Customer Reviews

Modern Manors

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It is not a very long book, but it contains a lot of information and insight. I guess that is why an academic jury awarded it the Taft Prize for Labor History. The book is all about how american businesses--three in particular: Sears, Thompson, and Kodak--used sophisticated welfare capitalist techniques (and the occasional resort to brass-knuckle tactics) to defeat union organizing drives. There are fascinating glimpses at business history, collective bargaining, the evolution of employee benefits, and a dollop of labor economics thrown in for good measure in this work. The writing is accessible, well-documented, and brimful of well-chosen anecdotes without being unduly folksy or slangy. The depictions of how Sears company officials and staff labor relations professionals worked hand-in-glove with fake company unions and the Teamsters (!?) to blunt the CIO's organizing efforts during and after World War II are particularly good. I have rated this at 5 stars because it was a rewarding read and I thought the (somewhat inadequate) 1 star review ought to be offset.

I read this book and thought the analysis was extremely accurate and the above commentor was extremely off and accomplished nothing except making this book look horrible

This book is a waste of money and more importantly the readers time. Jacoby is an alleged economist yet his insights are elementary and comparable to those of a naive amateur. The subject matter is not relevant to modern management and the case examples are misleading at best. His thesis that the corporation is the new core of the social welfare system is unsupported and quite honestly not creditable. As the author himself put it, this book is 'often disturbing reading,' however this is because it strays so far from reality.