Book Description
Attacking the common view that whiteness is a meaningless category of identity, Lipsitz shows that public policy and private prejudice insure that whites wind up on top of the social hierarchy.
Passionately and clearly written, this wide-ranging book probes into the social and material rewards that accrue to "the possessive investment in whiteness." Lipsitz sums up the ways that public policy has virtually excluded communities of color from everything that American society defines as desirable: first-rate education, decent housing, asset accumulation, political power, social status, satisfying work, and even the power to shape and narrate their own history. White supremacy is no thing of the past, no fringe movement. It is a pervasive and pernicious system that restricts the political and cultural agency of African-Americans, Asian-Americans and Latinos every day. Unearned and unacknowledged, race-based advantages, not greater merit or a superior work ethic, account for white privilege.
Lipsitz's ultimate point is not to condemn all white people as racists but to challenge everyone to begin a principled examination of personal actions and political commitments. Exposing the system of unfairness is not enough. People of all groups-but especially white people because they benefit from that system-have to work toward eradicating the rewards of whiteness.
Customer Reviews:
More of the same..........2003-08-11
After being assigned a reading list about racial relations in the US, I began the process of reading each book. This book was at the top of that list.
As usual, I was disappointed. So far, the two books I have read on race relations follow the same pattern. They create their own strawman to knock down by creating their own social, or racial constructs that they can proceed to debunk. Each author creates their own definition of "whiteness" - which isn't even the same, and then proceeds to select examples that tries to prove their own constructed definitions. Useless.
Racism In A Nutshell.......2002-05-23
How often have you walked around thinking about an issue, thinking how helpful it would be if you could only articulate those thoughts? And, one day, you pick up a book and find that the author has spoken for you, clearly defined those issues and provided a history that explains the causes of your disquietude? George Lipsitz has done just that in "The Possessive Investment In Whiteness... ." Why is affirmative action under attack and by whom? How do Euro-Americans benefit from skin privilege whether they are racist or not? Why is California "the Mississippi of the 1990s"? What was the real agenda of Mr. Bakke in launching a legal battle against "reverse racism"? Who was Bill Moore? What are the roles of Clarence Thomas and Ward Callender in claiming and perpetuating a conservative agenda that supports skin privilege? Lipsitz answers these questions and more. While Lipsitz speaks from a decidedly liberal stance, he supports each of his contentions with a shopping list of facts to support them.
This is a valuable contribution to American discourse on the issue of race and how it affects, still, American society. More importantly, it is one of the few books I have read that seems intended for the education of Euro-Americans who, as Lipsitz makes clear, are also victims of racism and can only benefit from its elimination as well as the elimination of benefits based solely or largely, and certainly historically, upon skin privilege. But how can institutionalized racism that permeates the entire history of this country be fought? The first step must be to recognize what the possessive investment in whiteness is and why and how it is perpetuated. Lipsitz has offered a remarkable primer for that first step to every American citizen who longs for the day that we will all be, truly, just Americans who are judged only by the content of our character.
Provactative, Informative and Healing.......2000-03-17
Lipsitz's book not only informs (with one of the best summariesI've seen of the social, economic and political impact ofinstitutionalized white supremacy throughout the twentieth century) heoffers hope that humanity will heal the deep wounds of white racism. The book insightfully explores the reasons why so-called "white" people continue to be complicit in racist oppression, how whiteness and white privilege are used by politicians, and how the psychology of whitness functions. His willingness to relinquish and critique his own white privilege in the name of social justice is the healing message that humanity needs in the wake of so many "white" atrocities.
The First Step.......2000-03-03
Beautifully written book! Excepting ones priveleges (ie being white, male) is perhaps the first step to fully understanding and this book.
Just Excellent.......2000-01-13
I can't disagree more with the negative reviews of this book. I found it to be thorough, nuanced, and thought provoking. Lipsitz's thesis about the possessive investment in whiteness is an intriguing one and frames the issue of whiteness is a helpful manner. Particularly impressive to me is the range of his work, which truly meets the challenge to do interdisciplinary work (a challenge that we too often fail at or neglect). He incorporates and integrates analyses of the economy, of the law (such as housing law) and policy with studies of culture and the media. Dozens of books have been published under the rubric of "whiteness studies" in the past decade (some of it of mediocre quality). This book, though, should go on the "must read" list of anyone interested in this growing field.
Book Description
Chomsky's critique of "neoliberalism." He argues that an international tyranny of the few has developed that restricts the arena of public expression, and allows private wealth to balloon at grave societal and ecological costs.
Download Description
In this collection of all new essays, Noam Chomsky examines the dramatic shift away from a pluralist, participatory ideal of politics and towards an authoritarian profit-obsessed model.
Customer Reviews:
Chomsky in a nutshell -- i.e., where he belongs.......2006-01-30
1) Open book; 2) the U.S. is the root cause of all bad things in the world; 3) repeat #2 until it's permanently imprinted on your brain; 4) close book. There, I've just saved you $11.
