I used to own this book but passed it along (to Todd, I think). This book was a collaborative effort written before budding SF author Kornbluth died in his 30s. It is a satire on corporate America, depicting a dystopian world (ca. A.D. 2200) in which corporations, and especially their advertising departments, have come to dominate daily life, while governments have become merely their handmaids. Although I had been primed to expect a masterpiece (the book was included in John Clute's list of SF 'classics'), I'm sorry to say I found it to be a rather lightweight expression of populist/leftist, business-bashing, paranoid, Naderite anti-capitalism. It may be a classic in the sense of serving as a premier example of a large number of SF books of this type, but in view of capitalism's successes and the failure of the left's nightmare scenarios to materialize, it seems dated and hackneyed.
The main character, our protagonist, is Mitchell Courtney, Copysmith (i.e. ad copy writer) Star Class, who's writing skills have propelled him to a VP position reporting to Fowler Schocken, the top man at Fowler Schocken Associates (FSA), one of two main ad agencies (the other being the evil Taunton Associates). Mitch obviously lives a harried life, and his schedule has apparently come between him and his 'wife' (one year trial-marriage contract) Kathy, a surgeon; they are separated. As he tries to woo her back, she tells him he's 'an ill-tempered, contriving Machiavellian, selfish pig of a man.' She used to think he was a sweet guy, an idealist who cared for principles and ethics instead of money. Anyone could marry a girl who'd be a housewife, she says, but it took a Mitch to marry a first-class surgeon and MAKE her a housewife (we later find she's a Consie, and that's her main beef).
The overpopulated stage is set when Fowler brags in a board meeting about some of the perks of his high office; two-room apartment, real meat every day and a Cadillac to pedal (i.e. no more engines allowed). We learn that the entire subcontinent of India has been merged by the firm into a single manufacturing complex called Indiastries. The 'Coffiest' product, containing a harmless but addictive simple alkaloid, is a leading seller of the company. Mitch has become expert at placing 'Expression One' on his face (exuding eagerness, intelligence, competence). We learn of the dreaded 'Consies,' an underground organization of conservationists who regularly stage protests and otherwise attempt (mostly being only a minor irritant) to disrupt corporate operations.
At an early-morning board meeting, Fowler shows his VPs a 9 minute (3 times longer than allowed on-air) ad promoting Venus as an attractive place to live (despite unbreathable atmosphere, intense heat, waterless chemistry and 500-mph winds). Fowler is excited about the project to have his firm dominate colonization of the planet (although the government - 'odd how we still think and talk of that clearinghouse for pressures as though it were an entity with a will of its own' - had wanted to claim it for America). Fowler gives a pep talk in 'the dithering, circumlocutory way that has become a part of the flavor of our business. He called our attention to the history of advertising - from the simple handmaiden task of selling already manufactured goods to its present role of creating industries and redesigning a world's folkways to meet the needs of commerce' (6). All things serve the god of Sales. Mitch tries to explain to Kathy his gung-ho attitude as religious ritual, 'like the champaigne bottle smash on the ship's prow, or the sacrifice of the virgin to the corn crop ... [after all] I don't think any of us ... would feed opium derivatives to the world for money alone' (7). At the end of the meeting, Mitch is shocked to learn that he has been named to head the project. He needs colonists willing to go, others willing to make sacrifices to get them there and something for them to do when they arrive. The first is easy; consumers are suckers for the idea that the grass is greener far away. For the second, he considers an austerity campaign or maybe even a religious movement (to offer vicarious dedication to those who would not ride the rockets themselves). Thirdly, he needs to find a way to make the colonists' activities dependent on the company, to tie them into the industrial complex supplied by FSA.
