Challenging choices
Ideology, consumerism and policy

Author/Editor(s):

Michael Clarke

Format:

Paperback , 224 pages , 216 x 138 mm
Other formats available

ISBN

9781847423979

Published:

17 Feb 2010

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This is a book about the activity in which we are engaged most - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week; and from still tender years to as old an age as we manage to reach: the activity of choosing. We have been told, and we believe, that anything in the world is open to choice. What we overlook is that one thing that is not open to choice is the choosing itself. Clarke masterfully demonstrates how the acclaimed epitome of freedom and self-assertion has been reforged into a 'must' and 'there is no alternative': the two pillars, and two faces of unfreedom. He also unravels the intricate mechanisms of that sleight-of-hand - one of the most guarded secrets of our society of consumers. An eye-opening study, indeed! An indispensable read for everyone fond of freedom and wishing self-assertion...
Zygmunt Bauman, University of Leeds

In this book, Michael Clarke takes on the ideology of choice and challenges it by pitting it against social science studies and the difficult dilemmas the people wrestle with in everyday life. Both challenges clearly demonstrate the limits and problems of individualised consumer choice as a basis for policy and practice.
John Clarke, Professor of Social Policy, The Open University.

About This Book

Choice pervades our society: it is founded on political rights to choose and our economy on market choices, but we have now reached the point where choice is extended almost everywhere. This lively and topical 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 part one, the author shows how choice works at a personal level, its demands, and how it can fail. By examining healthcare, education and pensions, he then explores the alternatives, such as provision.In part two the book reviews the impact of choice through the life cycle, in areas such as careers, relationships fertility, retirement and death. The author considers whether this enhances or burdens our lives, and questions the assumption that more choice is always for the better.

Author Biography

Michael Clarke held posts in the departments of Sociology at the Universities of Birmingham and of Liverpool, where his research was mainly on business crime and regulation. He is now retired and lives in Herefordshire, where he cultivates his garden.

Contents

Introduction
Part One: Choice and consumerism: What is choice?
Making choices: just fun?
Choice and the consumer society
When choice does not work
Some wider problems with choice
Part Two: Choice and the life cycle: Introduction: choice and the life cycle
Jobs and careers
Lovers, partners, spouses
Fertility and family
Retirement
Death
Part three: Conclusions: Choice and meaning
Conclusion.

ReviewsOwn it? Review it!

Challenging choices
This is an interesting book on a timely topic. The rhetoric of choice bubbled under many pieces of political pontificating during the recent election campaign and Michael Clarke has helped us to think about exactly what this concept might mean in his thought-provoking book. His book has a practical focus, identifying some areas in which the concept may work and others where the mantra seems to lead to chaos and confusion. His demolition of the notion of 'choice' in relation to directory enquiries is a good example - we now have a plethora of providers and an array of charges. But what can be overlooked by his focus just on the 'here and now' is an acknowledgment that 'choice' could sometimes add value to services which were provided in a staid and rather traditional way - for example, now being able to book a restaurant through the service. What has gone wrong is not maybe so much the notion of choice but the short- term profit driven approach of many companies. This has been coupled with an over inflated focus on style on the part of marketing departments, rather than a genuine desire to provide a good service. The book contains a lively mixture of profound and trivial topics ranging from matters like fertility, family, and death to more mundane matters like railways pricing and pop music on the internet. This is set within a theoretical discussion that pays some attention to matters like social change, policy creation and political ideology. The discussion is to some extent limited - many hundreds of words have been written about the current direction of 'choice' in education but Clarke can only give it a couple of pages in his rather slim book. So serious students of social policy will maybe race through this book and then look for something else to take some of the ideas forwards. But as a easy-to-read, insightful and interesting account of this topic it should have wide appeal to all people curious to know how far the notion of choice can, and should, be taken. Clarke concludes that there is 'no going back' in the application of the concept to 21st century living. That this is probably true should mean a wide audience for this engaging account of a very modern phenomenon.
Reviewed by Mike Marriott

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