As always Noam Chomsky's books are a must read........2005-08-21
Excellent read, the author never fails to open ones eyes in his books.
Recommended highly.
Profit Over People: Neoliberalism & Global Order.......2005-04-13
Chomsky's Profit Over People is an insighful and at times shocking analysis of the true motives and practices of multinational corporations and the governement economic policies they operate within. Chomsky spares no time in hammering his message against the concentration of power in the hands of the few through the use of several detailed case studies. As a student of economics and finance at Oklahoma State University, this book caused me to step back and question the very foundation of Smith's free market theory which has comprised my studies thus far. As a reader, I became disgusted by the prospect of private interests having the ability to manipulate the world economy, government policy, and the subposively "free" press to serve their own greed-driven interests while watching the masses suffer.
Although this book succeeded tremendously in causing me to question my own assumptions and encouraged me to stand for a change, it left me wondering how to go about doing so. I feel the book could be strengthened tremendously if Chomsky had included a true conclusion in which he provides a means for change to compliment his call to arms.
A poor treatment of complex global issues.......2002-07-26
In this polemic Chomsky attacks `neo-liberalism' in international political economy. To that effect, he damns every supranational economic organisation and agreement that he can think of (the IMF, the World Bank, the World Trade Organisation, NAFTA, MAI etc.), charging them with being the agents or instruments of US multinational corporations intent on pillaging the Third World, despoiling the environment, and various other sins. The book is not so much an argument as an expostulation; and it is undermined at almost every turn by extravagant rhetoric and weak reasoning.
International political economy is - like all economics - a discipline about trade-offs and the assessment of costs and benefits. There are various criticisms that can plausibly be levelled at all of the bodies or treaties that Chomsky fulminates against, but it is important in formulating them to have a mind to what these institutions or agreements are designed for. To put mildly, the targets Chomsky denounces are not the same thing and do not pursue the same ends. It serves no purpose and does violence to critical inquiry merely to denounce them all as agents of US big business and of free-market fanaticism. The IMF, for example - a prime villain in Chomsky's account - has received much criticism from the school of free market economists that Chomsky believes it represents. These economists (see, for example, Money and the Nation State, edited by Kevin Dowd & Richard Timberlake, and published by the libertarian Independent Institute in 1998) charge the IMF with creating `moral hazard' in international lending, and wish to see the institution abolished. A different view, which I hold, is that the IMF performs a valuable service in allowing troubled economies a breathing space to sort out their difficulties, as was clearly the case with the `tequila crisis' in Mexico in 1994-5, and in fact ought to be more active in its prescriptions than it has been - consider the case of Argentina's ruinous currency peg, which the IMF was highly sceptical of and ought to have stood out against. There is room for discussion and disagreement about how far the IMF should loosen conditionality for its loans (and I am something of a dove in this respect), but these are inevitable debates about how to make effective a necessary and valuable part of the global economy.
Similarly, the World Trade Organisation has nothing whatever to do with free-market fundamentalism or US big business: it is neither more nor less than a commercial court that tries to eliminate discrimination on grounds of nationality. It is a thoroughly progressive institution whose effectiveness is greatly in the interests of the developing world, as evidenced by its first major ruling when it upheld Venezuela's complaint against a US levy on foreign petroleum producers. The World Bank, which under its current management - much to my regret - has veered very far from the cause of globalisation, went to immense lengths to support Third World socialist projects (such as the `ujaama' projects of President Nyerere's Tanzania), with extremely bad results for the impoverished peoples of the countries concerned.
To subsume these differing institutions, aims and approaches into a catch-all damnation of the machinations of big business is neither a profound nor a reliable guide to the modern global economy. Quite how Chomsky reaches his conclusions is of some interest, however, for it indicates quite a lot about the economic reasoning of the anti-globalisation movement. In short, Chomsky just hasn't acquainted himself with the normative arguments and positive findings of those he attacks; this is just not good enough in a book that aims to scrutinise the global economic order, for economics is a rigorously technical and empirical discipline, and not a matter of opinion. I give just two instances if the book's deficiencies in this respect, but they could be multiplied at great length.
Chomsky attacks the advocates of NAFTA, the North America Free Trade Agreement, for supposedly claiming the it would create jobs. In this, Chomsky has just not understood the point - a very fundamental one - about trade. The basic Ricardian argument for trade does not depend on its effect on aggregate employment (which is virtually unaffected by trade: what matters in the short run is the level of aggregate demand, and in the long run is the so-called NAIRU, or Non-Accelerating-Inflation Rate of Unemployment); trade raises not employment but living standards. The chronic poverty that has afflicted Third World nations like Tanzania under a policy of 'self-reliance' demonstrates the point.