Fowler laments that Taunton is 'the epitome of everything that keeps advertising from finding its rightful place with the clergy, medicine and the bar' (12), then tells Mitch that he's just stolen the Venus project from them (by greasing certain government palms). The government is still representative, but ad valorem (i.e. weighted according to wisdom, power, influence - that is, money), not per capita. Mitch worries that this will spark a bloody feud between the corporations, but Fowler doesn't believe Taunton will dare take that messy and expensive course (we learn that killing in an industrial feud is a misdemeanor, but killing without Notification is a commercial [i.e. very serious] offense!). His fears are soon confirmed when a shadowy figure suspended from a helicopter takes a shot at him through the window of his high-rise apartment (not to mention a prior near-miss at the airport as a freighter ship crashes down on the spot where he'd been a few seconds before).
The Consie arguments boil down to one thesis: Nature's way is the right way! To Mitch, this is silly. Science is always one step ahead of the failure of natural resources (e.g. soyaburgers replacing meat, pedicabs engines...) (14).
Fowler, demanding rewrites from copywriter Tildy Mathis: 'I want color. I want drive and beauty, and humble, human warmth, and ecstacy, and all the tender, sad emotion of your sweet womanly heart, and I want it in 15 words' (33). Shortly after, noting Mitch's ability to alter consumers' behavior with his words, he says: 'You've got power, Mitch, absolute power. And you know the old saying. Power enobles. Absolute power enobles absolutely' (34, i.e. reversing Lord Acton's famous phrase).
Jack O'Shea is an odd-looking, 60 pound, 35" midget who's size qualified him to be the first and only successful visitor to Venus, but all the girls are attracted to him, since he has both money and fame, the two most desirable attributes constantly drilled into the population by ad agencies. Explaining to Jack what's needed, Mitch says 'we want words that are about Venus, words that'll tickle people. Make them sit up. Make them muse about change, and space, and other worlds. Words to make them a little discontented about what they are and a little hopeful about what they might be. Words to make them feel noble about feeling the way they do and make them happy about the existence of Indiastries and Starrzelius Verily (marketer of food products, the first 'spherical trust,' i.e. set of products that created urges for each other; Popsie [drink] to Crunchies [snack] to Starrs [cigarettes] to Popsie) and FSA. Words that will do all these things and also make them feel unhappy about the existence of Universal Products and Taunton Associates' (36). Mitch explains that Tildy is one of the world's great lyric poets (she doesn't know it, don't tell her, it might make her unhappy), right up there with Keats, Swinburne and Wylie. 'There are only so many people capable of putting together words that stir and move and sing. When it became possible to make a very good living in advertising by exercising this capability, lyric poetry was left to untalented screwballs who had to shriek for attention and compete by eccentricity' (38, :-) probably a grain of truth there!).
Tildy illustrates an interesting point about human nature, she's artsy, poetic and sensitive, but lacks good sense and is easily seduced ('everyone knows about Tildy'). Mitch tells Jack: 'Keats was properly hooked by a designing wench, and Byron didn't have sense enough to stay out of the venereal ward. Swinburne made a tragic mess out of his life. Do I have to go on?' (39).
Things start to get ugly for Mitch after he makes a surprise visit to the San Diego office, run by Matt Runstead's man Ham Harris. It turns out they've been slacking off, having been soured on the Venus project by Matt, and Mitch fires them all on the spot. Furious at Matt, he calls him at NY HQ, only to find Matt's taking a vacation at Little America, an antarctic resort, so he has Hester (his loyal secretary) book him on a rocket there too. He finally catches up with Matt out on the ice, like himself, in a special suit. Unfortunately, before he can give Matt a piece of his mind, Matt knocks him out and steals his power pack, leaving him to freeze.
The next scene begins a surreal adventure for Mitch, as he wakes up aboard a Labor Freighter, surrounded by filthy, stinking, often drugged, down-and-out laboring men, having apparently been sold into labor slavery. When he tries to explain his plight to the crew, he finds the news has reported him found dead in the ice, and that the prestigiously short SSN tattoed onto his arm has been doctored to show a low-status, much longer number. He tries to explain, but the ship's crew doesn't buy his story. They do notice that he speaks above the class of his false profile as George Groby [grubby], but they chalk it up to the fact that 'a broken-home child, especially a middle sib from the lower levels, reads and views incessantly trying to better himself' (66). The ship is headed for the Costa Rica Chlorella plantations where he is to work as a contract laborer. Seeing the bleak reality of these labor conditions makes him feel guilty about writing glowing ads about 'sun-drenched plantations of Costa Rica, tended by the deft hands of independent farmers with pride in their work ... [producing] the juicyripe goodness of Chlorella Proteins' (68). After paying bribes to locate on a lower floor and to avoid rooming with the gay or violent men, he pays yet another tribute to gain access to a phone, only to discover he lacks the priority code needed to make a long-distance call (only large, corporations can afford those). He can always write letters (being mindful of the company censor), but in the meantime, he'll need to learn the ropes of his new job: scum-skimmer.
