Lindsay Owens, an economic sociologist and head of the progressive Washington thinktank Groundwork Collaborative, says Americans are experiencing a widespread deterioration in pricing fairness that she characterises as a "reinvention of the rip-off." In her book Gouged: The End of a Fair Price – and What That Means for Your Wallet, Owens argues that the burden of higher and less transparent prices is not the fault of ordinary consumers.
Owens makes the case that growing consumer frustration requires action beyond individual complaint. "Repeat after me: it's not my fault, it's not my fault, it's not my fault," she told the Guardian, framing the problem as structural rather than personal. She warns that the trend is undermining trust in the economy and calls for coordinated responses.
Calls for tougher rules and collective action
The book urges what Owens describes as a two-pronged response: new regulatory measures to curb exploitative pricing practices, and an organised consumer movement to pressure businesses and policymakers. She contends that neither market forces nor isolated consumer decisions alone will correct the dynamics she documents.
Owens's arguments come amid growing public attention to prices for everyday goods and services, and to debates over the role of corporations and regulators in protecting consumers. While she advances a prescriptive agenda in Gouged, her central message is diagnostic: the current configuration of pricing power and corporate behaviour has shifted, and meaningful policy and civic responses are necessary to restore a sense of fairness.
The book adds to a broader discussion among economists, consumer advocates and policymakers about how to respond to concentrated market power, pricing opacity and the political will needed for reform. Owens situates her recommendations within that context, urging both legal changes and popular mobilisation to reassert consumer protections.
Her position is likely to resonate with advocates pressing for stronger enforcement of competition and consumer-protection laws, while prompting debate among business groups and economists about the causes of recent price trends and the best remedies. Whether Owens's call for a consumer uprising will lead to sustained political pressure remains an open question, but her book aims to sharpen the terms of the national conversation about pricing and fairness.