My second instance of the weakness of this book's treatment of economics is Chomsky's throwaway reference to William Greider's anti-globalisation polemic One World, Ready or Not. The Greider thesis that Chomsky has latched on to is that there is excess supply in the global economy owing to workers' not receiving enough to buy the goods capitalism produces. This claim is absolutely untenable in theory and in practice: wages are not set abstractly, but are pinned to the marginal product of labour. To put it simply, an additional dollar of output must represent an additional dollar of income to someone. The only way the `excess supply' nostrum could hold is if you claim that the additional dollar of income goes to someone with a higher marginal propensity to save - and that conclusion requires a study of the facts. This book doesn't trouble with the facts, which are that savings rates in most industrial economies have been falling for years, while in the developing countries they have been growing less quickly than investment demand.
Enough already. Chomsky is not an international economist, and his book is depressingly short on empirical research and economic logic. Indeed the book is almost a logical fallacy itself, for it exemplifies the anthropomorphic fallacy that one may attribute personality - in this case a wicked and grasping avarice - to an abstraction, namely the `capitalist system'. At any rate, it is a poor book that does nothing to enhance its author's reputation in his chosen personal interest - far from his specialist field - of politics and economics.
As always, Chomsky is way ahead of the curve........2002-07-02
There is more concentrated political and economic truth in this one slim volume then in any other book that I've ever read. Nowhere is the war against the working class exposed more clearly and accurately. "Free Trade" is the nemesis of true democracy and of the common man. Such a policy only really favors the extremely rich and less than 1000 large global corporations. You won't hear about any of this in the corporate press however, for in the neoliberal democracy all debate is side tracked on trivial issues by two political parties who both basically represent the same corporate masters (kind of like a giant game of good cop/bad cop...)
Ever wonder why you and the people around you feel so powerless and alienated in a vast landscape of shopping malls? You didn't think that "just happened" did you? The decades old goal of the powers-that-be has been to atomise American communities into loose conglomerations of "consumers" incapable of organising, or even thinking of organizing.
If you want the hard FACTS about corporate rule, then read this book. You see, a corporation isn't merely an "immortal person" under law, they are immortal sociopaths- sociopaths backed and enhanced by state power over and above the interests and votes of the common man.
Oh yes, if you want to know how a healthy economy SHOULD function, read _I'll Be Short, Essentials for a Decent Working Society_ by Robert Reich.
Amazon.com
The lure of new and profitable markets has lead many companies to formulate strategies to capture these markets. This focus on strategy often leads to downsizing and the shedding of old businesses in favor of a "lean" economic model that stresses outsourcing. The strategy that leads to downsizing has its short-term rewards--a fatter bottom line and happy shareholders.
Jeffrey Pfeffer argues that much of this downsizing is nothing more than a throwback to 100-year-old employment practices. Instead of cutting costs as a means to increase profits, companies should focus more on building revenue by relying on solid people-management skills. Through dozens of examples, Pfeffer demonstrates that successful companies worry more about people and the competence in their organizations than they do about having the right strategy. Pfeffer contends that the strategy part is relatively easy--it's the day-to-day execution that's hard. Companies that understand the relationship between people and profits are the ones that usually win in the long run.
Book Description
Why is common sense so uncommon when it comes to managing people? How is it that so many seemingly intelligent organizations implement harmful management practices and ideas? In his provocative new book, The Human Equation, bestselling author Jeffrey Pfeffer examines why much of the current conventional wisdom is wrong and asks us to re-think the way managers link people with organizational performance. Pfeffer masterfully builds a powerful business case for managing people effectively--not just because it makes for good corporate policy, but because it results in outstanding performance and profits. Challenging current thinking and practice, Pfeffer: --Reveals the costs of downsizing--and provides alternatives; --Identifies troubling trends in compensation, and suggests better practices; --Explains why even the smartest managers sometimes manage people unwisely; --Demonstrates how market-based forces can fail to create good people management practices, creating a need for positive public policy; --Provides practical guidelines for implementing high-performance management practices. Filled with information and ideas, The Human Equation provides much-needed guidance for managing people more wisely--and more profitably.
Customer Reviews:
Capitalists of People, not earnings.......2006-02-22
Monarchs are rarely envisioned as capitalists because they need not earn the funds they spend. Capitalists are those who through the talents of others, and the development of talent, earn the profits distributed to shareholders who place faith in their ability to manage.
While cost cutting, and particuarly, people cutting, may save money and enhance earnings, there is no capitalism involved except to move people off of the payroll, or reduce their pay. It is an illusion of cost efficiency meant to simulate capitalism but without delivering it.
The erosion of long term value, or ignoring it, operates to enhance the short term effect of earnings per share, the deceptive measure by which company shares are traded, idolizing earnings over the value not created, or retained for future growth.
