The Future of Success: Working and Living in the New Economy
By:
Robert B. Reich
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Average Customer Rating: 4.0 out of 5
Description:
If you think it’s getting harder to both make a living and make a life, economist and former secretary of labor Robert Reich agrees with you. Americans may be earning more than ever before, but we’re paying a steep price: we’re working longer, seeing our families less, and our communities are fragmenting.
With the clarity and insight that are his hallmarks, Reich delineates what success has come to mean in our time. He demonstrates that although we have more choices as consumers, and investors, the choices themselves are undermining the rest of our lives. It is getting harder for people to be confident of what they will be earning next year, or even next month. At the same time, our society is splitting into socially stratified enclaves--the wealthier walled off and gated, the poorer isolated and ignored. Although the trends he discusses are powerful, they are not irreversible, and Reich makes provocative suggestions for how we might create a more balanced society and more satisfying lives. Some of his ideas may surprise you; all should spark a healthy–and essential–national debate.
Publisher: Vintage
Release Date: 2002-01-08
Customer Review: 1 out of 5
What A Joke - Reich and the globalization gang are a joke. While it is true that the trinkets from China are dirt cheap, the things Americans spend most of their money on like housing, health care, education, and energy have sky rocketed because they are produced domestically in largely oligarchic markets. Real per capita GDP has almost doubled in the past 30 years while real hourly median wages have slightly declined. Bravo to Reich for making his owners at Citibank filthy richer while raking Americans over the coals and convincing them he's doing them a favor.
Customer Review: 4 out of 5
Great observatons overall, but marred by very bad solutions - I have to give Reich a lot of credit. Aside from the last chapter, he provided a very balanced look at the issues. His suggestions about cause and effect seemed reasonable and well thought out.
For anyone working in the corporate, white collar world, it was easy to see that the conditions he describe make a lot of sense and apply to most of middle class America for sure - likely extending across the economic spectrum. Everyone is running to keep up. The pressure keeps intensifying. Technology gives us ever more choices, continuing to crank up the competitive pressure. The whole process continues to feed on itself and accelerate -- and there is no end in sight. The result is an ecomomic treadmill that is ever-harder to keep up with. As we pursue this treadmill, how many of us bother (or can afford) to take a hard look at what this treadmill means to our lives, and how we should attempt to make trade-offs to cope with it?
So as Reich headed into the final chapter, I expected some balanced, imaginative ideas/solutions, if he felt some should be offered. I was really disappointed. Virtually ALL his solutions were straight from the far left of the political spectrum, comprising (more) massive wealth resdistribution programs, with no real evidence that it will make any meaningful long term difference in the issues he proposes to deal with. I expcted that some (perhaps even half) of these would contain elements of his left wing political leanings, but this was really just blatant. The whole sense of balance, perspective, and careful thought put into the whole book up to this point were just gone.
The most glaring example of this was the proposal to just GIVE sixty thousand bucks to everyone in America as they turn 18, with no strings attached. The reasoning was to let young people start businesses, etc. and have a "fair" chance to be productive. Fabulous intent. However, in the real world most 18 year olds (by far) have far more hormones than reasoned judgement borne of meaningful experience, or a real clue of who they really are and what they want. Sadly, far too much of this well intended money would be blown on pleasure items and do nothing more than add to the debt and lack of inventive issues we already face (Reich wants to pay for this with a new "wealth tax" - simply confiscate some percentage of wealthy folks' total net worth. Karl Marx would love it).
If this is the best that Mr. Reich's insights can offer as far as solutions, it would be far better if he just explained the state of our economic condition and left the recommendations to others.
Customer Review: 4 out of 5
OK start, great middle, wimpy ending - I really enjoyed this book and learned a lot from it, but really this book is all problem statement and very little problem solution. Still, the problem statement is fascinating and throws a lot of light on the real reasons behind much of what I have perceived to be the changes in the working world of the past twenty-or-so years in the USA.
I think I can put the central thesis of the book into a more abstract formulation: our society has done too good a job at reducing friction! Every engineer and designer tries to minimize friction; some do a better job than others, but friction is almost never reduced to a negligible amount. This, if you think about it, is a Good Thing; without any friction at all, no molecule would be left standing on another molecule! It is possible to imagine life in an almost-friction-free world, but that life would be very different from what we experience in our world. Well, the communications explosion of the past couple of decades has reduced the friction of transactions to the point where we are starting to hurt -- where the habits, customs and laws of transactions (commercial and social) have been speeded up and cost-reduced to induce a difference of quality, not just a difference in quantity. We haven't even begun to realize what has happened, let alone be able to come up with ways to deal with it. This book is an excellent introduction to the problem.
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
REICH: Book about Work from someone with NO REAL Job - THE TRUTH: THOSE CANNOT DO WILL TEACH.
The old age wisdom says we should only preach about those things we know, have experience. Here we have an author, the Former U.S. Secretary of Labor writing about work. Has Robert Reich ever had a Real, TRUE job.
He has spent his whole life in the "Ivory Tower" not the real world where individuals, companies have to provide products and services to the world.
Look at Bill Klinton, what was his first job after law school, a professor at the University of Arkansas.
What was Hilary RodHAM Clinton's first job, a law professor? After long hours as U.S. Secretary of Labor, what job did he run to: another phony, fake job as Economics professor at Brandeis University.
How did these clowns think that to BS in front if 18, 19 years olds is real job. Look at what Al "2000 Loser" Gore do after the 2000 election loss. He got a teaching job at Tennessee State and Columbia Journalism School.
Does the world really another academic to write another useless book.
Much of the content of the book is Not new. First, there was agriculture. The raising of plants-animals has been the pre-occupation of humans for 8,000 years. With the Industrial Revolution of the 17th, 18th century in England and then Europe, industry has replaced farming.
With the invention of the Transistor, microprocessor, PC and the worldwide, universal Internet, the world is now moving to a digital-service economy. The coming One (1) Billion transistor CPU will truly usher in a new era in the history of humans.
Oil, Natural Resources still counts in the modern world. But Brain-Power, Brain-Products is really what matters in the 21st. century.
To survive as individuals, groups or nations, we need to be producers before we can be consumers. Producers-consumers, consumers-producers is what the global markets is all about.
Another useless book from an academic who has never had a real job is NOT what the new economy is all about.
Customer Review: 4 out of 5
Interesting Commentary On Our Changing Workplace - Although the title is overly ambitious, The Future of Success is an interesting commentary on our changing workplace. The author, Robert Reich, a Brandeis University professor, was the Secretary of Labor during President Clinton's first term. Consumed by work and neglecting his family, Reich decided that the toll was too great and left his cabinet position to return to academia and write this book. Reich's work is important because he explains the drivers of our new economy with its great consumer deals, endless workweeks and vanishing job security. In this new world, rewards are given for results, not seniority within the company. We can conclude therefore, that since teams are typically formed to achieve specific results, they will continue to be an important organizational structure in the new economy. Increased competition is driving most businesses to focus on results. This philosophy favors a results-based organization structure in which teams are the basic building block. Although the reader expects Reich to end this book with stunning insight on balancing the vast benefits of the new economy with its requirement of personal sacrifice, the author provides no specific recommendations. Instead, the disappointing final chapter provides some vague recommendations for increased dialogue and improved public policy. Nevertheless, the book's compelling content makes up for its tepid epilogue. Reich's background gives him unique qualifications to describe the driving factors behind the new workplace. I recommend that you put this on your list.
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