computers were still the size of small cars.
"The Naked Society", Packard criticized advertisers' unfettered use of private information to create marketing schemes. He compared a recent Great Society initiative by then-president LBJ, the National Data Bank, to the use of information by advertisers and argued for increased data privacy measures to ensure that information did not find its way into the wrong hands. The essay led Congress to create the Special Subcommittee on the Invasion of Privacy and inspired privacy advocates such Neil Gallagher and Sam Ervin to fight Johnson's flagrant disregard for consumer privacy.
The Waste Makers:
An exposé of "the systematic attempt of business to make us wasteful, debt-ridden, permanently discontented individuals," The Waste Makers is Vance Packard's pioneering 1960 work on how the rapid growth of disposable consumer goods was degrading the environmental, financial, and spiritual character of American society.
Packard argues "we overbuy -once we've been persuaded- as industry, facing the ""specter of glut"" for the products they have to sell, force feeds the public through a variety of pressures and mechanisms. These include ""growthmanship"" or needling purchasing appetites; throwaway strategy such as the ""disposable"" concept; and planned obsolescence, whether through styling or the calculated perishability of the product. The artificial aspects are far more extensive and there are sham elements in pricing, servicing, packaging, financing, commercializing to make the hard sell easy and promote prodigality. And the dollar sign on the price tag is not the only price to be paid-- our national resources are being destroyed along with our individual character and our family patterns.
(Link to PDF copy of The Waste Makers)
The Hidden Persuaders:
Right before the midpoint of the 20th Century, American advertisers began appropriating techniques from the burgeoning fields of psychology and sociology to manipulate us as consumers of goods and services, religions and politics, to a great extent without our knowledge or consent. The effects of such manipulation were already pervasive and insidious even at the time Packard was writing, and have only grown more so since.
I was discussing The Hidden Persuaders with some people last month as one of the books that impacted me the most as a teenager. I decided it would be interesting to read it again as an adult in 2020 along with some of his other books. The first that arrived, and that I'm reading right now, is The Waste Makers which is also linked above as a free PDF if anyone else wants to read and discuss.
I've never read "Naked Society". Years ago data privacy didn't seem that interesting to me but is now incredibly relevant and figured it might be of high interest to some Kiwi's since it would detail the foundation of data collection, privacy and use in American Society. The book spurred congress to take a look at the issue for the first time ever, which led to the creation of the first laws/regulations on the subject. (After these three books I think I'll get the Status Seekers.)
I don't expect this to be a particularly busy thread but I'll make some posts with particularly interest excerpts as I go for anyone interested. I hope it might lead to a few dozen people picking up his books. I think reading books written as the events were occurring are far more important and have much better information than books written decades later with hindsight and tainted with the influence of current thinking/author's opinions.
