Book Reviews
Richard Sennett:
The Corrosion of Character: The Personal
Consequences of Work in the New
Capitalism.
London/New York: W. W. Norton & Company,
1998.
Sennetts book, The
new Corrosion
of
Richard
Character: The Personnl Consequences of Work
inthe with
New Cnpitnlism, provides us a view of
the personal consequences of change in the
nature of work during the flexible capitalism of
the 1990s. In the book, originally stemming
from a Darwin Lecture given at Cambridge
University in 1996, Sennett examines the
flexibilities and uncertainties of work and,
even more importantly, their effects on the
individuals moral identity. Sennett discusses
questions such as what happens in society if the
main characteristics of economic activities and
work are neither long-term nor stable, but
flexible and short-term, setting the pace for all
other activities and thus reformulating peoples
identities. Sennett takes up the complicated
question of character, which could be defined as
the moral dimension of a persons identity, and
itsintegrity with regard to changes in current
working life and institutional structures, which
to a larger extent than previously, are based on
short-term projects and contract performances.
Rather than writing a detailed study based
on the multitude of research evidence on the
effects of increasing flexibility and uncertainty
at work, Richard Sennett has chosen another
way to put forward his argument. Sennett has
written an extended philosophical essay in
which he explores the disorienting effects on
the self of the new capitalism. The book consists
of eight chapters, each of which focuses on
different aspects of the main argument, the
corrosion of character in the new economic
order. It begins with a short description of a
coincidental meeting at the airport with a
young man in his thirties named Rico. The
description of the meeting with Rico introduces
us to Sennetts main argument. Rico is the son
of Enrico, someone whom Sennett had inter-
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viewed for a study on blue-collar workers and
their perceptions of class in America a quarter
century ago. By discussing the differences
between the lives of father and son and their
life histories, differences that go beyond mere
class status, work descriptions and upward
mobility based on education, Sennett argues
that there has been a general corrosion of
character, which becomes eloquently visible in
their respective positions at work, and in their
personal estimations of self and circumstances,
i.e. their life histories.
Sennetts argument is that the flexibilities
and uncertainties of current working life are
eroding the integrity of the self and the sense of
sustained purpose in the individuals life in ways
that have not existed earlier in society, but
which have been introduced with recent
changes in the economic order. According to
Sennett. the new era of work and economy,
including globalization of work, flexibility and
especially the breaking apart of big bureau-
cracies and organizations into looser networks
with their contingent project work and team-
work, are all changing work values in the most
profound ways. all of which undermine char-
acter. As the networks are constantly redefining
their structures and characters, the same is
bound to happen to individuals who are work-
ing in short-term contracts and episodic work
relations. It seems indeed, in Schumpeterian
terms, that the entrepreneur is served up as an
ideal Everyman alongside a portfolio worker.
The term new capitalism refers, among other
things, to globalization of production, finance
and trade, and especially to flexible specializa-
tion, which is characterized by new principles in
production and management, and a very
versatile workforce. Sennett suggests in his
book that perhaps the corroding of character
is an inevitable consequence of the uncertain-
ties in everyday practices of the vigorous
capitalism of the 19 90s. Sennett does not dive
into post-Fordist debates, however, but rather
relies more on a few chosen classics in develop-
ing his argument.
Sennetts book is intriguing: it reads well,
like a good story, and is less than 200 pages in
76
length. Yet it is an important, if essayistic,
contribution to the debate on flexible capitalism.
Sennett presents a fresh view on the relation-
ship between work and construction of the
identity. He also puts forward the question of the
moral aspects of the new flexible capitalism, a
question that is to a large extent forgotten in
post-Fordist debates. Sennett takes up the views
that appear, for example, in the writings of
Zygmunt Bauman. Baumans view of peoples
life histories indeed mirrors the experience of
time and its fragmented nature in the modern
political economy. As Sennett so eloquently puts
it, a pliant self, a collage of fragments unceas-
ing in its becoming, could be seen under just
the right psychological conditions to be suited
to short-term work experience, flexible institu-
tions and constant risk-taking. However, in
Baumans views of discontinuity there is little
room for understanding the breakdown of a
career if the belief is that all life history is just an
assemblage of fragments without coherence.
There exists considerable empirical evi-
dence from many countries that in the 1980s
and 1990s, large corporations have moved on
to short-term contracts at all levels in the
workforce in increasing numbers. There is also
much evidence that both job insecurity and
intensification of work have increased through-
out the 1990s, particularly amongst profes-
sional workers. These two phenomena are
undoubtedly correlated. The rise of short-term
contracts in non-standard employment has
been characterized as the decline of the job,
and it has occurred not only in private
corporations, but in increasing numbers also
in the public sector, universities included, as we
all know so well.
As capitalism and even bureaucracy now
act on entirely different productive principles
than the classics such as Weber knew, it is also
true, believes Sennett, that individual careers
are formed in an entirely different way. As
Sennett rightly points out, in Webers usage
Berijf stresses the importance of work as an
essential part of peoples lives and the develop-
ment of the individuals character, which was
possible only by long-term, organized effort.
According to Sennett, the short-term, flexible
time of the new capitalism seems to preclude
making any sustained commitment with ones
labour or in ones career. Changes in the
economy are motivated by a complexity of
factors such as deregulation, networks, increas-
ing competition, financial markets and the
importance of short-term profits for share-
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holders, just to mention a few. All these amount
to changing employment practices that find
their concrete expressions in declining employ-
ment security and more uncertain wage and
salary prospects over time, the dark side of the
era of flexible accumulation, as Harrison (1999)>
labels the same phenomenon (Harrison, B..
1999, Lcnn mId Menn: VB1/1Y Large Corporations
Will Cotitiiiiie to Dominate the Globnl Econorry.
New York: Guildford Press).
Undoubtedly Sennett is right in suggesting
that it is precisely the short time frame of
modern institutions that limits the development
of informal trust and strong ties (Granovetter.
M., 1973, The Strength of Weak Ties. American
Journal of Sociology, 78( 6): 13 6()-1 380), rather
than high-tech data operations, free trade or
other global activities in the economy as such.
However, the text lacks solid empirical evidence
and references to such works, as Sennett argues
on the philosophical and theoretical levels and
does not cite empirical evidence to back up his
arguments, although he does attach statistical
tables as illustrations for some recent economic
trends in the USA. The empirical evidence
backing Sennetts argument is to be found
elsewhere, yet it is relatively straightforward.
Evidence for the short time frame of organiza-
tions is to be found in the recent growth of
flexitime and zero-hours employment contracts,
especially in the banking and financial service
sectors (e.g. Neathey, F. & Hurstfield, J., 1995,
Floxihilit~ in Prnctice: vB1omells Employment alld
Pat in Retail nnd Finance. London: OECD). As
Harvey (1999) points out, it is precisely the
zero-hours contracts that show distinctive
temporality, with people bound by a contract.
unpaid while not working but available all the
time on call to meet possible needs at work
(Harvey, M., 1999, Economies of Time. In
Felstead, A. & Jewson, N. (eds.), Globnl Trends
in Flexible Labour, pp. ? 1-~Z London: Macmil-
lan). This seems to be the trend in public sector
employment with short-term employment con-
tracts and flexible use of substitutes. As the
evidence shows, these forms of contract also
include high levels of uncertainty and unpre-
dictability.
But Sennetts book also raises questions,
which it, does not discuss at sufficient
arguably,
length or at all. One of the major questions is
whether the changed nature of the corporate
society and new short-term employment rela-
tionships is solely and completely responsible for
the corrosion of character. Does work alone
create and erode identity? Sennett does not
 1

