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

by Jane Jacobs

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780525432883
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/17/2016
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	1,013,826
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Jane Jacobs was the legendary author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, a work that has never gone out of print and that has transformed the disciplines of urban planning and city architecture. Her other major works include The Economy of Cities, Systems of Survival, and The Nature of Economies. She died in 2006.

Editorial Reviews

Why do things go wrong in human society? It's a question that would normally stun the mind into a torpor, but it doesn't at all in Jane Jacobs's intellectually invigorating new book, somewhat unfriskily titled "Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics". . . goes up on the bookshelf with Jane Jacobs's earlier works, the classic "Death and Life of Great American Cities," "The Economy of Cities" and "Cities and the Wealth of Nations," all there to be consulted from time to time for their quirky and original views and the way they cut through to the essence of things. -- New York Times

Christopher Lehmann-Haupt

A sometimes provocative but simplistic discussion of morality in the form of a Platonic dialogue between a Manhattan publisher and his party guests. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

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

Library Journal

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" . 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

Altogether magnificent . . . Probably no single thinker has done more in the last fifty years to transform our ideas about the nature of urban life.” —Chicago Tribune

“[With] piercing analysis, crystalline prose and [a] finely-honed sense of morality, Jacobs covers an amazing amount of ground.” —Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Superb . . . Cobbling together a little urban anthropology, a little economic history, and a vast store of highly nuanced personal observations . . . Jacobs is an indispensable provocateur.” —Village Voice Literary Supplement

From the Publisher