Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics [Hardcover]

Jane Jacobs (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2, 1993

The author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities looks at business fraud and criminal enterprise, overextended government farm subsidies and zealous transit police, to show what happens when the moral systems of commerce collide with those of politics.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

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
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 236 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1 edition (February 2, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 039455079X
• ISBN-13: 978-0394550794
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,342,541 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing intellectual leap, and an easy read!, March 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics (Paperback)

Jane Jacobs is one of those amazing outsiders who can take a collection of clippings from the newspaper, historical texts, and conversations with friends, and identify patterns no one else has so clearly seen. Here she has pointed out an entire field for future study -- the social evolution of meme-complexes, patterns of self-reinforcing beliefs that have evolved over time in human populations. One can quibble about the undisciplined frame for the arguments, but it does make the book an exceptionally easy read (and no doubt was much easier to write than a more formal treatment would have been). I certainly recognized myself and my friends (and politcal opponents) in her syndromes, and have found the insight they provide invaluable in working with people who are "syndrome-inflexible" (cannot swing from one syndrome to the other as appropriate) -- especially on local development issues, where the clash of the syndromes is exceptionally obvious.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jane Jacobs explains one of the oldest conflicts in society., June 12, 1998

By 

Laurence Jarvik "laurencejarvikonline" (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics (Paperback)

This is one of my favorite books. I have read and re-read it again and again. Jane Jacobs explains why governments do good things -- and bad things. And why the free market does good things -- and bad things. Her exposition of the conflict between the "commercial syndrome" and the "guardian syndrome" is profound and original. An exceptionally brilliant philosophical dialog in the tradition of the Greeks.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Life-changing, July 21, 2000

By 

Chris Crawford (Oregon USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics (Paperback)

I rate this as one of the ten best books I have read in the last decade. For years I could not understand how everyday people can commit moral transgressions. Some years back, I found myself on the receiving end of some seriously unethical behavior committed by people who were my friends and whom I had always held in high regard. How could these good people involve themselves in such unethical behavior? The dysjunction between their behavior and my assessment of their characters was the source of much grief. After reading Jacobs' book, I have come to understand just how tricky some of these problems can be, and just how easy it is for good people to fall into error at the junction between commericial life and guardian life. Her book doesn't solve any problems, but it certainly makes sense of much human perfidy.