Those who participate in such deceptions cannot call themselves capitalists by virtue of the fact that they capitalize upon saving money to overstate the value, or lack of value, that exists in their corporate nurturing. Capitalists are hired to nurture and develop VALUE of a company, not to reduce it.
Earnings is the measure by which companies measure cash flow of a company, not it's value. Capitalism is about preserving and increasing value of the company through management of its people, not by manipulating its balance sheet.
Profits come from ... People!.......2005-05-05
Putting people first is more often said than done. From extensive research and over ten years of firsthand experience I can honestly say that this is rarely put into practice, particularly in larger organizations.
The very title conveys a powerful message "... Building Profits by Putting People First." Since the dawn of the Industrial Age, people were considered costs and therefore something to be minimized or eliminated as much as possible.
However, this attitude is of little relevance in the Information Age of today. While larger organizations struggle to adapt to actually valuing people for what they are - highly valued assets, a golden opportunity exists for Entrepreneurs who, in forming the companies of tomorrow, seek to maximize profits by putting people first.
Based on his research, Pfeffer offers several HR practices that are common in effective organizations. His book is divided into two main sections:
Part I - People-Centered Management And Organizational Success
Part II - Barriers to Implementing Performance Knowledge: How Conventional Wisdom Is Wrong
For a quick assessment of the power of this book, I recommend you read chapter 10 first - "People, Profits, and Perspective" and be sure to review figure 10-1 "WHAT A PEOPLE-BASED STRATEGY DOES" on page 301.
-----------------
Michael Davis - Editor, Byvation
The importance of people to organizations' returns.......2004-02-21
Summary:
This book highlights the importance of respecting employees in an organization. By treating employees as a strategic asset, a firm can make lucrative profits. The book can be divided into the following parts.
¡P Wrong sources of organizational success that firms
commonly use
¡P Seven practices of successful organizations
¡P Reasons why smart organizations sometimes do dumb
things and the suggested solutions
¡P How conventional wisdom about employment contract,
compensation method, and unions is wrong
¡P The role of public policy in making profits through
people
Comment:
- Good points:
1. Good insights provided:
The author provides his opinions about why and how putting people first can bring great returns to organizations with different detailed examples such as Lincoln Electric. This can make me understand the importance of employees to organizations.
2. Lots of evidence provided:
This book explains why putting people first can help companies make great profits by providing lots of examples, which include companies in different industries. Some examples are explained in a more detailed way such as Albert Dunlap.
3. Clear illustration of the concepts:
The main message of each chapter is clearly delivered.
Also, as the main theme of this book is about ¡§building profits by putting people first¡¨, the author has provided a diagram called ¡§Downward Performance Spiral¡¨ to illustrate the relationship between organization¡¦s poor treatment of its¡¦ employees and its¡¦ corresponding performance. Besides, he provided a diagram about how ¡§People-based strategy¡¨ can make sustained profits to organizations. All these diagrams can increase my understanding about these concepts.
4. Comprehensive information provided:
The author not only states what are the wrong sources of organizational success that firms commonly use, he also provides what and how organizations can do to make lucrative profits.
- Bad points:
1. Not interesting enough:
The author has repeated the main theme of this book ¡V ¡§building profits by putting people first¡¨ many times in different chapters. Although this can remind readers about the main theme of this book, readers may feel too bored.
Explains the importance of putting people before profits.......2004-01-02
This book is very well researched, although perhaps over-long in some parts.
The underlying message is that "do you see people as labour costs to be reduced or eliminated, or do you see your people as the only thing that differentiates you from your competition?"
I did find it quite satisfyingly radical for a US author to actually recommend that US Managers need to look overseas, as in this quote :
"One might be well-served to spend more time outside of the United States ... What has come to be taken as 'good management practice' in the United States is very, very culturally specific to the United States. Managing in a different way may require developing a broader world view ..."
I can related to that, given that I work in the UK for a US Fortune 500 Company.
The Case Studies cover a broad range of Industries such as Automobile, Banking, Steel, Clothing, Semiconductors, Retailing, Oil Refining, Energy, Airlines; and Geographical coverage includes not only North America, but quite a number of Countries in Europe & Asia.
A Chapter dedicated to Unions but yet not to Union-bashing is a pleasant change.
All in all, an interesting book that I wish more CEO's & HR Officers would read to see the alternatives to boom-and-bust downsizing & outsourcing.
People and organization success.......2001-12-29
The Human Equation (1998) is an exceptional book. In the first chapter Pfeffer shows that conventional wisdom about the sources of organization success are not correct. In particular he disproves the ideas:
- that it is essential to work in the right sector,
- that the size of the organization is crucial,
- that it is necessary to have an international precense,
- that downsizing is indispensible, and
- that it is necessary to have a technological lead.
