There are many benefits to living in a populous industrial society. In spite of longer, healthier, richer lives, however, we often feel unhappy and painfully dehumanized. In The Cost of Comfort, John Lachs argues that these disadvantages constitute the natural, though not unavoidable, cost of living in a world of vast social organizations. Lachs discusses the ways in which people participating in tightly regulated and interconnected institutions view their own and others' acts, and argues that the vast magnitude of our social acts has oustripped the ability of the ordinary person to understand them. Far from focusing on the negative, however, Lachs offers concrete suggestions for reducing the costs of our comfort through greater openness in government and corporations.