This didn’t just happen.
In Life Inc., award-winning writer, documentary filmmaker, and scholar Douglas Rushkoff traces how cor... read full description
In Life Inc., award-winning writer, documentary filmmaker, and scholar Douglas Rushkoff traces how cor... read full description
reviews
Aug 05, 2009
Stasya
rated it: 
Using history and present day events, Rushkoff reveals the delusory world he believes western consumers created to protect centralised currency and the codependent indebted lifestyle it supports. On this end, Rushkoff is repititious about the pervasiveness of the corporate mindset - it's his mantra - he is conspiratorial and bold and his findings though well researched and novel are without depth or further explanation. Atleast when he points out all that is wrong with us he also comes prepared
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Jun 14, 2009
Enrique
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I was really drawn to this book after reading the excerpts of it on Boing Boing and Rushkoff's own web site. In short, the book is about two things: how people in society came to adopt the values of corporate interests as their own as opposed to vice versa, and just how this trend can be reversed. What I feel the book suffers from is the fact that there is too much explanation of the former, and far less of the latter.
Rushkoff analyzes the role of corporations from as far back as the More...
Rushkoff analyzes the role of corporations from as far back as the More...
Sep 12, 2011
Sheila
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I felt the title was a bit misleading, because the author provides so few answers on “how to take it back”. The bulk of the book is Rushkoff’s description of the problem: that modern man has been isolated by and indebted to a sociopathic economic system that is designed to make things worse. His anecdotes and historical analyses are questionable, but he does give good recent examples of the absurdity of capitalism that are sometimes funny (avatar prostitution on Second Life) and usually infuriat
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Mar 13, 2010
Aron
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This book was a severe disappointment. I heard Rushkoff interviewed on radio and was intrigued by his talk. Like most people interested in the book and Rushkoff's views, I am strongly opposed to the US corporate culture and economy and I thought I would be reading a well-researched, historical/economic analysis of that system. The book however turned out to be a dilettante's screed.
Let's start with the style. As some have noted the book is poorly edited, does not have a coherent stru More...
Let's start with the style. As some have noted the book is poorly edited, does not have a coherent stru More...
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Oct 20, 2009
Stewart
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There have been many good books written recently about the implosion on Wall Street, the massive debt held by Americans, corporations, and the federal government, and the current recession, but few have gone into such depth about the United States and its economic and political discontents as Douglas Rushkoff's 2008 book "Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back." This book explores the history of the corporation from the late Middle Ages through the charte
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Oct 24, 2009
Scuppers
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Rushkoff writes about two things that bother him:
1. That he got mugged and the people in his neighborhood worried more about the bad publicity reducing their property value than the neighborly / community warning that a mugger might be in the area.
2. That growing up in a poor neighborhood, he felt more a sense of community than when his family moved out to mid-level dwellings in the suburbs... In particular, he mentions his community's barbecues in the city vs. his family's " More...
1. That he got mugged and the people in his neighborhood worried more about the bad publicity reducing their property value than the neighborly / community warning that a mugger might be in the area.
2. That growing up in a poor neighborhood, he felt more a sense of community than when his family moved out to mid-level dwellings in the suburbs... In particular, he mentions his community's barbecues in the city vs. his family's " More...
