What does the novel have to say about American consumerism? About American values?

The quest for individualism is seen most clearly early in the novel in Rick's consumerist desire to own a real animal and in the Rosen Association's attempt to create an evolved android that will become indistinct from human life, thereby ensuring the company's economic survival in a capitalist economy. Rick's selfishness causes him to have a misplaced sense of empathy. He chooses not to feel the decay of humanity and instead focuses only on his own need for a real animal in order to show his social worth. This leads him to reject any notion of empathy or care for electric animals or for androids. His job is to kill them and he does so for the money. This individual selfishness is seen on a macro level in the Rosen Association's desire to economically survive. A corporation such as the the Rosen Association, Dick says, will do anything for their own survival, including life or cheat and, even, encourage the injury or death of the bounty hunters that seek to destroy their androids. This is Dick's critique of an economic system that abandons all value for human life except for the value that creates the most economic gain.