Then the author clearly and impressively presents the enormous amount of evidence of the last decade showing the strong association between how organization treat people and how they score on financial and operational performance indicators. Pfeffer describes the following seven HR practices that demonstrable correlate with organization success. He names these practices High Performance Work Practices. They are:
1. Employment security
2. Selective hiring of new personnel
3. Self-managed teams and decentralization of decision making as the basic principles of organization design
4. Comparatively high compensation contingent on organizational performance
5. Extensive training
6. Reduces status distinctions and barriers, including dress, languag, office arrangements, and wage differences across levels
7. Extensive sharing of financial and performance information throughout the organization
This list contains some elements that may seem counterintuitive to some. For instance: how can it be that high wages contribute to financial performance? Don't they just keep the profits low? And how can you afford to be selective in this hard labour market? And how can companies afford to invest much in training of personnel? Aren't employees so mobile and disloyal that you run the risk of training them for your competitor? Speaking about this, how can you in this time of employability of employment security? And it is wise to have an open information policy? If you'd do that, wouldn't you weaken your position by feeding your competitor with valuable information?
If you read this book you will find crystal-clear answers to these questions. The conclusion is that the seven practices do indeed work.
Book Description
An extraordinarily powerful process that has proven to deliver immediate results for some of the country's most admired business leaders: higher productivity, improved quality at lower cost, reduced employee turnover, and superior financial performance. With stories of vision, endurance, faith and failure, Destination Profit delivers dozens of exercises and key business examples that lay out step-by-step how to apply the authors' unique 4-A Process-awareness, alignment, accountability, adaptation-to create a people-centered organization that is productive, profitable, and a sustained competitive leader. Readers will discover that this process begins with destination as the goal that organizations and individuals within them want to reach-their own best workplace.
Book Description
David Nassar delivers a complete and proven system for aggressively and successfully trading in today's markets in Ordinary People, Extraordinary Profits. He explains the fundamentals of technical analysis and risk management, giving you a solid foundation to approach the market, and then describes a variety of trading strategies that will help you make consistently large profits without undue risk. Unlike other trading advisors who advocate a single approach to trading, Nassar provides a variety of strategies you can choose. In addition, he explains how to use new trading instruments such as E-Mini contracts, options, and exchange-traded funds. If you're looking for a complete, proven system for aggressively trading the stock market, this book is an ideal guide.
Customer Reviews:
Over promise. Under deliver. Far from a compleat trading book.......2006-08-29
This is the second book I read of the author. I have a very high opinion on his "Rules of the trade". The headline under the book title, "How to make a living as an indpendent, stock, options or futures trader", did lead me to expect something of the quality of "Trading for a living by Alexander Elder". I had been very disappointed. Apparently the author's strength is on trading psychology, not technical/fundamental analysis. His so called foundational analysis is nothing more than a marketing name with weak TA and FA substance. All the worse, the chapters seem quite disorganised and badly written. Somehow I wonder whether this book was simply published to promote his website. Considering the ocean of better alternatives in the market including the author's previous book I mentioned above, I strongly suggest you to give this a pass.
Book Description
Business Ethics offers a structured set of readings with a clear conceptual progression; classic and current topics; and issues that matter to students. But that’s not all: The instructor's resource CD-ROM contains lesson plans, and discussion, essay and multi-choice questions for every reading. A dedicated web site, designed by Dr. Gibson, also allows students access to further research and exploration into their own interests. The cases -- linked directly to the readings -- are deliberately short and provocative, challenging students to take and defend their own ethical analysis.
Book Description
In this unflinching look at white supremacy, George Lipsitz argues that racism is a matter of interests as well as attitudes, a problem of property as well as pigment. Above and beyond personal prejudice, whiteness is a structured advantage that produces unfair gains and unearned rewards for whites while imposing impediments to asset accumulation, employment, housing, and health care for minorities. Reaching beyond the black/white binary, Lipsitz shows how whiteness works in respect to Asian Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans.
Lipsitz delineates the weaknesses embedded in civil rights laws, the racial dimensions of economic restructuring and deindustrialization, and the effects of environmental racism, job discrimination and school segregation. He also analyzes the centrality of whiteness to U.S. culture, and perhaps most importantly, he identifies the sustained and perceptive critique of white privilege embedded in the radical black tradition. This revised and expanded edition also includes an essay about the impact of Hurricane Katrina on working class Blacks in New Orleans, whose perpetual struggle for dignity and self determination has been obscured by the city's image as a tourist party town.
Customer Reviews:
Cultural Struggles Produced and Encaptured by Whiteness.......2006-12-05
George Lipsitz's Possessive Investment in Whiteness exposes the identity politics of whiteness in the US state and society concealed under two prevalent views about racism: racism has been overthrown after the civil rights era, and invisibility of overt racism proves this point. Reversing the problem of racism towards identification of whiteness, Lipsitz reviews major aspects of US state, society and culture, such as immigration, education, law, housing, war, art, etc., in order to reveal the pervasiveness of white identity politics and insidious predominance over liberalism in the country.
