The Soul of the Salesman: The Moral Ethos of Personal Sales

This study develops a sociological perspective on the logic of personal sales and its moral ethos by examining the training of agents in the life insurance industry. Viewed more broadly, it evaluates the meaning and consequences of certain features of the commercialization of American life. Beyond the American scene, the larger interest of this study lies in the same direction—in the question of the consequences that can be expected from the penetration of modern culture as a whole and the domination of all spheres of contemporary life by the conceptual apparatus and the logic of sales.