May 26, 2010
Mlg
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This book was quite different from what I expected. Instead of being a history of corporatism, it dealt more with the ways in which corporations manipulate us without us realizing it. There were so many surprising revelations in here, from the ways in which schools were set up(to mimic factories, to produce docile workers), to Henry Ford's influence on Hitler, to building overpasses at 9 feet to keep other races from coming to the suburbs by bus, I found it fascinating. Not only did I lear
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Jan 01, 2010
Tippy
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Sep 08, 2009
Ron
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Excellent book, giving the history of how a decentralized free market economy was usurped by the monarchy in the early Renaissance through the creation of two monopolies: the chartered corporation and central currency. The biases and the power created by these two monopolies have had tremendous effects on the ways society is shaped, and the more power corporations have in a society, the less healthy the communities are. It's really worth ready just as a history of economics. The only downside is
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Jun 09, 2010
Psuke
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I loved the beginning of this book (particularly the intro story that explains the inspiration, as it were) and I loved the final chapters. The rest of the book was (to my mind) too much explaining of how fiat currency and corporate culture have ruined our lives. Fiat currency and corporate culture have a lot to answer for, but they weren't unmitigated evils and they didn't operate in a vacuum. I would have preferred that he spend more time on the excellent material at the end, dealing with ob
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Sep 22, 2009
Layne
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There really aren't many new ideas in this book that you can't find in Rushkoff's writings online. He does flesh out the history of corporations and centralized currency in more detail, but that still only fills a portion of the book. The rest of the book is filled with "rants" about how corporatism is destroying community and the civic institutions that we need to function as a society. This portion is thin on fact and chock full of anecdote, so it reads more as preaching to the choir
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Apr 22, 2011
Emily
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Ever since reading The Vegetarian Myth I've been wary of, well, books with opinions. Especially opinions on how I should live my life. Facts can be really easily manipulated and unreliable sources can be cited in order to make it look like an author has a position of authority (ha), and I have not done my homework on Life Inc. to check its reliability. That being said, it was right up my ally. It confirmed opinions I already held and also forced me to think about our society in ways I hadn't
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Oct 11, 2011
Jenny
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Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back is a book that spawns out of the author's experience being mugged outside of his doorstep in an modestly-upscale neighborhood in Brooklyn. Rushkoff found, when he told his neighborhood association about the experience and need to promote safety, that the responses were concerned about his speaking up about the incident and promoting a poor PR record of the neighborhood, not the actual safety of the neighborhood. From that, R
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Aug 20, 2010
Justin
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Those who control history control the future and in Life Inc. Douglas Rushkoff makes his mark on our future by detailing the history of Corporate Capitalism as the political and economic reality of the modern world. After evolving over hundreds of years into its current form, Corporate Capitalism is now taken so thoroughly for granted that few even question the basic mythology behind it. Rushkoff was jarred into this revelation after being mugged outside his home and being told by neighbors to k
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Dec 29, 2009
Andrew
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We live in a world where we are besieged by corporate imagery and rules, whether we are working for one, with one, or through one. These financial institutions don't exist, but they are given the same rights as a living, breathing person. Everything we own is "branded" with logos, and every transaction we make is intermediated by a company taking a small fraction for a service that is, according to the ads at least, supposed to make our lives better, but is ultimately the result of a s
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Dec 01, 2011
Lou
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With an opening that begins with a conversation about Park Slope, NY real estate, Rushkoff ponders and explores how our society has evolved in the service of corporations and corporatism. His observations are rooted in a deep scholarship as shown by the extensive footnotes that follow the main text.
This book is a real wake-up call on how much of our freedom and autonomy we're willing to give up in the pursuit of capitalism at all costs and is a lively contribution to our current polit More...
This book is a real wake-up call on how much of our freedom and autonomy we're willing to give up in the pursuit of capitalism at all costs and is a lively contribution to our current polit More...
Nov 01, 2010
Thorsten
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Thought this was quite an interesting read from the origins of corporatism dating back to renaissance through developments up to the modern day. The middle section of the book covered a very similar ground to Adam Curtis' 'Century of the Self' documentary, but what I really found interesting was the final section of the book which dealt with the problems and biases built into our current centralized currencies, and his exploration of local "complementary" currencies (ideas I can totall
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Feb 07, 2010
Andrew
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(I listened to the Audible edition, read by the author.) Tremendously insightful, and enormously challenging to our most fundamental collective assumptions about the way the world works. I was not able to wrap my brain around everything Rushkoff had to say, so I'll probably need to listen to it again. Also, it's hard not to get demoralized while listening to Rushkoff tear down one institution after another and expose the seemingly insurmountable obstacles to correcting the flaws in the system. H
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Aug 06, 2011
I was extremely impressed by the painstaking research involved. This book has really opened my eyes to the constant bombardment of corporations and how they are inextricably linked to government. I was hoping the solutions he offered at the end would be more lengthy, but what he did include was enough for anyone to take and run with. They should require this book every high school economics/government/psychology class.
