[2] This was an attempt to denigrate the general movement and the work of Esther Peterson in her role as Special Assistant to the President for Consumer Affairs.
[3] The innovation which the publishing of this book brought about was the concept of product testing, which is the basis of the modern consumer movement.
[5] During the Recession of 1937–1938, public confidence in business was low and the new criticism from consumer groups weakened trust in advertising, media, and branded goods.
In 1938, Hearst Corporation ran an advertisement suggesting that people who purchase goods which were nationally distributed and advertised were not "guinea pigs", and from 1934 to 1939, Collier-Crowell executive Anna Steese Richardson toured to readers of Woman's Home Companion as an opponent of consumer groups and an advocate of corporate-managed equivalents of consumer organizations.
"[10] Eventually, industry and companies began to portray citizens and organizations who criticized corporations as un-American and Communist.
[15] American consumers relied on contemporary publications such as Your Money's Worth and 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs to expose fraud and misinformation from manufacturers and call for impartial product testing.
Consumers' Research was the first of the former, founded in 1928 by Frederick J. Schlink and Stuart Chase primarily to perform product testing and determine the accuracy of contemporary advertisements.
Middle and upper class urban women of high social standings formed the majority of the organization.
The Great Depression created physical and economic conditions that encouraged women, especially working-class housewives, to organize.
The women organized committees, picketed, and pressured manufacturers to reduce prices and stop taking advantage of consumers, particularly during the difficult economic period.
In many cases, the pressure from these organizing women led to reductions in the prices of meat from modest to up to half-price, their activism allowing them to have a direct impact in the consumer market.
[29]African economies are heavily influenced by multinational corporations and lending institutions which have encouraged export-oriented industrialization.
[30] The majority of African countries implement the World Bank's structural adjustment programs to increase their attractiveness for international trade.
[30] The failure to settle disagreements and integrate the missions of various institutions contributes, along with other infrastructure problems, to inhibition of intraregional trade.
[30] Participation in Consumers International has otherwise raised the profile of various consumer groups, such as Mali's Association des Consommateurs du Mali (ASCOMA) and Senegal's Association de Defense des Usagers de l'Eau l'Electricite, les Telecommunications et les Services (ADEETelS) have both had representation in government policymaking.
[30] [34] There is tradition in India which says that consideration for consumer rights began in the Vedic Period, and in these narratives, laws encourage merchants to practice honesty and integrity in business.
[34] At this time Gandhi and other leaders protested taxation of basic consumer products, such as during the Salt March, and encouraged people to make their own goods at home, as with the Khādī movement to promote spinning thread and weaving one's own textiles.
These actions were to raise awareness that consumer purchase decisions fund the source of India's political control.
Gandhi promoted the idea that businesses have a trustee role in being responsible to the customers, workers, shareholders, and their community.
[34] Vinoba Bhave and Jayaprakash Narayan, two great proponents of Gandhi's philosophy, and V. V. Giri and Lal Bahadur Shastri, contemporary Indian president and prime minister, similarly expected the business community to regulate itself as an expression of responsibility to contribute to society.
[34] At that time in society, courts started recognizing social workers and public interest groups as consultants on behalf of individuals or classes of people whose rights had been violated but who could not easily speak for themselves.
To protect consumers from unfair business practices, provide information about the potency, amount, standard, purity, and pricing of the items.