Bargain Hunting

From the shuttered factories of the rust belt to the look-alike strip malls of the sun belt–-and almost everywhere in between–-America has been transformed by its relentless fixation on low price. This pervasive yet little examined obsession is arguably the most powerful and devastating market force of our time–-the engine of globalization, outsourcing, planned obsolescence, and economic instability in an increasingly unsettled world. Low price is so alluring that we may have forgotten how thoroughly we once distrusted it.