Don't Buy It: The Trouble with Talking Nonsense about the Economy

Anat Shenker-Osorio has spent her career exploring the range of ways people understand complex political issues and she's seen one thing over and again: when were using the wrong metaphor, were sending the wrong message. In this book she focuses that argument on the wrong headed and destructive way we talk about the economy in the United States. Relying heavily on language such as “unhealthy,” “suffering,” “recovery bill,” we continually convey that the economy is something natural, like a body, the tides, or the weather. It is how it is — like the barometric pressure, unemployment can be expected to “rise” and “fall.” In fact, we've bought the idea that we must work without complaint and “Keep the Economy Happy!”

Shenker-Osorio shows that this wrong headed way of conceptualizing the economy has a real effect on the way people engage with money, and it has lead to a great deal of hardship. The solution therefore is that by consciously shifting the ways we talk about the economy we can radically alter how we react to and thus make rules and decisions. By speaking, accurately, of the economy as a man-made system requiring continuous man made control we undo the damaging notion that the market is its own best control. By speaking, forcefully, of the economy as part of the pursuit for security and prosperity we can impose regulation and control to achieve certain means. Economic reform is going to require transparency and understanding in our conversation. This book tells us how.

"Strategic communications consultant Shenker-Osoria's first book considers the word 'economy' and the metaphors we use to illustrate it. Conservatives, for instance, view the economy as a 'moral enforcer': 'the individual is clearly to blame for what befalls her.' Other people will allude to it in terms of health, water, or motion (think of sick economies, trickle-down theory and downward spiral). The author has very good points about how conservatives and progressives present their plans, and lack thereof, to deal with the present crisis. We should not speak in abstractions such as 'costs grew' and 'paychecks shrank.' Rather, Shenker-Osoria exhorts, we should speak of CEOs, conservative politicians and lobbyists attacking labor unions and suppressing wages; we should talk less about hurting the economy and more about how the economy might hurt people. Without doubt, this book is written from the liberal or progressive viewpoint (though liberals economists like Paul Krugman take their knocks) and, while Shenker-Osorio is not an economist, her view of the rhetoric we suffer through is sharp and to the point in saying that we need to define what the economy is, how it works and what it can do for us. If someone can deliver that, we might have a solution — that is, if anyone will listen. Agent: Max Brockman, Brockman Inc. (Sept.)" Publishers Weekly Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

"A persuasive case for retooling how activists think and talk about matters of the wallet." Kirkus

This concise, entertaining book shows us how wrong-headed metaphors and deceptive language have muddled our economic thinking, and how better word choice alone can win the debate.

Today the term “dismal science” seems almost too kind: too many of today’s economic arguments deserve the mantle of mysticism. In the name of appeasing our fickle economy, politicians have slashed services, laid off public workers, and threatened the future of the social safety net. And yet all of these “sacrifices” only make matters worse.

In Don’t Buy It, political communications expert Anat Shenker-Osorio shows how wrong-headed ways of conceptualizing the economy have led to bad decisions and worse policies. When we call the economy “unhealthy” or “recovering,” we give it the status of a living being. Americans must submit to any indignity required to “keep the economy happy.” Tread lightly, we can’t risk irritating the economy!  

Don’t Buy It cuts through misinformation and skewers the economic nonsense we hear every day. In the end, it convincingly demonstrates that radically altering our politics and policies for the better is a matter of changing the conversation — literally.

Anat Shenker-Osorio is a communications consultant and independent writer based in Oakland, CA. She has presented her work at the White House, to members of Congress, as a keynote speaker at Netroots Nation and Campaign for Americas Future Take Back the Dream conference. She has crafted communication strategy and online, print and paid advertising featured globally on such outlets as Fox News, the New York Times, Vanity Fair and CNN.

Previously, Anat helped found the cutting edge research and consulting firm, Real Reason, offering communication solutions to the ACLU, Ford Foundation, Berkeley Media Studies Group and the Center for Reproductive Rights, to name a few. She writes regularly on language for the Huffington Post, Alternet, New Deal 2.0 and RH Reality Check, and has been a commentator on NPR. This is her first book.

Preface: All I Need to Know About the Economy, I Learned from South Park

Chapter One: From What to How

Chapter Two: Time to Resuscitate the Patient

Chapter Three: Tools of the Trade

Chapter Four: I'm from the government, and I'm here to help!

Chapter Five: Don't Call It a Crisis

Chapter Six: Do You Think the Poor Are Lazy?

Chapter Seven: People Do Things

Chapter Eight: What We Don't Know Is Definitely Hurting Us

Conclusion: Putting It All Together