Tupperware Home Parties, Shaklee Corporation, Amway, Mary Kay Cosmetics--theirs is an approach to business that violates many of the basic tenets of modern American commerce. Yet these direct selling organizations, fashioned by charismatic leaders and built upon devoted armies of door-to-door representatives, have grown to constitute an $8.5 billion a year industry and provide a livelihood for more than 5 million workers, the vast majority of them women.
The first full-scale study of this industry, Charismatic Capitalism, revises the standard contention that the rationalization of social...

These articles, over thirty in total, reflect the best and latest thought in the exciting field of economic sociology. Beginning with the foundation of Smith, Marx, Engels and Polanyi, the volume gathers some of the best writings by economic sociologists that consider national and world economies as both products and influences of society.

• Contains over twenty articles by classical and contemporary economic social theorists.
  
• Covers important topics on economic action, states, and markets.
  
• Includes insightful editorial introductions...

These articles, over thirty in total, reflect the best and latest thought in the exciting field of economic sociology. Beginning with the foundation of Smith, Marx, Engels and Polanyi, the volume gathers some of the best writings by economic sociologists that consider national and world economies as both products and influences of society.

• Contains over twenty articles by classical and contemporary economic social theorists.
  
• Covers important topics on economic action, states, and markets.
  
• Includes insightful editorial introductions...