To start with Lipsitz's usage of the concept of identity politics, he both `clears' the term from euphoria as well as maintaining it for subversive political knowledge and alliances. According to Lipsitz, identity politics is "a political project aimed at creating identities based on politics rather than politics based on identities." (67) Generally confusion stems from the birth of identity politics, the groups who entered to the political sphere by defining their identities and trying to reclaim them especially through rewriting the history. However, identity politics is not always practiced by self-defined, identity-conscious groups; whites who seemingly do not intervene in politics can indeed be the very practicers, as well as beneficiaries, of these politics. Lipsitz refers to Michael Omi's distinction between referential racism and inreferential racism; the latter, is "a system of structured inequality that allows white people to remain self-satisfied and smug about their own innocence." (46) "Americans encouraged to remain true to an identity that provides them resources, power and opportunities" (vii)
Yet, Lipsitz also counters two main criticisms against identity politics; against essentialism argument, the situated knowledge argument takes place, which, together with historical experiences and current struggles, determines the main shape and agenda of the identity politics (69). Secondly, against its fragmentary forms and egoistic agendas rather that fighting together against social inequality and injustice, Lipsitz not only provides examples of diverse interethnic alliances, but also contends that "we can be unified eventually only if we examine honestly and critically the things that divide us in the present." (58)
Lipsitz's work is crucial in establishing linkages between cultural realm and economics and state. His work is an exposure and refusal of the cultural explanations for structural social problems, while at the same time identification of the problems within the framework of liberal individualism in a Western capitalist society. Demonization of black people for their poverty stems from the illusion of present non-racist moment as well as the successful concealing of conservatives and neo-liberals of the collapse of the welfare state, the devastating consequences of tax regulations, urban renewal programs, segregatory practices in education, nepotism in hiring, etc. Similarly, immigrants are degraded in various cultural ways in order to deny them citizenship albeit paradoxically preservation of their roles as `illegal' workers. Another example, the harsh deportations of Asian-Americans have utilized cultural ideologies such as nationalism, patriarchy, and heterosexuality in justifying the war and fostering racial discrimination. Here Lipsitz reminds us "for more than twenty years, reassertions of nationalism in the United States have taken place in the context of an ever-increasing internationalization of commerce, communication, and culture." (74)
Lipsitz uses the "consumer citizenship" as the name of the neoliberal state's imagination of its subject. Consumerist citizens seek the protection of their consumer power, on the individual basis, and the expense of the others. Thus, public needs are replaced by private desires, so as to enable the continuity of the inequality through private means of accumulation and inheritance. When capitalism is ingrained in an ideology of the state, this notion of the subject is not new at all. What Lipsitz emphasizes is the backlash in public mind and the idea of public goods in the post-civil rights era, contrary to the common view.
Lipsitz also draws on the uses of cultural productions against the social injustices and its masking power. For example Gilroy's concept of `diasporic intimacy' points to the various agency formation processes of aggrieved groups drawing upon their home-based cultural reservoirs. These include not only remembrance and collectivity, but also creativity and innovation for social change. Artistic, intellectual and other forms of cultural productions, as Gilroy, West and Goldberg demonstrates, are the ways through which situated knowledges and experiences of the aggrieved people are transformed into constructive powers.
Lipsitz's work is peculiar not for its theoretical uniqueness, nor the thoroughness of its subject matters, but rather the broadness of its audience, its solid ground that almost speaks for itself, and the author's mode of speech that is neither dramatic nor arrogant (of his rightfulness). Moreover, the work is strengthened by the illuminative use of the empirical data and legal matters, not as matters of facts in themselves, but as a complementary to social and cultural history. It is like a pocket-book for an activist.
Book Description
The business world has changed dramatically in recent years and many of the tried-and-true management techniques used in the workplace are no longer applicable. The Connected Leader presents global case studies that show how new approaches to management are improving business performance. This step-by-step guide to the development of a more informal, holistic leadership style contains clear guidelines and diagnostic tools that will help executives improve their effectiveness. Written in a crisp, precise manner, it contains short recaps at the end of each chapter and a summary of key lessons, from "motivation exists in everyone" to "bribery is no longer a performance management option."
Customer Reviews:
Learning to Focus on Relationships.......2006-11-05
Effective leaders focus on relationships not structures. They know that an organization is a community of individuals looking to co-create, not a collection of human resources waiting to deliver.
In today's environment of changing technology and increased complexity, knowledge is power and sharing it can build even more capability for an organization. The potential is in the willingness to change the leadership behaviors necessary to access the collective knowledge. The big challenge is to mine the tacit knowledge (in the heads of people where true knowledge resides) through providing an access method. The idea behind collaboration is that sharing knowledge leads to the co-creation of new actionable knowledge that leads solution development.
