Jerry Mander

Jerold Irwin "Jerry" Mander (born May 1, 1936) is an American activist and author, best known for his 1977 book, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. His most recent book, The Capitalism Papers, argues against Capitalism as a sustainable and viable system on which to base an economy.

Mander was born in the Bronx, New York City to Harry and Eva Mander, an immigrant Jewish couple who struggled to achieve success in America. In his Four Arguments... he wrote:

"My parents carried the immigrants' fears. Security was their primary value: all else was secondary. Both of them had escaped pogroms in Eastern Europe. My father's career had followed the path familiar to so many New York immigrants. Lower East Side. Scant schooling. Street hustling. Hard work at anything to keep life together. Early marriage. Struggling out of poverty.

"Curiously, success came to him during the Depression. He founded what later became Harry Mander and Company, a small service business to the garment industry, manufacturing pipings, waist bands, pocketing and collar canvas.

"One of the reasons for my father's success during hard times was World War II. He was beyond draft age and so was free to do a successful trade in servicing the manufacture of military uniforms. After the war, the business grew in new directions as the economy spurted forward into an era of rapid growth."

At an early age, Jerry Mander moved with his family from the Bronx to a semi-rural area of Yonkers, New York. He grew up there, and says: "I was a golf star throughout my youth and that was what I wanted to be, a professional golfer when I was very young."

Mander earned a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, then an M.S. in International Economics from Columbia University’s Business School.

After receiving his M.S., Mander worked in advertising for 15 years, including five as partner and president of Freeman, Mander & Gossage in San Francisco. Mander worked with the noted environmentalist, David Brower, managing the Sierra Club's advertising campaigns to prevent the construction of dams in the Grand Canyon, to establish Redwood National Park, and to stop the U.S. Supersonic Transport (SST) project. In 1971 he founded the first non-profit advertising agency in the United States, Public Interest Communications.

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