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With intelligence and clarity of observation, the author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities addresses the moral values that underpin working life.

In Systems of Survival , Jane Jacobs identifies two distinct moral syndromes-one governing commerce, the other, politics-and explores what happens when these two syndromes collide. She looks at business fraud and criminal enterprise, government's overextended subsidies to agriculture, and transit police who abuse the system the are supposed to enforce, and asks us to consider instances in which snobbery is a virtue and industry a vice. In this work of profound insight and elegance, Jacobs gives us a new way of seeing all our public transactions and encourages us towards the best use of our natural inclinations.

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Library Journal Review

In her latest contribution to liberal theory, Jacobs ( Cities and the Wealth of Nations , LJ 6/15/84) argues that modern societies utilize two distinctive moral systems--one being suited to the world of commerce, the other to the world of politics. Commercial morality is unsentimental, nonpartisan, and efficacious; political morality is personalistic, expansive, and vaguely altruistic. The problem is that we don't always know which system of morality to employ in concrete situations. Furthermore, the wrong choice can have disastrous consequences. Unfortunately, Jacobs invents a rather wooden cast of characters who engage in a Socratic dialog that reproduces the author's perspective on the two fundamental types of morality. As a result, the book's credible philosophical message becomes obscured by the superficiality and hamfistedness of the characters' conversations. A few readers may find Jacobs's literary device helpful; most will find it distracting. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 8/92.-- Kent Worcester, Social Science Research Council, New York (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Written in the form of a Platonic dialogue between a Manhattan publisher and his party guests, Jacobs's often confusing inquiry posits that two contradictory ethical systems underpin the realms of work and politics. The ``commercial syndrome,'' prevalent in business, trade and science, fosters honesty and cooperation, encouraging people to be industrious and thrifty and to invest for productive purposes. The ``guardian syndrome,'' which holds sway over armies, police, government bureaucracies and commercial monopolies, instills obedience, respect for hierarchy, loyalty and fatalism. When either moral syndrome embraces functions inappropriate to it, contends Jacobs ( The Economy of Cities ), corruption ensues. She uses this simplistic schema to shed light on corporate merger manias, Pentagon waste, organized crime (a ``monstrous hybrid of the two systems'') and Sweden's welfare state. Urging a ``guardian-commercial symbiosis'' to combat force, fraud and greed, Jacobs cites pollution-cutting technologies and democratic access to business credit as provocative examples. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

CHOICE Review

Jacobs's questioning intelligence and love for people moved her to write The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), The Economy of Cities (1969), Cities and the Wealth of Nations (1984), and now an inquiry into the ethics of making a living. Always challenging the experts' received widsom, her original insights into city life have become more accepted by architects and urban planners. Systems of Survival, an unconventional approach to morality in the workplace, will likewise improve our understanding of how we as individuals and organizations ought to live. Her basic suggestion, challenged and supported from many angles, is that humans have basically two ways of making a living, by taking (politics) and by trading (commerce). Each method can be morally legitimate, but problems arise when we unwittingly confuse the two (e.g., hostile takeovers or government involvement in agriculture) and, most often, because our moral development has failed to keep pace with technology and global interdependence. Governments should not be run like businesses, says Jacobs, but they ought to combat fraud and greed in commercial life while respecting private initiatives, property, and rights as the source of wealth. There are insights here for all parties in the US's current quest to sort out the results of ignorance and moral weakness in commingling commerce and politics. Provocative reading for all audiences. E. L. Donahue; Creighton University

Booklist Review

Jane Jacobs has been a creative observer of the structure and economics of cities in such ground-breaking works as Cities and the Wealth of Nations [BKL My 15 84]. Now she has trained her piercing vision on the ethics of the working life, exposing the dynamics within and between two distinct systems of morals and values. One has to do with existence at its most basic: the securing of food and territories, which she calls the "guardian moral syndrome." The "commercial moral syndrome," of course, involves trade. Jacobs cleverly and clearly defines and analyzes the meaning of these pervasive systems of survival in a classic, Socratic dialogue enacted by a cast of fictional characters. The leader is Armbruster, a retired publisher; his feisty, eloquent, and cerebral think tank is made up of a crime novelist, an animal behavior specialist, an environmental activist, a bank executive, and a lawyer. Through study and debate drawing on all manner of cultural history, they establish a list of characteristics for each system and then raise a host of ethical questions, focusing on how these systems function and under what conditions their virtues become vices. Various endeavors either fit into a system or distort it, giving rise to "monstrous moral hybrids," such as the industrious killing of the Nazis, organized crime, or the muddle of modern agriculture and banking. Ultimately, a positive, flexible symbiosis of the two systems is seen as a desirable direction. Jacobs' thinking is original, reasoned, and lucid; her presentation is engrossing and personable; her conclusions are potentially repercussive. ~--Donna Seaman

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Jane Jacobs lives in Toronto.

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