Subversive

In a near-future America where the advertising industry rules and consumer economics is sacred doctrine, Warren Dickens makes the unforgivable sin: he sells soap for three cents a bar. No middlemen, no hype, just impossibly cheap goods sold by a mysterious company called Freer Enterprises. But in a world where jobs depend on waste and prices depend on manipulation, cheapness is a revolutionary act. The Bureau of Economic Subversion sends Frank Tracy to shut Dickens down, and what he uncovers is a quiet conspiracy to give people what they actually need at prices they can actually afford. The deeper Tracy digs, the more he must confront an unbearable question: what happens when the rebel is the system itself? Written in 1961, this is sharp, propulsive speculative fiction that asks whether our economy serves us or we serve it.