Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Slavery in its latest reincarnation, March 2, 2004
Too bad Hapgoods masterpiece is out of print. Maybe someone will have the guts to reprint this classic. Why? Because this is one of the few books that prints the unstained truth. Its a brutal truth too. The subtitle of this book is how the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Hapgood shows how corporations,lawyers,colleges, and the rest get us to pay for unneeded services and products. By so doing they keep the average man tied down to slavery. For instance, he shows that most of the courses you take in college are unnecessary. So why take them? To make money for the state and the people working in the colleges. Theres very little difference he writes, between automobiles, so why are some so expensive? Because the auto industry wants you to pay more for the glamorous image. Exactly. Image with little or no substance, while your hard earned money goes to the rich. You get screwed. Maybe this is where conspiracy theorists get their ideas that cancer was cured long ago, or that engines were made that could run on water. They are hidden, because the new slave holders would lose profits from existing products. Gas shortages are nothing new either. They were around since the 1940s. Intresting how the prices never go down when the supply comes back to "normal". Slavery has never gone away. Its been updated. Your not a house slave like in the old days. Now your a slave to corporations and propaganda, which brainwash you with ideas of elusive happiness, and keeping up with the Joneses. Think that after death there is going to be justice? Don't be so sure. He writes that the hindu priests told the slaves in India that they were suffering from their karma and that there was another better life. But the slaves didn't quite believe it. Hapgood implies that religion may be another invention of the rich to keep the slaves content and happy. So whats the solution? Reading between the lines in Hapgoods book, I find that one should be skeptical of claims and get only what you need. Needs are usually very few. This is enough to make one happy and free without being a slave to profiteers and working to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lots of detailed information, many practical examples, March 21, 2006
The author, who is well traveled, holding advanced
degress in economics, and vast experience in writing
articles of newspapers and magazines, has come up with
a book that reads like burnt toast to the senses.
However, even one in a blue moon, a burnt toast is
palatable and necessary to wake up the senses, and to
smell the coffee.
The author brings out a litany of examples of
small-time scams, also known as "the workings of the
free market" showing that survival even in America is
for the fittest, and is often facilitated by honing
one's skills in finding niches that are not well known
or understood to the majority of the population, such
that wealth accumulation occurs and prosperity.
Conversely, the author lists many examples of
situations where the average man should shy away from,
to prevent losing significant sums of money, for
products and/or services of questionable value.
The book is a huge brain-storm of ideas, concerns,
scenarios that resulted in mental and/or emotional
anguish for the author, who feels the average man as
well, feels the same way, and puts forth the
question.....is all the pain, confusion, victimization,
loss of money, by the losers (forming 85%of ther
population) justifiable by the pleasure, sense of
smarts, victory and wealth accumulation by the other
15% of the population ?
As with any boxing match, there's a loser and victor,
and as in many of these, the game may or may not be
rigged, as exemplified in the mass media, by tales of
unethical corporate behavior. The author struggles with
these questions.
A very essential book.....top marks for bringing forth
a book that only rarely is seen on the market these
days.... iconoclastic in its style.
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