[Reminiscent of real-world late Roman Empire, when ordinary 'middle class' people would often be kidnapped and sold into slavery i.e. part of a general break-down in moral order as people grew more and more desperate to protect their place in the social hierarchy in the face of economic collapse, brought on largely by inflation as govt proved unable to 'balance its budgets, win its wars or protect its borders' in Pat B's phrase. This reality doesn't fit this story, since a total focus on business would likely lead to great wealth, not crisis, unless corruption outdid all those market benefits for most people, hard to imagine since small-business would scream].
Mitch is gratified to notice that, although the laborers refer to the ads as 'crap', the message sinks in anyway. He muses on how important it is for ads 'to mold and channel the deepest torrential flow of human emotion (i.e. sex) into its proper directions ... it strengthens the motivation, helps it come to the surface, provides it with focus' (74-5) and, of course, produces ever-increasing profits.
Mitch arranges to meet and gradually get to know Gus Herrera, who has worked his way to being Master Slicer of the huge, living, growing 'Chicken Little', from which meat is sliced daily for human consumption but without harming it. He reasons that Herrera must have alot of money after 10 years of this prestigious job and can possibly help Mitch escape. Mitch comments (with obvious reference to our own system's working class) that 'the pattern of the B labor contract had become quite clear. You never got out of debt. Easy credit was part of the system, and so were irritants that forced you to exercise it' (76). He needs Herrera to break him out of the cycle. He knows he has to hurry: 'If I didn't get out soon I never would. I could feel my initiative, the thing that made me me, dying, cell by cell, within me. The minute dosages of alkaloid were sapping my will, but most of all it was a hopeless, trapped feeling that things were this way, that they always would be this way, that it wasn't too bad ... (78, i.e. giving up idealism and 'settling' for good enough, hmmm, reality check, idealism usually leads to totalitarianism as 1st idealists, then later cynical hangers-on use big govt to achieve their ends i.e. 'the dragons of [idealistic] expectation').
Finally the day arrives when Herrera offers that Mitch doesn't look very happy and Mitch responds that he isn't very happy. Herrera secretly slaps a crumpled piece of paper into Mitch's hand, then leaves. The note indicates that Herrera is a Consie and is offering to let Mitch into the organization, Mitch having been judged intelligent, disturbed by the present state of the world and a potentially valuable addition to their ranks. Mitch's reaction was that the information on the sheet was a) the worst copy he'd ever read; b) a wildly distorted view of reality; c) a possible escape route. 'The ad was crafted ... [to be] calm, learned, we're all men of sound judgement and deep scholarship here; we can talk frankly about bedrock issues ... it was an appeal to reason, and they're always dangerous. You can't trust reason. We threw it out of the ad profession long ago and have never missed it' (81). He itches to add some 'see-hear-taste-feel words with real shock.' He decides to play along with the Consies, hoping for a ticket back to New York.
We see a little struggle in Mitch when Herrera tells him one reason he keeps his blade sharp is for use on himself in case he is ever tempted to betray the cause. Mitch had to admit this willingness to sacrifice self to a greater (although mistaken) cause was noble, and initially resolved to do what he could for Herrera when he 'blew off the lid' on the Consies. But on further reflection, realizing any attempt to help a Consie would be seen as 'unsound' by his peers, he gives up on that idea, convincing himself Herrera must bear the consequences of his own choices (82). Mitch obviously has a weak concept of friendship (no doubt another side affect of his reductionist worldview and environment).
