Juliet B. SchorCríticas

Worth the read, but I wouldn't buy it. Get it from the library. I essentially agree with the author's ideas, but the book is very lacking in details about how to put Plenitude into action. Her description of the Business As Usual system, it's history and workings, might be the most useful analysis in the book.

The Overworked American is a well-researched, but dense economic history of the our struggle with the tradeoff between time and money. What really makes this book shine is the data in the latter chapters of the book that discuss the implications of the recent research that shows the broad preference for Americans to receive more free time rather than more money as part of their compensation rise. I also found her framing of the conflict between the labor movement of the early 20th century and businesses of that time in terms of leisure time to be interesting. Finally, her indictment of American materialism contains some gems.

This book is quite dated, which was not a problem, except that now I'm fascinated to understand how the incredible rise in income inequality during the 00s and the American cognitive surplus interplay with the trends that Dr. Schor discusses. It shouldn't be long until a second edition would be warranted.

See review of 'The Overspent American'.

Here, twenty some years later, I'm rereading my notes about Schor's very interesting ideas, especially those about what kind of economy would result if we began consuming less. I must have read this book of sociology and economics some time around the turn of the century, and liked it enough to save those notes. The process has made me want to follow her websites and find her other books.

Worth the read, but I wouldn't buy it. Get it from the library. I essentially agree with the author's ideas, but the book is very lacking in details about how to put Plenitude into action. Her description of the Business As Usual system, it's history and workings, might be the most useful analysis in the book.

Un libro fondamentale per comprendere il ruolo della pubblicità e del marketing all'interno della comunicazione mediatizzata e diretta a bambini, preadolescenti e adolescenti. Da leggere!

Basic undergraduate Primer consisting of Readings explaining and arguing various aspects of Consumer Culture Theory and Practice as in 1980's in the Thatcher Reagan era when there was the beginnings of Capitalism embedding itself, by dismantling previous Market regimes.

Juliet Schor is witty and compelling, as always, in her exploration of how Americans have come to be overburdened with debt, groaning credit cards at the ready to tackle even more spending. How did we move from being prudent to being profligate? And how do we stop? I wouldn't say this book has all the answers, but at least it's asking the right questions.

A solid, well-written book exploring consumerist culture and its impact on our children, who are advertised to nearly everywhere they go, and spend very little of their life advertising free.

This book now 20 years old seems especially timely in the current depression era that seems to have no end. In addition to the lack of leisure are the facts of unemployment and the well known now statistic that adjusting for inflation, wages have fallen in the past 2 decades. The relation between work and consumer goods is especially good.

Interesting reading, but would be more so if there were not burdened down with so many statistics.
Being a bestseller, one would think this would have been a "call-to-arms" to bring the unions back, bud sadly over fifteen years later the lack of time off has decreased even more. I know at my job it is less than one day then even last year, & that they wanted to take Independence day away from us this year (& already have it on the agenda to so do next year). Is this what our country has come to---that we cannot even have the holiday off that was to celebrate this nation's freedom???

Although written 10 years before the credit crisis, the book looks at the consumerist culture that ultimately led to the credit crisis. It looks at the reasons why Americans have become so confortable with living beyond their means. Overall a good read mainly because it makes you look at yourself and assess the risks you're exposing yourself to by raking up more debt than you can manage.

Although at times the book was a bit rough to plod through (while I find statistical analysis to be pretty interesting, it's still hard to read about it in a book), it was a very interesting and enlightening expose on all of the marketing that occurs that targets children.

I found it somewhat frightening how pervasive marketing towards children is, I had heard of soda contracts in schools, but had no idea that marketing agencies pay lots of schools to show a commercial TV channel as a supplement or replacement to morning announcements. (Fortunately, ChannelOne is and has been banned in NY, so I got ad-free, student produced announcements over the intercom.) The fact that this marketing intrudes in parts of children's lives that they can't avoid really shows how eager Big Business is to ensnare children into the consumerist culture at a young age. And proves that we can't rely on the age old argument that the parents are to blame.

My favorite part of the book are Ms. Schor's suggestions for improvement. Government regulations (or a ban) on marketing that targets children, the possible taxation of advertisements are great ideas, although I'm sure that, with Big Business putting so much money in all of our nation's leader's wallets, these will never come to fruition.

But until then, people can turn off their TVs, read a book, or go outside and play. There are a plethora of activities that can get children away from the mind-numbing influence of advertisements while still providing them with entertainment.

Across the front of my copy is a review excerpt: "Schor's study is a scornful indictment of consumerism—which, she argues, has created a nation of debtors but failed to fill a gaping cultural maw." A nation of debtors, indeed, which is now crashing around us. I read this ten years ago, and it is well worth a look to get some perspective on what we're dealing with today.½

Interesting.

I don't often like essay collections because I prefer more scientific or scholarly writings (I'm a nerd). However, this was a really broad collection. I expected for more redundancy than there is. For example there's a chapter about changing our perception of time and one about global economics. I have a pretty good knowledge of sustainability from a more geographic/economic perspective but I still found most of this book valuable. I would imagine that anyone with interest and even working knowledge will get something out of this book.½