Sep 03, 2009
Red
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An excellent read! My only complaint is that it didn’t seem to have quite as much about the, “solutions” as I had hoped. However, perhaps Rushkoff’s next work could be entirely focused on examples of alternative currency markets. None the less, I enjoyed his writing style, the content and his attitude. It was a refreshing sense of optimism without looking to present day policies as a way out our problems.
-Red
-Red
Sep 01, 2009
John
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I got this book on the strength of a few excepts/discussions/links from and relating to this book on boing boing.
Only to discover it was a pretty poorly written, boring, rambling, rant that I struggled to finish.
I think the main problem with this book (other than the grating rhetorical flourishes) is that it's not engaging and flowing enough to get away with the broad strokes employed discussing the subject(s), nor is it accurate and well referenced enough for how boring More...
Only to discover it was a pretty poorly written, boring, rambling, rant that I struggled to finish.
I think the main problem with this book (other than the grating rhetorical flourishes) is that it's not engaging and flowing enough to get away with the broad strokes employed discussing the subject(s), nor is it accurate and well referenced enough for how boring More...
Oct 14, 2009
Alex
rated it:
extremely eye-opening and pretty depressing. tracks the history of how corporations came to be, then posits and proves of how the corporate ideology has become pervasive in our culture, from the food we consume to how we present ourselves on facebook to even the systems we create to fight corporatism. spends too little time on possible solutions, but the few suggestions are interesting and novel. a must-read.
Jul 27, 2011
Chris
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I found this book to be at one level a history of the development and pervasiveness of corporatism in world society, and at another level almost a real-world version of "The Matrix". The book crystallized and gave substance and history to what I'd been perceiving as the ever-growing dehumanization of society. The most shocking thing I learned from the book was how actively, scientifically and purposefully planned so much of this control has been.
Sep 10, 2011
Robertmagee32
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This complements First as Tragedy, then as Farce very well. It's a much more palatable and easier to understand reiteration of Zizek's argument with a healthy dose of optimism that Zizek lacks. Rushkoff doesn't go so far as Zizek in condemning capitalism, though, he views the system of currency and corporatism as the primary causes of the purposelessness and tyrannical nature of modern society.
Apr 15, 2011
So I usually like what Douglas Rushkoff has to say, but can't stand his writing style. (See my review of Cyberia.) In this case, I already know a lot about this topic and agree with the ideas, which made it feel even more like an exercise in pointlessness . . . I'm sure it's a fine book if you're new to the concept, but it just wasn't for me.
Apr 29, 2010
Ben
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Despite its numerous weaknesses (heavy handedness, internal contradictions, alarmist rhetoric) Life, Inc. is still eye opening. The section on currency is excellent and Rushkoff's take on the history of money and what we can do about it would have made a first rate essay. At book length Life, Inc. is a little bloated but still worth reading.
Aug 19, 2009
Pax
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Sound framing of almost 600 yrs. of corporatism. Points up pre-Renaissance bottom-up economic health before the long era of top-down monopolistic exploitation. I'm drawing on this for a rumination of collective Shadow for this period. Recommend A Hacker Manifesto by McKenzie Wark as a companion text.
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Oct 15, 2009
Matthew
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This is a book everyone needs to read. It articulates ideas that I've been forming about corporations over the last couple of years. It's pro-capitalism while being anti-corporatism and points out the biases of a central currency vs. a local one. A fantastic, easy-to-read and mind-opening book!
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Feb 23, 2011
Bob
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A must read, it will change you as a person. You will never listen to the radio, walk into a mall or read the newspaper again without thinking about this book and what it has to say about these and other simple activities.
We are so manipulated...
We are so manipulated...