Before long, Herrera invites Mitch to go down and visit Chicken Little (Gallina). Mitch is amazed by the 100-ton, 15 yard diameter, gray-brown, rubbery hemisphere. It really gets interesting when Herrera says he'll show Mitch a 'trick' Gallina can do. As he works his hand-pumped 'Galton's whistle,' Gallina opens up an archway for the 2 men to walk into, slowly moving it ahead toward the middle of the blob, closing the path behind them as they move forward. Finally they find the hatchway and, once inside, meet 2 Consie operatives. When one notices that Mitch doesn't talk like an uneducated man, he explains 'its tough being right in the middle of a family of 5. You aren't old enough to be respected and you aren't young enough to be the pet. I felt kind of lost and I kept trying to better myself' (86) [by reading and viewing]. After a short study period (to read up on Consie ideas) during which Mitch impresses all by his copy skills (manipulating attitudes among the Chlorella workers), he is promoted to Chlorella Purchasing (including from a number of NYC outlets). Mitch learns that the Consies have worked themselves into positions which can affect these personnel movements.
A major theme of the book is the unbridgable gap between the rich, smart, thinking, rational executives and the poor, dumb, feeling, instinctual consumers. Mitch believes this gap could never 'be bridged by anything as abstract and unreal as 'friendship'' (90). He accepts this as an immutable fact of life. He is speaking of his 'friendship' with Herrera, which we know he initiated (manipulated) for his own benefit.
When Herrera takes him into town one weekend, Mitch expects debauchery and drunkenness (per the stories of the other men about Herrera), but instead finds that Herrera spends hours simply reading old books and magazines in a secret library hidden in the back of a restaurant. Mitch expresses his discomfort, noting that, although some of these volumes would look good in his office, 'I could not relax in the presence of so many books without a word of advertising in any of them. I am not a prude about solitary pleasures when they serve a useful purpose. But my tolerance has limits' (91). He feels this is a giant waste of time that could better be spent pursuing greater sales and profits ... the difference between an executive and a consumer. He scarcely speaks to Herrera after that. We later find, just before Mitch is to go to NYC, that Herrera 'broke', meaning he was overcome by doubts and fears, killing himself.
Once in NYC, a Consie contact informs him he is to attend a midnight meeting that night. Before he does, though, he makes a side trip to Schocken Tower, where he manages to run into Hester, his loyal secretary. She has been forced to take a ZZ contract (i.e. prostitute) on the recreation deck, but she promises to help Mitch however she can, giving him some money to pay for a taxi to the Met (driven by a nasty driver). As he arrives at the Met for the Consie meeting, he says 'I have always had a fondness for the Met. I don't go much for religion - partly, I suppose, because its a Taunton account - but there is a grave, ennobling air about the grand old masterpieces in the Met that gives me a feeling of peace and reverence' (100). Toward morning, as Mitch leaves the meeting, he is confronted by the nasty taxi driver and hit over the head.
He wakes up at Taunton Associates HQ. B J Taunton himself steps into the room, drunk, and rails furiously at Schocken's theft of his Venus account, promising to stop at nothing to take it back (including killing all of Schocken's section heads). He admits to trying to kill Mitch at the airport and apartment, but seems to know nothing of the glacier incident, believing Mitch went there to escape (Mitch had thought Runstead was a Taunton agent). When Mitch wonders who would do this dirty work for Taunton (with the threat of 'brainburning'), Taunton explains that there are more and more psychopaths who are willing to, even enjoy, hurting others and being hurt themselves. One such is Hedy, whom Mitch is to visit next (if he fails to provide the information they want). Just the sight of her in the doorway (with a 6" needle) reduces him to screaming and confusion, after which they tell him to think it over awhile and collect his wits. Before long, Hedy arrives, saying she couldn't wait until later, as they'd ordered. Wielding her needle (causing incredible pain by hitting nerve clusters in his jaw) while saying she loves and wants him (eeeuuu), she somehow tears his plasticocoon straitjacket, freeing his hand and arm to clamp onto her neck and kill her. He escapes, noticing that she'd killed the guard on her way in. Once again, a call to Hester saves his skin as she meets him with clothes and money. His next move is for he and Hester to catch the next ship to the moon.
