Challenging choices: Ideology, consumerism and policy
Michael Clarke
Abstract
Choice pervades our society: it is founded on political rights to choose and our economy of market choices, but we have now reached the point where choice is extended almost everywhere. This book provides a critique of choice in contemporary society and policy, arguing that we can have too much of a good thing. And there are alternatives. In the first part, the book shows how choice works at a personal level, its demands, and how it can fail. By examining healthcare, education and pensions, it then explores the alternatives, such as provision. In the second part of the text the book reviews th ... More
Choice pervades our society: it is founded on political rights to choose and our economy of market choices, but we have now reached the point where choice is extended almost everywhere. This book provides a critique of choice in contemporary society and policy, arguing that we can have too much of a good thing. And there are alternatives. In the first part, the book shows how choice works at a personal level, its demands, and how it can fail. By examining healthcare, education and pensions, it then explores the alternatives, such as provision. In the second part of the text the book reviews the impact of choice through the life cycle, in areas such as careers, relationships, fertility, retirement and death. The book considers whether this enhances or burdens our lives, and questions the assumption that more choice is always for the better.
Keywords:
choice,
politics,
economics,
healthcare,
education,
pensions,
careers,
relationships,
fertility,
death
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2010 |
Print ISBN-13: 9781847423986 |
| Published to Policy Press Scholarship Online: March 2012 |
DOI:10.1332/policypress/9781847423986.001.0001 |
