American Black Market
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eefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and cheap labor in the American Black Market is a book written by Eric Schlosser and published in 2003. The book divides into three sections. The first section is Reefer Madness, in the case of marijuana criminalization, and the second part is In The Strawberry Fields, where the author talks about the lives of immigrant farm workers. Schlossers third essay, “An Empire of The Obscene,” delineates on the background history of Reuben Shurman, a business man who started the porn business and details the history of pornography in American culture. Each of the section relates to the policies of the U.S. government, and how U.S. government handles the underground activities. Schlosser shows the enormous power of the economy of the underground and argues that such a widespread black market can only undermine the law.
“An Empire of The Obscene” describes the rise and fall of Reuben Shurman, a comic book salesman turned into porn distributor. “The story of Reuben Sturman spans the history of the modern American sex industry, from the distribution of “girlie” magazines under the counter to the sale of adult videos at urban newsstands and suburban malls” (Schlosser 115). Shurman was an intelligent and a smart business man who knew how to control over his business, how to make his business to be more successful and larger than ever. The main reason that IRS had an attention on him was because he was completely trying to avoid paying taxes to the government. The theory of Shurman is that there is nothing wrong with selling and distributing porn, and he believes that “..Americans should ..” (118). He slowly build his porn empire by distributing every sex books and magazines that had ever been printed and introducing new two coin-operated 8mm projectors in a small booth, called peep booths unlike stand-up machine. Afterwards, he was considered one of the largest publishers and distributors in sex industry of the U.S. He started recruiting people and had the trusted employees around him as the business grew. His warehouses and stores opened all over America, and even in foreign countries, such as Europe and Asia. The more his business grew, the more he got government attention. He started to hide his name and assets as much as he could, so that investigators would not be able to trace him from any legal documents. By doing so, the whole system was set up to seem like Sturman is no one and nothing is related to him.