The birth of the modern consumer movement

Planet Money

NPR

Business, News

4.6 • 29.8K Ratings

🗓️ 3 May 2024

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today on the show, the story of the modern consumer movement in the U.S. and the person who inspired it: Ralph Nader. How Ralph Nader's battle in the 1960s set the stage for decades of regulation and sparked a debate in the U.S. about how much regulation is the right amount and how much is too much.

This episode was made in collaboration with NPR's Throughline. For more about Ralph Nader and safety regulations, listen to their original episode, "Ralph Nader, Consumer Crusader."

This Planet Money episode was produced by Emma Peaslee and edited by Jess Jiang.

The Throughline episode was produced by Rund Abdelfatah, Ramtin Arablouei, Lawrence Wu, Julie Caine, Anya Steinberg, Casey Miner, Cristina Kim, Devin Katayama, Peter Balonon-Rosen, Irene Noguchi, and fact-checking by Kevin Volkl. The episode was mixed by Josh Newell.

Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This message comes from NPR's sponsor, Organic Valley, the farmer-owned cooperative dedicated to providing ethically sourced food from small organic family farms.
0:09.5	Discover how you can support local organic farmers at o v. coop slash ethically sourced.
0:17.0	This is Planet Money from NPR.
0:22.0	You know how it seems like just about every day there's some sort of new
0:28.0	product recall? Toyota recalling one million vehicles worldwide over a
0:32.2	potential airbag issue.
0:33.6	FDA is reporting another baby formula recall.
0:36.5	Some of Boeing's 737 max 9 planes are grounded right now triggering
0:41.4	cancellations nationwide.
0:43.0	The idea is if a product is faulty, the government should intervene and keep it from the market.
0:48.0	This is the result of the modern day consumer advocacy movement.
0:53.6	This movement started decades ago with Ralph Nader.
0:56.1	He's well known for his presidential run
0:57.8	in the 2000 election, but back in the 60s
1:00.4	he was a young lawyer who was trying to make sense of a pretty significant problem.
1:05.0	I lost a lot of friends in car crashes.
1:09.0	They were killed or they were permanently disabled.
1:12.0	It's far, far worse then than it was. or they were permanently disabled.
1:12.5	It's far, far worse then than it is today.
1:16.1	Fatal car crashes were nearly five times more common back then.
1:19.8	And that didn't make sense to Nader.
1:22.1	I kept thinking of people who could be living productive lives today
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -251 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.