Search results

The “economic” (Chicago School) theory of regulation fails to explain many important features of regulatory history in the USA, such as the periodicity of regulatory innovation, the role of the organized consumer movement, and the roots of reform, including deregulation. J.Q. Wilson′s political theory of regulation accounts for these phenomena when interpreted in historical context. The widely‐held social values of Wilson′s theory are identified with the values articulated by the consumer movement. This theory suggests that regulation can indeed serve the public interest as understood from the perspective of consumerist values.

Discusses problems within the US economy, such as the decline of wages and standards of living, and the effect this has on the community. Examines the causes of structural change and trade deficits in an attempt to find the necessary policy measures. Considers certain problems which need to be addressed and policy changes required (reduction of the military‐ industrial complex, certain govern‐ment training programmes), before concluding that the private sector would be able to produce more effective change and be capable of managing transition.

Recycling is typically advocated on economic grounds, yet at current prices, it does not pay. There are some reasons to think that some of these prices are inefficient, but the main problem is that recycling substitutes labor for energy, virgin materials, and landfill space. Advocates of recycling argue that this use of labor has environmental consequences that are less harmful than the one‐time use of recyclable resources. Recycling should be encouraged by legal and business policy mandates, as well as by increasing taxes on virgin resources.

While Christian social principles harmonize with certain premisses of microeconomic theory, private property and freedom of behaviour for instance, deep‐rooted differences call for recasting certain foundations and pieces of analysis. Broad dissent concerns positive versus normative approach, the holistic character of Christian thought, and the latter′s view of human behaviour as flawed and often sinful. Discusses six more specific areas of dissent: consumer behaviour; the firm; income distribution; welfare economics; market failure and government, and public choice. The Christian mind requires revision of conventional treatments, since present microeconomic discussion is subversive of a religious interpretation of life.

Distributional issues have re‐emerged as an important issue in economics, social science, and philosophy in the last few decades. In the same period, the relevance of derivative Judeo‐Christian socio‐economic principles to the contemporary world has been (re)asserted, developing an incipient Judeo‐Christian economics. Methodologically, this undertaking is comparable to that underlying the evolution of Islamic and other forms of religious economics. The methodology employed in the Judeo‐Christian undertaking is described via a worked example. The example shows how normative principles can be derived from Judeo‐Christian thought allegedly relevant to shaping the contemporary distribution of wealth and income. The principles are deduced from a particular sub‐set of Judeo‐Christian source material, and have the effect of generating greater equity in economic distribution. The deductions are compared with selected ideas canvassed in recent economics' discussion about inequitable distribution concerning appropriate criteria for guiding redistributional policy, ideas of “equal opportunity” vs “equal outcomes”, and the relation between distribution and economic growth.

This paper aims to examine the relationship between the development of consumer rights and the emergence of the contemporary consumer movement. Rethinking the contemporary consumer movement as a new social movement (NSM) enables a closer examination of the actors, opponents and goals of the movement, and how governments and other political institutions responded by conceptualising and developing a set of “consumer rights”.

The lens of NSM theory is used to examine the historical development of, and relationship between, consumer rights and the contemporary consumer movement.

As a NSM, the goal of the contemporary consumer movement is to bring about ideological change. However, this paper argues that the development of “consumer rights” can be read as an attempt by oppositional forces to co‐opt the goals of the movement, thereby neutralising the threat of the movement and negating the opportunity for radical ideological change. Identifying that co‐optation can occur not only through the actors, but also via the “totality” or goals of a movement, broadens our understanding of how NSMs decline or are institutionalised.

This paper offers a critical interpretation of the origins and purpose of “consumer rights”. It suggests that rather than being read as a success of the contemporary consumer movement, consumer rights actually represent a co‐optation of the movement, which served to placate consumer activists while actually maintaining the very structures of advanced market capitalism and consumer culture the movement sought to destabilise.