At first, Hester is chattery, but then she snaps. 'She'd been brought up in a deeply moral, sales-fearing home, and you couldn't expect her to commit the high commercial crime of breaking a labor contract without there being a terrific emotional backlash' (113). Just before landing, Hester develops stomach pains, then dies! It turns out she's been tasting their food for safety and the coffiest has apparently been poisoned (although the doctor later decides it was a rare condition triggered by space-flight). Her last words express her love for Mitch and her disdain for Kathy, who'd abandoned him. They bring her to the 'lazarette' which artificially brings her back, but her random body responses to their questions indicates she's really gone, so they turn off the machine.
On the moon, he plays dumb, saying only that he should be brought to Fowler Schocken. They don't buy it, and he can see that he's about to be apprehended by security men. In desperation, he signals the Consie 'Grand Hailing Sign of Distress'. Soon, a guard rushes over, signals to the others he's in control, and guides Mitch to a Consie safe location. Dr. Astron, the safe-house keeper, confesses utter confusion as to 'Groby's' motives and actions and says a Consie Central Committee member will arrive shortly to sort it out. Soon after, in she walks ... Kathy!!!
He soon finds that she'd had (fellow Consie) Runstead shanghai him in order save him from Taunton's killers and to give him a taste of the consumer's life. After exchanging some harsh words (she's 'a lying fanatic and a bitch', he's been warped by copysmithing and keeping her secret from him has hurt her deeply), he demands that she call Schocken and have him come now, then get out. He never wants to see her again, but he'll give the Consie's a few days before he tells all to Schocken. Once Kathy leaves (carrying Astron, whom Mitch had knocked out), its a few minutes before Schocken arrives. He's shocked but happy to see Mitch (especially relieved to have the Venus project off his neck), and agrees to Mitch's request for more security to escort them back to safe territory. Once there, Schocken hands Mitch a sheaf of notes, telling him to put in 'a good hour or two of work on them, and then the sound sleep of the just, eh?' (128). He's back in the saddle at last!
Mitch waits until the Ricardo rocket returns to Earth (true to his word to give the Consies a chance to regroup) and then tells Fowler the whole story. He doesn't believe a word of it, assuming Mitch has simply taken a 'holiday from reality' brought on by stress, choosing 'the lazy, easy-going life of a scum-skimmer, drowsing in the tropic sun ... Mitch then knows for sure who was out of touch with reality (134). 'Poor old Fowler. Who could blame him? His own dreamworld was under attack by every word I had to say. My story was blasphemy against the god of Sales. He couldn't believe ... such frightful things as: the interests of producers and consumers are not identical; most of the world is unhappy; workmen don't automatically find the job they do best; entrepreneurs don't play a hard, fair game by the rules; the Consies are sane, intelligent and well organized' (135). They humored each other for a few weeks until Fowler decided to drop his security, over Mitch's protests. That night, he was strangled by a chauffeur-impersonating criminal.
After a brief memorial board meeting, the struggle for control of FSA ensues. As Fowler's will is read, Mitch appears left out (being left only shares in a psychoanalytic non-profit), but when he seems to 'hear Fowler chuckling nearby', it suddenly occurs to him that Fowler may have planted an underhanded way for him to take over. Sure enough, through a complex chain of shell corporations, Mitch discovers he's been granted majority control of FSA, which he asserts at the next board meeting. 'It was done. I was master of FSA. And I had learned to despise everything for which it stood' (143).
