Democracy under pressure

Stuart Chase (March 8, 1888 – November 16, 1985) was an American economist, social theorist, and writer. His writings included topics as diverse as general semantics and physical economy. His thought was influenced by Henry George (1839–1897), by economic philosopher Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929), by Fabian socialism, and briefly by the Communist social and educational experiments in the Soviet Union to around 1930, though Chase was broadly a modern American liberal. Chase spent his early political career endorsing "a wide range of reform causes: the single tax, women's suffrage, birth control and socialism." Chase's early books, The Tragedy of Waste (1925) and Your Money's Worth (1927), were notable for their criticism of corporate advertising and their advocacy of consumer protection. In 1929 Chase co-founded Consumers' Research, a consumer protection advocacy organization.