Eric Schlosser Quotes

13 Sourced Quotes

The market is a tool, and a useful one. But the worship of this tool is a hollow faith. Far more important than any tool is what you make with it.

Eric Schlosser
The history of the twentieth century was dominated by the struggle against totalitarian systems of state power. The twenty-first will no doubt be marked by a struggle to curtail excessive corporate power.

Eric Schlosser
Congress should ban advertising that preys upon children, it should stop subsidizing dead-end jobs, it should pass tougher food safety laws, it should protect American workers from serious harm, it should fight against dangerous concentrations of economic power.

Eric Schlosser
The executives who run the fast food industry are not bad men. They are businessmen. They will sell free-range, organic, grass-fed hamburgers if you demand it. They will sell whatever sells at a profit.

Eric Schlosser
Future historians, I hope, will consider the American fast food industry a relic of the twentieth century—a set of attitudes, systems, and beliefs that emerged from postwar southern California, that embodied its limitless faith in technology, that quickly spread across the globe, flourished briefly, and then receded, once its true costs became clear and its thinking became obsolete.

Eric Schlosser
In 1970, Americans spent about $6 billion on fast food; in 2000, they spent more than $110 billion. Americans now spend more money on fast food than on higher education, personal computers, computer software, or new cars. They spend more on fast food than on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos, and recorded music—combined.

Eric Schlosser
The hardy, independent farmers, whom Jefferson considered the bedrock of democracy, are a truly vanishing breed. The United States now has more prison inmates than farmers.

Eric Schlosser
The life's work of Walt Disney and Ray Kroc had come full-circle, uniting in perfect synergy. McDonald's began to sell its hamburgers and french fries at Disney's theme parks. The ethos of McDonaldland and of Disneyland, never far apart, have finally become one. Now you can buy a Happy Meal at the Happiest Place on Earth.

Eric Schlosser
A generation ago, three-quarters of the money used to buy food in the United States was spent to prepare meals at home. Today about half of the money used to buy food is spent at restaurants—mainly at fast food restaurants.

Eric Schlosser
The United States now has more prison inmates than full-time farmers.

Eric Schlosser
Twenty years ago, teenage boys in the United States drank twice as much milk as soda; now they drink twice as much soda as milk.

Eric Schlosser
If the market does indeed embody the sum of all human wishes, then the secret ones are just as important as the ones that are openly displayed,

Eric Schlosser
The Golden Arches are now more widely recognized than the Christian cross.

Eric Schlosser