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Cover of Reefer Madness

Reefer Madness

Eric Schlosser

412 pages

A sharp, eye-opening descent into the hidden economic engines that secretly power American society.

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What it feels like

Reading this book feels like putting on a pair of X-ray glasses that strip away the polished veneer of American capitalism to reveal the gritty, churning gears beneath. The pacing is brisk and journalistic, pulling you through a shadowed landscape of illicit markets with the momentum of a thriller and the rigor of an academic study. The mood is sobering but deeply fascinating, steeped in a wry awareness of systemic hypocrisy. You are constantly confronted by the stark contrast between puritanical public morals and the insatiable, profit-driven realities of the underground economy. It is a perfect match for readers who crave incisive, empathetic narrative nonfiction that challenges their assumptions and permanently alters how they view the everyday world.

Mood
  • sobering
  • gritty
  • eye-opening
  • shadowed
Tone
  • incisive
  • critical
  • empathetic
  • investigative
  • wry
Pace
brisk
Themes
systemic hypocrisy · the hidden costs of capitalism · exploitation of the vulnerable · the shadow economy · American puritanism
The writing
Sharp, accessible, and deeply researched, the prose balances hard economic data with compelling, human-driven narrative journalism.
The arc
The reader journeys from intrigued curiosity about illicit markets to a profound, sobering frustration with American systemic hypocrisy.
Who it's for
Readers who love pulling back the curtain on polite society to examine the messy, often exploitative economic realities underneath.
Content notes
  • drug use
  • discussions of pornography
  • labor exploitation
  • systemic poverty

About the book

In Reefer Madness, the best-selling author of Fast Food Nation investigates America's black market and its far-reaching influence on our society through three of its mainstays -- pot, porn, and illegal immigrants. The underground economy is vast; it comprises perhaps 10 percent -- perhaps more -- of America's overall economy, and it's on the rise. Eric Schlosser charts this growth, and finds its roots in the nexus of ingenuity, greed, idealism, and hypocrisy that is American culture. He reveals the fascinating workings of the shadow economy by focusing on marijuana, one of the nation's largest cash crops; pornography, whose greatest beneficiaries include Fortune 100 companies; and illegal migrant workers, whose lot often resembles that of medieval serfs.

All three industries show how the black market has burgeoned over the past three decades, as America's reckless faith in the free market has combined with a deep-seated puritanism to create situations both preposterous and tragic. Through pot, porn, and migrants, Schlosser traces compelling parallels between underground and overground: how tycoons and gangsters rise and fall, how new technology shapes a market, how government intervention can reinvigorate black markets as well as mainstream ones, how big business learns -- and profits -- from the underground.

With intrepid reportage, rich history, and incisive argument, Schlosser illuminates the shadow economy and the culture that casts that shadow.

Description from Open Library.

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