(Above, left to right: SS Tianjin docks at the Port of Los Angeles; cheap end of the strip, Las Vegas; democracy protests, China 1989; another Wal-Mart supercentre; world's largest ethelyne cracker, Alberta)
 

The Price of a Bargain
The Quest for Cheap and the Death of Globalization

Published by Palgrave Macmillan (USA) and McClelland & Stewart (Canada), with forthcoming editions in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea. 

Much has been said about Wal-Mart's low wages and the impact of big box stores on local business. Before the Great Recession hit in 2008, Americans loved to hate the pioneering discounter who seemed to represent all that was wrong with the economy. From manufacturing job losses to the West's epic trade imbalance with China, Wal-Mart's fortunes grew even as America itself began to falter.

But when economic crisis came, all was forgiven. People flocked, and sometimes stampeded, to secure affordable televisions, clothing and groceries. The recession was one of the best things to ever happen to the world's largest company, not merely because of new demand for low-budget items, but because a turbulent marketplace was knocking off and grinding down its competition -- traditional retailers and grocers -- quicker than ever. Not only did Wal-Mart out-sell and out-perform everyone else in 2009 and 2010, sales for dollar stores and liquidators rose significantly as well, resulting in not only the renewed domination of Wal-Mart but of nearly anyone who can offer hungry shoppers more for less. 

Most of us know that, at some level, cheap stuff comes with a price. But what does it mean to have discounting as the defining force within the whole economy? Our world is littered with shipping containers, shaped by logistics networks, subsidized by affordable crude oil, and deeply dependent on consumer spending that, directly and indirectly, accounts for as much as 70 per cent of all economic activity in North America and Europe. 

Blaming bankers, deregulation, and sketchy financial dealings for the recession is only halfway correct. Some of the greatest challenges of our time stem from the transformation of western nations into shopping economies. Unsustainable consumer debt, the rise of Asian economic powers, and the growing impact of former externalities like climate change, pollution, and poverty are rising up, threatening the very sustainability of our economic recovery. And they all are tied to our relentless pursuit of cheap. 

At the core of The Price of a Bargain is a timely argument: the worst economic crisis in 50 years is not just a financial collapse but the beginning of a major shift in society, economy and environment that will mark the decline of globalization and the bountiful tide of affordable consumerism that many economies have come to depend upon. Our whole system of cheap is leveraged in ways we are only just beginning to understand – and broken in ways that may not be easily fixed.

From Alberta’s tar sands to China’s factories, from Las Vegas to the Arctic Circle, a single question emerges: can we survive the bargain?

“An important and timely book lays bare the planet's foolhardy hunger for getting a deal. In a masterful blend of facts and metaphors, Laird tells a story of bargain retailing that is interesting in its own right. . . . evocative . . . Laird lays bare the cost of those bargains in compelling detail.” 
– The Globe and Mail 

“An alarm call, but not alarmist.”
– Kirkus Reviews

FREE download from revised paperback edition: "Introduction 2010 – Black Friday"

More praise and reviews for the book: 

"A provocative, well-researched, and illuminating tour of the forces shaping our consumer culture. . . . At its core, The Price of a Bargain is about sustainability. Our modern economic practices have created massive amounts of waste—both human and environmental—by externalizing the true costs of things. As the U.S. economy shifted from manufacturing to consumption, the quantity of things around us grew dramatically, but our wages began to fall. Bargains provided an illusion that our standard of living was keeping pace. Laird makes a strong case that illusion is over for good."
– Frank Marquardt, Triple Pundit

 "Laird deserves props for taking on the Big Box bastards. When you walk into that Wal-Mart Church of the Holy Cheap, nothing on the incredible $15 price-tag tells you the sneakers were made with the blood of a Guangdong union organizer.  In grab-you-by-the-lapels stories, Laird tells you the real cost of your got-it-for-nothing storegasm."
– Greg Palast, author of the New York Times bestseller The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, and a Nation Institute/Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow for investigative reporting

“Gordon Laird is a reporter of rare skill and extraordinary thoughtfulness, and he has fixed his keen eye on one of the most crucial questions of this young, tumultuous century: the true cost of things. Making those calculations is the essential first step in learning to live within our means – and the planet’s – and The Price of a Bargain has provided us with an invaluable primer on how to do the math accurately.” 
– Chris Turner, author of The Geography of Hope: A Tour of the World We Need (Vintage 2008) 

“In this gritty and entertaining look at our modern love affair with global bargains and Las Vegas sleaze, Gordon Laird brilliantly adds up the real cost of shopping at big boxes for disposable stuff. And it’s a discounted hell of cheap wages, poisonous landscapes, toxic toys, and insecure markets. Consumers have unwittingly made a gambler’s economy that is now trying to outsource its own moral reckoning.”
– Andrew Nikiforuk, winner of the 2009 Rachel Carson Environment Book Award, and author of Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent (Greystone 2009).

“Thorough, informed and relevant . . . Neither shrill nor self-absolving, Laird quietly questions where we’ve been and where we’re headed.”
– Halifax Chronicle-Herald

 “[Laird] plots a direct line from our bargain-hungry hands to disasters such as Alberta’s tar sands, human-rights abuses in China and our hollowed-out economy.”
– Canadian Geographic