Small, Medium, Large - Colleen A. Dunlavy

Descriere Small, Medium, Large - Colleen A. Dunlavy

\nWe live in a world of seemingly limitless consumer choice. Yet, as every shopper knows without thinking about it, many everyday goods - from beds to batteries to printer paper - are available in a finite number of standard sizes. What makes these sizes standard is an agreement among competing firms to make or sell products with the same limited dimensions. But how did firms - often hotly competing firms - reach such collective agreements? \n \nIn exploring this question, Colleen Dunlavy puts the history of mass production and distribution in an entirely new light. She reveals that, despite the widely publicized model offered by Henry Ford, mass production techniques did not naturally diffuse throughout the U.S. economy. On the contrary, formidable market forces blocked their diffusion. It was only under the cover of collectively agreed-upon, industrywide standard sizes - orchestrated by the federal government - that competing firms were able to break free of market forces and transition to mass production and distribution. Without government promotion of standard sizes, the twentieth-century American variety of capitalism would have looked markedly less Fordist.\n \nSmall, Medium, Large will make all of us think differently about the everyday consumer choices we take for granted. \n \n\n \nAlso available as an audiobook.\n

Detalii

Brand

JOHN WILEY AND SONS LTD

Categorie

ENSTK

EAN / GTIN

9781509561735

Magazine

1

Disponibilitate

in stock