Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl & C. M. Kornbluth

 

This is the story of a future overpopulated Earth and the corporate society there.  It's a world where people pay businesses to sleep in their stairwells overnight and wear nose-filters for air pollution.  It's a world where advertising is a prime mover.  And they figure advertising can sell anything - even life on a hellish planet like Venus.  At least for readers who can appreciate a satirical look at business and the kind of world business builds, the book is amusing and entertaining.  One does not have to be especially socially-conscious to enjoy this, and there's an engaging story as well.

 

It is impressive that the book covers some of the material and issues here, in view of the fact it was published in 1952.

 

The advertising industry is a central part of the story.  Anything that helps sell a product is important.  For instance, if it's addictive, all the better - that's a good thing.  If the product, like living on Venus, is something nobody would want to buy; then you just have to lie about the product.  Advertising is everywhere trying to hijack your brain and coerce you into buying their stuff.

 

The main character starts out as an ad executive, only familiar with how the affluent live.  But a competitor arranges to have him put into the identity / life of a lower class worker with an obligation to work a labor camp in Costa Rico.  This gives us a view of how most people live.  He must deal with a (to him) unsavory labor organizer.  We follow his mischief before-hand at the ad company and then his struggle to get back to his former (to him) noble life of fleecing the public.  This skewed perspective of his adds to the amusement of the book.

 

 

It's also interesting to think of a 1950's SF novel NOT about triumphant colonization of places like Venus, but portraying colonization of Venus as something only the grossest fabrications would cause someone to be part of.