Episode · Freakonomics Radio · 2025-08-01
Books mentioned on 643. Why Do Candles Still Exist?
They should have died out when the lightbulb was invented. Instead they’re a $10 billion industry.
Stephen Dubner discussed The Waste Makers by Vance Packard.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
-
The Waste Makers
Discussed“Cooper tells us that it was the journalist Vance Packard who helped popularize the term who realized there was a growing interest in just how the consumer society was leading to an economy in which things were thrown away and replaced and the things that were being thrown away firstly could have been designed to last longer but secondly and”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (1) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
Plugged Spaceship in the Desert
“My first book was about the construction of renewable energy and clean technology infrastructure in Abu Dhabi and it studied the construction of an eco city called Mazdar City.”