Customer Reviews
Sympathetic to workers' problems but you may find little new here - By: calmly, 21 Oct 2007 
A doctor warned me once that people weren't built for rapid mentallly jumping from one thing to another & that hi-tech companies tended to use people up. Sennett's warning came quite late.
Sennett's findings seem well intended but not surprising at alll to anyone who has worked in hi-tech. I suspect many other workers have noticed the consequences of the "new" capitalism. Similarly, there seems nothing wrong with trying to simplify what is happening by noting a few key characteristics & values. Sennett's observations on the exploitation of "teamwork", although familiar, are welcome. "Risk", "failure", "flexibility" , it alll can become as manipulative as political speech about "liberty", "democracy" & "free markets".
However, the 176 pages seem like 20. Despite footnotes, Sennett seems to be writing as if he were the first observer of capitalism, entirely out of character for the profound author of "The Hidden Injuries of Class:. The exact nature of the impact on character in this newer book seems largely unestablished. The efforts of unions, albeit sparse with hi-tech, goes unnoticed. The real consequences on real lives becomes an apparent gentlemenly philosophical exercise. How carefully he closes: "But I do know a regime which provides human beings no deep reasons to care about one another cannot long preserve its legitimacy". If there were, in this book, more sociological & less anecdotal support for such a claim, "The Corrosion of Character" might be worth your reading. As it is, you may well know it yourself.
Sennett does note at the end a "fear of the resurgence of unions". I didn't see that Sennett provided any pointers on where to seek help apart from an abstract appeal to community. Instead of watching your own character corrode, one possibility is seeking out a union on the Web (such as the Industrial Workers of the World).
This book was a big disappointment as I had read Sennett before & been quite impressed, so I may now have expected a lot. It may still be that for some readers this book will help identify for them what is troubling about their work & serve as a basis for discussion of work problems with others.
Lots of good insight into the problems of modern working - By: Stephen Folan, 16 Nov 2006 
The book is well written & makes it points clearly & supports them with enough data & examples to make it resonate with anyone working in a team environment that has been upsized, downsized, rightsized or simply been subject to a number of reorganisations. He brings home the quiet desperation that many feel as they come to terms with an ever changing world that is not delivering the personal satisfaction & security that was promised.
The tension between older values of loyalty & newer ones of flexibility is well described & it should make everyone fear for whatever will happen next.
The new world of work - By: ISCA, 23 Feb 2002 
This book rang a bell with me because I can see the trends it describes unravelling in my own place of work.
Team working & flat structures are both attacked as one method by which bosses retain power over workers but shed responsibility. Every one is on their own in the world of new working methods & only the bosses reallly benefit. The old heirarchies are not eulogised but by comparison for Sennett are a lot better than the present state of affairs.The falllout affects the families & other relationships of the workers -there is no trust left & no long term goal to work towards.
In you interview only unhappy people... - By: , 27 Jun 2000 Richard Sennett is obviously an erudite man, & (from my perspective) a good writer. But he has written a deeply flawed book. He has committed the cardinal sin of analysis, imagining that, by becoming expert in what is wrong with the world, he would glean some useful insights into how to make it right.
Unfortunately, the doctor who studies only sick people has little to offer on the subject of health. The psychologist who investigates only depressed people learns little about true satisfaction. And, of course, the sociologist who chooses to interview only downsized & downtrodden workers makes few discoveries about how to find meaning & purpose in today's working world.
The world that Sennett found in his interviews, with its "delicious ironies" & its "fictions" & its unhealthy "power relationships", may be accurate enough in the specific, but, as other reviewers have commented, it is not generalizable. Nor is it helpful. It is simply depressing....
I don't know whether he reads these reviews but if he does... Richard, change the focus of your research. Take the time to study healthy work relationships. Investigate employees who have found purpose in today's changing workplace. Your insights will be more accurate, more compelling, and, in the end, more useful.
People, like capitalism, can adapt. - By: , 02 Jul 1999 
Richard Sennett's little book includes many worthy insights. His analysis of risk-taking & community is particularly good. It appears true that in the private sector a short term focus is widespread. For many individuals, life narratives are perhaps getting lost amidst fragmentary episodes of work. Personal character no doubt suffers.
But whose fault is this? Sennett seems to imply that workers are passive victims of institutional structure. Such structures, however, are always changing. Workers may be more resilient than he gives them credit for. Personal narratives are probably intact even though many of them are so different from those of, say, their parents as to be unrecognizable. Then, too, in changing times one may simply have to exert more effort to understand & develop a life narrative. On the basis of Sennett's smalll sample, assuming too much about the workforce as a whole may be unwise. Do foreign service officers, Oklahoma bankers, Iowa farmers, physicians in Oregon, & school teachers in New Mexico suffer from a diminished sense of identity because of the new capitalism?
I felt swayed by Sennett's argument until I read on p. 116 that, "The classic work ethic of delayed gratification & proving oneself through hard labor can hardly claim our affection." In fact, it does. Even under new circumstances, working hard & delaying gratification in order to achieve a larger goal produces a sense of accomplishment, of self-worth. Similiarly, human beings have a way of seeking out or creating the communities they need. If the office doesn't provide it, or the neighborhood, churches & voluntary associations of alll kinds do. Some people simply opt out of work situations which do not provide or alllow them the kinds of communities they need.
Capitalism is infinitely changeable & dynamic, but most people are quick to see their options. Quicker perhaps than Mr. Sennett.