He now finds his driving goal (distracting him from FSA business) is to find Kathy (driven into hiding), so he has his secretary arrange for him to meet every Consie who is turned in. Along the way, he breaks (and we learn of) such time-honored principles of jurisprudence as not informing the accused of the nature of his crime, not telling him who accused him and 'better that 1000 innocents suffer unjustly than one guilty escape'. When he smells Kathy's unique perfume on Jack O'Shea, he orders his security to tail him and everyone he contacts. He finally catches up to her on the stairs of the Taunton building, managing to get to her 2 stairs just as the barricades slam shut, locking the 2 of them in for the night. He tells her she was right, he was wrong and he'll do anything. 'Venus?', she says. 'It's yours'. In the morning, as the barriers drop, B J Taunton himself is there waiting with his security to take Mitch away. With Kathy's help, they manage to subdue Taunton and get to the public transit at the street.
Safely back at FSA HQ, Kathy presses Mitch's promise to deliver Venus to the Consies. Having already lined up all needed Venus participants, Mitch will need to backtrack and convince them not to go (without their knowing they're being convinced). He asks Kathy to bring Runstead back to help him. We learn that O'Shea is also a Consie. With Runstead's help, they manage to get all 1500 spots on the Venus rocket filled by Consies. But when Mitch goes to Washington to get final clearance for the flight (requiring an act of Congress), trouble surfaces. Even though the president and Congress are in FSA's back pocket, Taunton is still at large. Mitch gives a selling pitch that would've made Fowler proud: 'I touched briefly on American enterprise and the home; I offered them a world to loot and a whole plunderable universe beyond it, once FSA's brave pioneers had opened the way for it; I gave them a picture of assembly-line planets owned and operated by our very selves, the enterprising American businessmen who had made civilization great' (161). After the ovation, a senator named Colbee (from Yummy-Cola) stands and indicates that Taunton (who is present) has raised a few questions: has Mitch ever heard of George Groby? Is Mitch George Groby? Is Mitch a Consie? 'The uproar was like a physical blast' (162). The president, acting quickly, adjourned the meeting and had his security hustle Mitch outside and into a plane (the security men clearly loathe him now, but are still dutiful). Kathy later says the president isn't a Consie, but is 'a good man'. Next thing he knows, he's in AZ being hustled onto the Venus rocket. He doesn't want to go, but has no choice in the matter.
In flight, Kathy joins him. Mitch can see now how Kathy, Runstead and O'Shea had plotted to have him 'put on ice', but he still has 2 big questions, things that don't fit. Why did Runstead louse up San Diego and the Venus project, and why was Hester murdered? Kathy explains that they couldn't allow FSA to spoil Venus, but that they still want to set up a new kind of society there, one more in line with Consie values. Hester died because of her love for Mitch (Kathy said it was suicide). It turns out O'Shea 'broke' and revealed all to Taunton's agents. Kathy clarifies that O'Shea to Kathy, like Hester to Mitch, were both one-way love affairs. She scolds Mitch for not noticing either her or Hester's love for him. Runstead is now at the head of FSA. As the story ends, they're strapped in together in preparation for the next course correction blast on their way to Venus. For Mitch, its hello Kathy and goodbye FSA (and all the perks that go along with it).
Its hard to see Mitch really buying into the Consie way of thinking (he's already lamenting the loss of the yessirs, catering and special treatment that were his at FSA ... now he'll be just one of the boys ... yuck!), so realistically there is probably more fighting ahead for these two, but perhaps 'love and art are more important than science and philosophy' (and politics, quote from Paul Feyerabend). Love apparently conquers all at the end of this book. I'll have to check out the sequel sometime: The Merchant's War by Pohl.
This book assumes the immense power of advertising and basically the inability of regular people to resist its pull. Ad-makers want dumber people, who are thereby more susceptible to their tricks. Consumers are seen as basically being forced to act in ways not in their best interest and the system is to blame, not themselves. Hmmm.
This book was a collaborative effort written just before budding SF author Kornbluth died in his 30s. It is a satire on corporate America, depicting a dystopian world (ca. A.D. 2200) in which corporations, and especially their advertising departments, have come to dominate daily life, while governments have become merely their handmaids. Although I had been primed to expect a masterpiece (the book was included in John Clute's list of SF 'classics'), and indeed it is a fun, well written and, at times, on-target satire, I'm sorry to say I also found it to be a little weighed down with populist/leftist, business-bashing, paranoid, Naderite anti-capitalism. It may be a classic in the sense of serving as a premier example of a large number of SF books of this type, but in view of capitalism's successes and the failure of the Left's nightmare scenarios to materialize, that part seems a bit dated and hackneyed.
