Life Inc: How Corporatism Conquered the World, and How We Can Take It Back (Paperback)
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Description
Now includes “The Life Inc. Guide to Reclaiming the Value You Create”
In Life Inc, award-winning writer Douglas Rushkoff traces how corporations went from being convenient legal fictions to being the dominant fact of contemporary life. The resulting ideology, corporatism, has infiltrated all aspects of civics, commerce, and culture—from the founding of the first chartered monopoly to the branding of the self, from the invention of central currency to the privatization of banking, from the Victorian Great Exhibition to the solipsism of Facebook. Life Inc explains why we see our homes as investments rather than places to live, our 401(k) plans as the ultimate measure of success, and the Internet as just another place to do business. Most important, Rushkoff illuminates both how we’ve become disconnected from our world and how we can reconnect to our towns, to the value we can create, and, mostly, to one another. As the speculative economy collapses under its own weight, Life Inc shows us how to build a real and human-scaled society to take its place.
About the Author
Douglas Rushkoff is a widely known media critic and documentarian. He has written ten books, and his documentaries include Frontline’s award-winning “The Merchants of Cool” and “The Persuaders.” He teaches media studies at the New School, hosts The Media Squat on radio station WFMU, and serves on the board of directors of the Media Ecology Association, the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics, and the National Association for Media Literacy Education. He has won the Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology and was the first winner of the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity.
Praise for Life Inc: How Corporatism Conquered the World, and How We Can Take It Back…
“Fascinating . . . powerful writing . . . a tour de force survey of the economic history of the modern world . . . [an] enlightening and consciousness-raising experience.”—The Miami Herald
“This is a provocative and controversial look at the dark side of corporatist effects on our economy. . . . Whether or not you agree with Douglas Rushkoff, you will find that this book challenges some of our basic assumptions about how our economy works.”—Walter Isaacson
“There are few more important subjects in the West today than the corporatization of public and personal space, and few writers as well suited to the subject as the always insightful and provocative Doug Rushkoff. Life Inc is a terrific contribution to an urgent debate.”—Naomi Wolf, author of Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries
“A visionary work powered by moral passion and resting on solid historical research.”—Blogger News Network
“This is an urgent book. Like all great books, it will open your eyes to a whole new way of thinking.”—Seth Godin, author of Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us
