The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism

A book that helps college seniors understand the shifting patterns of employment, but also the shifting meaning of employment in peoples' lives. The book remains very readable, even entertaining, as it presents the historical background on how the meaning of work changed from the 1700s forward, and sociological data on current work and employment patterns. It makes the world of work come alive as a place of opportunity, risk, and disappointment. By its vivid narratives, it helps college students understand that their uncertainty and anxiety are appropriate to the world they are entering, but also encourages them in a spirit of healthy adventure. Super

Thankfully, after browsing in a bookstore through the huge and often intellectually bankrupt variety of management, success and business books the thoughtful reader may find solace by stumbling upon a book by Sennett.In Corrosion of Character, Sennett exposes the reality on new capitalism and how its emphasis on flexibility has changed the nature of work. flexibility is being encouraged to fight the rigid bureaucracies of the past - and typical of public sector jobs. The 'Career'is a thing of the past. Sennet shows how the emphasis on flexibility is affecting character as expressed by loyalty and committment and ultimately the decline of values and personal traits that are desirable in society. This book is moving in that it shows the negative repercussions of the present - ideologically unchecked - renegade capitalism are eroding human character and life. It is also a warning to those societies that have yet to leap in the totality of the Reagan-Thatcherite economy to resist making the leap.You might find yourself humming the Internationale and appreciating the color red more after finishing this easy to read book.

London School Of Economic's Richard Sennett (no relation to Mack Sennett of Keystone Kops fame) has written an important and eminently readable short book (a long essay, really) about the personal consequences of work in the "new capitalism." His book, titled THE CORROSION OF CHARACTER (1998), explains in clear and compelling terms how things have changed for the worse in the workplace, and how this has affected workers negatively.Sennett begins by explaining how personal character is attacked by the "new capitalism". He states that routine was an evil of the old capitalism, and that in recent times, the workplace was made "flexible" by means of the restructuring of time (flextime, part time jobs, increased use of swing and graveyard type shifts, etc.). He then asserts that modern forms of labor are difficult to understand (he calls them "illegible"), and implies, persuasively, that the very murkiness of these new forms has enabled employers to victimize employees in new ways.Author Sennett goes on to discuss the subject of risk, much ballyhooed and heavily sold as a good thing in recent times. Sennett disagrees. He states that risk-taking has become disorienting and depressing in today's world and workplace. Sennett goes on to say that the work ethic has changed for the worse, and that workers have become enmired in inevitiable and depressing failure. He describes the various ways workers caught in all this have tried unsuccessfully to cope with failure, and seems to be headed for a sad ending to his book.However, the last chapter of THE CORROSION OF CHARACTER offers some hope. It is titled "The Dangerous Pronoun," and in it, Richard Sennett explains why community is the best remedy for the ills of work people presently suffer on such a wide and unrelieved basis (despite all the politicians' claims of how wonderful everything at present because Wall Street and its stock market are doing very well).This is a brilliant book. Everybody should read it and encourage others to do the same. Author Ralph Keyes of Yellow Springs, Ohio, wrote a similarly brilliant book in 1972 titled WE THE LONELY PEOPLE, also calling for more, not less, community in American life. Keyes book made a big splash and started Keyes on a career as a big time author. But his book went out of print, and is now largely forgotten. This is a shame. It was Keyes' best book (and Keyes wrote many good ones thereafter). Richard Sennett has written a wonderful book about an important subject. Only time will tell if people are intelligent enough to listen, and move appropriately to make the corrections he calls for.

Amidst the cacophony about the wonders of globalization and the new millennium's everlasting prosperity and bull market, Richard Sennett has the intellectual courage to present some of the negative consequences of global capitalism on a vast number of workers whose skills and dedication the economy and markets depend upon. Jobs are replaced by "projects" and "fields of work" and the moto for organizing working time is "no long-term". As workers are forced to go from one job to another, the new capitalism increases the risk of the workers in choosing employment, while it robs them of the sense of security enjoyed previously and, in Sennett's words, corrodes their character. The book covers the trends and nuances of the new capitalism and with many examples illustrates the decline of job security of both workers and managers, the fact that the fastest growing sector of the labor force is those working on temporary jobs, often called "permatemps", and that the frequent turnover in employment increases the risk of choosing a career or even a job. Richard Sennett correctly concludes that the new order does indeed corrode the worker's character.

I am struck by the visceral and reactive comments in some of the reviews, but this only demonstrates that Sennett has touched a vulnerable nerve among those who have a vested interest in the juggernaut of globalization and commercial frenzy of the Internet. Isn't it interesting that the most volatile reviews come from those in the heart of Silicon Valley? Sennett has succeeeded in illuminating the universal in the particular, yes, through what his critics denigrates as "just anecdotes"? But anecdotes are grounded in human experience, not rarefied abstractions of traditional positivist sociology. His critics ought to go back to read C. Wright Mills' classic The Sociological Imagination, who takes these posivist parasites to task. Sennett also does a stellar job of stripping away the corporate speak and propaganda about "change, teams, reengineering" --the stuff that has made management gurus and their parrot of consultant-followers rich, while the ordinary Joe is the mere anecdotal recipient of such social engineering schemes. Sennett also succeeds in showing how the superficiality of corporate life is bleeding over to the family, eroding away depth and character..this is a sore spot that most managers would rather ignore. As C. Wright Mills, the great sociologist taught, "the political task of the sociologist...is to translate personal troubles into public issues, and public issues into the terms of their human meaning for a variety of indivdiuals" The public isn't moved by barren statistics, it is moved by real stories of real human beings.