Details

Subject(s)

• Working class—United States [Browse]
• Work ethic—United States [Browse]
• Labor—United States [Browse]

Summary note

Drawing on interviews with dismissed IBM executives in Westchester, New York, bakers in a high-tech Boston bakery, a barmaid turned advertising executive, and many others, Sennett explores the disorienting effects of the new capitalism. He reveals the vivid and illuminating contrast between two worlds of work: the vanished world of rigid, hierarchical organizations, where what mattered was a sense of personal character, and the brave new world of corporate re-engineering, risk, flexibility, networking, and short-term teamwork, where what matters is being able to reinvent yourself on a dime. In this timely and essential essay, Sennett enables us to understand the social and political context for our contemporary confusions, and he suggests how we need to re-imagine both community and individual character in order to confront an economy based on the principle of "no long term."

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references (p. 159-166) and index.

Action note

Committed to retain in perpetuity — ReCAP Shared Collection (HUL)

Contents

• Drift: How personal character is attacked by the new capitalism
• Routine: An evil of the old capitalism
• Flexible: The restructuring of time
• Illegible: Why modern forms of labor are difficult to understand
• Risk: Why risk-taking has become disorienting and depressing
• The Work Ethic: How the work ethic has changed
• Failure: Coping with failure
• The Dangerous Pronoun: Community as a remedy for the ills of work.

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ISBN

0393046788

LCCN

^^^98017106^

OCLC

38909901

RCP

H - S

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