The key issue is getting people to think of themselves as part of a larger, collaborative community. However, changing people's and organizations' behavior doesn't come easily, especially if they've been used to working independently. Yet, when people are passionate about something, they find a way to create a dialogue that can lead to new knowledge and new possibilities.
Effective leaders know they have a bank of credibility with their stakeholders, a reserve of trust that can be drawn upon to get messages across or influence the way things are done. Their behavior enables people to invest sufficient trust in them to allow them to lead the "real" organization.
The real organization is made up of the networks of relationships people have within and outside the formal organization. As a network, the real organization is robust and flexible. The connected leader channels the vitality of the real organization toward the delivery of the formal organization's objectives.
Connected leaders foster healthy communities to maximize social capital and build trust across the organization's functional silos. The sum total of trust and credibility between members of an organization is a measure of social capital that builds on connections between people and businesses to create greater value.
Despite the complexity built into today's global economy, relationships have not become more complex. They might have become more complicated to sustain but the richness of connections experienced within real organizations shows that they are still simple to foster.
An old Chinese proverb states, "Just as a fence needs three stakes to make it firm, a good man needs three others to help him."
The Connected Leader by Emmanuel Gobillot provides an action plan outline for emerging leaders to build the trust and social capital necessary to become more effective in today's global economy.
Book Description
Profits and people are often seen as competing needs in business, but in Perry J. Ludy's view, cultivating a loyal, productive workforce is crucial to business success. In Profit Building, Ludy -- who has worked for top companies in every major field from manufacturing to retail -- outlines a new approach called PBP (Profit Building Process), specific techniques for improving profitability by stimulating creative thinking and motivating teams to work together more effectively.
This program gives business leaders a daring yet accessible approach to increasing earnings without the shortsighted solution of layoffs. Using step-by-step examples, Ludy shows how to encourage employee participation in an atmosphere where creative problem solving flourishes. This entails the systematic application of four interdependent concepts: teams, innovation management, brainstorming, and action step planning.
Customer Reviews:
Cost Cutting with a Conscience.......2006-08-06
It is axiomic that the role of the firm is to maximise profit; some would say to maximise shareholder value. Profit can be increased by selling goods and services at a premium price that the customer is prepared to pay. However, in a highly competitive environment, prices can be depressed and the company may have to focus on cutting costs whilst maintaining an acceptable level of service and quality.
With the various economic shocks that the world is subjected, one typical and favourite target for cost cutting is reducing the workforce. This short-sighted approach to cost cutting not only causes a lot of human suffering but seldom achieves the intended objective of reducing costs in the long-run. Perry Judy proposes a more progressive approach that focuses on profit improvement. The Profit-Building Process that the author proposes appears to be an effective and workable method for building profit without employing the short-sighted and often self-defeating cost-cutting through cutting people.
I work in the airline industry where people cutting is a favourite strategy employed during lean times. Very often, following the drastic reduction in manning levels, service levels are reduced to such an extent that customers are turned away, further worsening the plight of the airlines concerned. The step-by-step approach of building on-going profit through motivated teams appears to be an excellent strategy for companies to employ when cost-cutting is required.
The book is required reading for all managers tasked with the responsibility to cut costs and build profits in any department.
Profit Building - Cutting Cost Without Cutting People.......2001-08-29
If you are looking for a way to increase profits in your organization, I strongly recommend that you start by first reading Profit Building - Cutting Costs Without Cutting People. Mr. Ludy takes you step by step though the process of building an on-going profit build team for your organization. We have used it as a blueprint for our company and it has really turned our employees. The book moves fast and I found it to be an easy read.
Highly Recommended!.......2001-04-24
Perry J. Ludy, a seasoned executive, presents his strategies for building profits and cutting costs in this well conceived book. He provides a team-based, profit-making plan that companies of any size could implement. In this simple, highly effective book, Ludy dispels myths about cutting costs and building profits. He uses examples from his professional experience to show his suggestions in action. We [...] recommend this book to managers and executives who are responsible for cost cutting and profit building.
Build-Up Profit Improving Skill Rather than Having Lay-offs!.......2001-03-05
As one CEO said to me recently, "No one who has a conscience ever wants to lay anyone off." Yet the headlines are filled with announcements that companies are making massive cuts in jobs and employees. Recently, these cuts are even coming in the fastest growing technology industries. If people don't like to fire anyone and people don't like to be fired, why is this happening?
Mr. Ludy argues that faced with missing budgets, the orders come down to spend less. Most people do know how to fire someone, so that option gets plenty of attention. Most people do not know many other ways to cut costs or boost profits in the short term, so the alternatives get little attention.
Our firm did a study more than a decade ago that has been quoted in dozens of books and magazine articles. We found that the stocks of companies which did layoffs usually underperformed the stocks of companies that did not. By the end of four years, the differences were enormous in favor of those who did not do layoffs.
