Trust and Power: Consumers, the Modern Corporation, and the Making of the United States Automobile Market

by Sally H. Clarke

• ISBN13: 9780521868785
• ISBN10: 0521868785
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-05-24
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Trust and Power argues that corporations have faced conflicts with the very consumers whose loyalty they sought. The book provides novel insights into the dialogue between modern corporations and consumers by examining the car industry during the twentieth century. In the new market at the turn of the century, car manufacturers produced defective cars, and consumers faced risks of physical injuries as well as financial losses. By the 1920s, cars were sold in a mass market where state agencies intervened to monitor, however imperfectly, product quality and fair pricing mechanisms. After 1945, the market matured as most U.S. families came to rely on car transport. Again, the state intervened to regulate relations between buyers and sellers in terms of who had access to credit, and thus the ability to purchase expensive durables like cars.

Table of Contents

A New Market, 1896-1916

Risks of innovation, risks of injury

New firms and the problem of social costs

A Mass Market, 1916-1941

Corporate strategies and consumers' loyalty

Engineering a mass product

A machine age aesthetic

The franchised car dealer and consumers' marketing dilemma

A Mature Market, 1945-1965

Automobiles and institutional change

Conclusion

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