provide us with clear-cut answers based on
empirical research. Sennetts argument is built
up on idea that no long term is a principle that
corrodes trust, loyalty and mutual commit-
ment. In a parallel fashion, short-term society
based on experiences that drift in time from
place to place, or job to job,threatens to corrode
the individuals character, as the life history
1998. It also became the New Stntesmnns best
book of 1998, and was awarded the 1998
European Amalfi Prize for Sociology and Social
Sciences. If we are to take Sennetts argument
seriously, that short-term capitalism threatens
to corrode individual character, especially those
qualities of character that bind human beings to
one another and furnish each of us with a sense

composed only of episodes, fragments and of sustainable self, it would be well worth
constant changes does not give stability to seeking further empirical evidence to back up
ones life, and thus, to character. According to his arguments.
Sennett, the conditions of time in the new
capitalism have created a conflict between Anne Kovalainen
character and experience. This conflict between Swedish School of Economics and Business
the moral dimension of the self and the Administration
experience of disjointed time threatens the Helsinki. Finland
ability of people to form their characters into
sustained entities.
Another major question that Sennetts
book raises is naturally the question of how
novel the effects of the new economy are. Even if
the uncertainty in employment and flexible
arrangements at work have become more
common than ever, even among the highly
educated, and certainly the rapid and globally
pervasive growth of networking in production
has been huge compared with earlier decades,
the changes in employment might not be as
new as Sennett suggests. For a long time, the
labour-market uncertainties faced by women
have to a longer and greater extent affected
their lives and shaped their decisions, and no
doubt also their characters. In countries with
liberal or conservatist/corporatist types of wel-
fare state, the sources of influence on the
development of non-standard work exist in the
gender arrangements of their societies, not
merely in the labour-markets or corporations.
Sennett devotes little space to the social
organization or social consequences of the
new economy, although these are integral

parts of the everyday lives and decisions made

at home and work, where the self is forged and
takes on its character.
Richard Sennetts book is nevertheless very
much worth reading, not only because he is
clear and precise in the development of his
argument, but also because it seems that the
formula he has selected, i.e. his essay style,
works far better for its purposes than a standard
academic study, at least if you take account of
the prizes the book has received. Breaking down
the barriers between sociology and economics.
The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Conse-
quences of Work in tile New Capitalism was
selected as one of The Economists best books of

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