Many people believe that this is because people do layoffs poorly, and many people do. But it also because the effort that goes into the layoffs could be better deployed in activities that increase profits. Usually, the bulk of those who go are the most employable people. They end up working for the competition, or having to be hired back as expensive consultants. How does either alternative help, while you are paying severance benefits as an additional cost?
Mr. Ludy points out, based on his extensive experience, that most executives, managers, and supervisors know little about profit improving.
Much of the recent training in companies has been on how to reduce errors, and that may help cut costs in main processes. That learning is often of little help in secondary processes and in areas where the processes need to be totally replaced, revised, or outsourced. Xerox and Motorola are both famed for their quality processes, and both companies are struggling now to make a profit.
Mr. Ludy has developed a process described in the book that helps to get people focusing on the best opportunities, and following through to implement the opportunites that they select. He also provides lists of items which many companies ignore, to help get the process started.
Although I have not seen this process working in practice, it is similar enough to elements of successful processes I have seen that is has credibility to me.
If you decide to pursue this process, I suggest that you can improve upon it. First, rather than just having one small team working on this, you should try to get as many people working in small teams as possible. The most successful profit-improvement program I ever saw involved over 14,000 people in suggesting ideas. Second, be sure to compare the performance you are achieving in one part of the company with what you are achieving in another part of the company in the same activity. Most large companies get their best ideas from benchmarking to their own best practices. Third, be sure to create an e-intelligence capability to get more information to everyone about how the company is performing. E-Business Intelligence is a book that can help you understand this point better.
The three strengths of Mr. Ludy's process to me are:
1. The emphasis on finding ways to improve profits, without hurting people.
2. Training people about how to improve profits.
3. Eliciting questions to locate opportunities.
In regard to the second point, you may find it helpful to read Dr. Ram Charan's new book as well, What the CEO Wants You to Know. That book focuses on simple business concepts and metaphors to make everyone better able to relate to the issues of the enterprise.
One of the major weaknesses of companies is that leaders are often asked to pursue tasks for which they do not have relevant information, experience, or training. Where else does your company have this issue? In my experience, two areas stand out.
(1) Finding better solutions to repetitive problems.
(2) Choosing directions that will lead to better results, regardless of business conditions.
May you find more intelligent, and more humane, ways to profit!
Affirmation of people power in commerce.......2001-02-24
Perry Ludy's book, Profit Building examines a powerful dichotomy for business in the new millennium. It empowers commerce to make effective choices to achieve profit building by cutting costs without cutting people.
Profit Building is also an imperative to examine conventional business models during periods of economic uncertainity. This book is precise, concise and truly on the cutting edge of contemporary issues in today's economy.
Profit Building is a must read for savvy business management - or those who expect to join the ranks - to "get ahead of the curve" or virtually reinvent the human possibilities.
Reviewed by former Group Publisher CBS.
Customer Reviews:
You Heard it From the Man.......2006-06-09
You've heard the line, "sticking it to the man." Well, Robert Townsend was the man. As a top executive at Avis, Hertz, and American Express his good nature and not-so-common sense saved these companies. This is an anthology book with a series of moral lessons for managers everywhere---read it! Read his second book too: "Further Up the Organization." In the second book, he recounts how as an executive at American Express he was rebuffed by an accountant. He explained that he needed to buy one of those new fangled (it was the 70's) calculators for an accounts manager. He then added that the calculator would pay for itself in minutes with what it would save AMEX. Without blinking, the accountant said, "If it's not in your budget, you can't have it." Townsend just said, "Oh," and started writing a memo. After a few minutes, he handed it to the accountant. He said,"Sign here." The accountant looked at it and exclaimed,"This is your resignation! I'm not signing that." Townsend said, "Yes you are." Then, he said, "When I resign I am going to hand this memo to my boss, the CEO. He's going to want to know why I resigned and I want to tell him." The accountant turned gray. Townsend got his calculator. You will find amusing and interesting stories in both books. What he said then rings true today. If only we had executives like him today. Instead, we have people like Lay, Skilling, and Fastow: only out for themselves, with egos the size of the mansions they aspire to own.
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Books:
- The Power of Focus: How to Hit Your Business, Personal and Financial Targets with Absolute Certainty
- The Prince (Bantam Classics)
- The Reading Coach: A How-to Manual for Success
- Training to See: A Value Stream Mapping Workshop: A Value Stream Mapping Workshop (Lean Enterprise Institute)
- Understanding American and German Business Cultures
- Understanding Business
- What Would You Do? (American Girl Library)
- Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything
- Working With You is Killing Me: Freeing Yourself from Emotional Traps at Work
- Workplace Spirituality: A Complete Guide for Business Leaders
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America
| Race Relations
| Sociology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race (Critical America Series)
The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class, Revised and Expanded Edition (Haymarket)
Yo' Mama's Disfunktional !: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America
Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race
Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s (Critical Social Thought)