The main character is Mitchell Courtney, a very successful ad copy writer who works for a leading ad firm. The 'Consies' are an underground organization of radical conservationists who regularly stage protests and otherwise attempt to disrupt corporate operations (mostly being only a minor irritant). The Consie arguments boil down to one thesis: Nature's way is the right way! To Mitch, this is silly. Science is always one step ahead of the failure of natural resources. Mitch's latest assignment is to convince people that Venus as an attractive place to live (despite unbreathable atmosphere, intense heat, waterless chemistry and 500-mph winds!).
We meet some interesting characters, including copy writer Tildy (employed by Mitch's firm), whom Mitch describes as one of the world's great lyric poets, right up there with Keats, Swinburne and Wylie. 'There are only so many people capable of putting together words that stir and move and sing. When it became possible to make a very good living in advertising by exercising this capability, lyric poetry was left to untalented screwballs who had to shriek for attention and compete by eccentricity'. Tildy is artsy, poetic and sensitive, but lacks good sense and is easily seduced ('everyone knows about Tildy'). Mitch explains: 'Keats was properly hooked by a designing wench, and Byron didn't have sense enough to stay out of the venereal ward. Swinburne made a tragic mess out of his life. Do I have to go on?'.
Caught between Consie and (competitor ad agency) Taunton intrigues, Mitch experiences a surreal adventure after being kidnapped and sold into labor slavery. Seeing the bleak reality of these labor conditions makes him feel guilty about misrepresenting these conditions in his ad copy. He observes that the laborers can never got out of debt, since the system provides both easy credit and irritants that force them to exercise it.
He manages to escape by joining the Consies. He feels bad about using his new Consie 'friend' Herrera, but decides not to help him for fear of reprisals to himself. He obviously has a weak conception of friendship. In fact, a major theme of the book is the unbridgable gap between the rich, smart, thinking, rational executives and the poor, dumb, feeling, instinctual consumers (Marxist class warfare). Mitch believes this gap could never 'be bridged by anything as abstract and unreal as 'friendship''.
When Herrera takes him into town one weekend, Mitch expects debauchery, but instead finds that Herrera spends hours simply reading old books and magazines in a secret library hidden in the back of a restaurant. Mitch expresses his discomfort, noting that, although some of these volumes would look good in his office, 'I could not relax in the presence of so many books without a word of advertising in any of them'. He feels this is a giant waste of time that could better be spent pursuing greater sales and profits ... the difference between an executive and a consumer.
After more adventures with the Consies and Taunton, he finally manages to reconnect with his ad firm. When Mitch tells his boss the story, he doesn't believe a word of it, assuming Mitch has been delusional. Mitch realizes his boss simply cannot accept 'such frightful things as: the interests of producers and consumers are not identical; most of the world is unhappy; workmen don't automatically find the job they do best; entrepreneurs don't play a hard, fair game by the rules; the Consies are sane, intelligent and well organized'.
Mitch eventually takes control of the firm, but by this time he sympathizes with the Consie cause and rejects everything his ad firm stands for. He reconnects with his estranged Consie wife Kathy and agrees to deliver Venus to her cause. As the story ends, they are aboard a rocket heading for Venus where they plan to set up a Consie utopia.
Its hard to see Mitch really buying into the Consie way of thinking (he's already lamenting the loss of his corporate perks ... now he'll be just one of the boys ... yuck!), so realistically there is probably more fighting ahead for these two, but perhaps love and art are more important than science and philosophy (Feyerabend). Love apparently conquers all at the end of this book. The sequel is Pohl's The Merchant's War.
This book assumes the immense power of advertising and basically the inability of regular people to resist its pull. Ad-makers want dumber people, who are thereby more susceptible to their tricks. Consumers are seen as essentially being forced to act in ways not in their best interest and the system is to blame, not themselves (i.e. standard leftist class-warfare themes).
