Eric Schlosser
The Steward
Legacy, values and the long now, leadership as care and continuity.
Eric Schlosser reads as The Steward because his investigative career aims at restoration, not revolution. Fast Food Nation diagnosed structural rot, oligopoly, regulatory capture and externalised costs, then argued for recovering a lost equilibrium rather than tearing systems down. He anchors his hope in historical precedent, Progressive Era reform and New Deal regulation, translating hidden corporate harms into public accountability with the patience of someone guarding a longer tradition.
“The real price doesn't appear on the menu. If you had to pay for the dialysis for kidney disease at the moment you were buying some of this ultra processed food, it would be a lot more expensive.”
“Once you see how it happened and once you believe things aren't inevitable, you also believe things don't have to be the way they are. We have the agency.”
“I hope the last few decades will be looked back on as an anomaly and as maybe a last burst of a kind of ruthless capitalism that wasn't inevitable, and that we can absolutely move beyond if we make the effort.”
Ways to Change the World with Krishnan Guru-Murthy: “Eric Schlosser: Why the real cost of cheap food is hidden”
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