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THE UNSEEN REVOLUTION

HOW PENSION FUND SOCIALISM CAME TO AMERICA

According to Peter Drucker, the last quarter century has witnessed an unrecorded economic gyration toward nothing short of a unique and salutary American brand of socialism—the ultimate ownership of the nation's business by the nation's workers, as beneficiaries of pension trusts. The over-65 savant of management-cum-economic theory takes on a subject for which he is distinctly suited, and for the first time a cogent analysis of the probable impact of the American pension system is constructed for the generalist. The Dickensian clerk, the assembly-line worker, you, I, and the rest of the proletariat have become men and women, not of property, but of expectations. The employees of the country are becoming the new owners (if not the managers) of our major productive resources and the consequences, as well as the fact, ought to be examined. Horrible examples of pension fund mismangement and misinformation abound. New York City's unfunded pension debt, approaching $10 billion, stalks the Big Apple like the ghost of King Kong. The newly promoted employee stock ownership plan, the Kelso plan—whereby a struggling firm may sell its own stock to the pension trust established for the benefit of its workers—is treated with scorn. (On the other hand the Teachers Insurance & Annuity Association, serving the author's academic community, is presented as the most ingenious and intelligent of pension funds.) Drucker dismisses the often cited excessive concentration of power in massive pension trusts as a "pure red herring." He's after bigger philosophical fish. Among them is the significance of an ever increasing cadre of pensioners, members of a welfare society not (as citizens) of a welfare state. Discussion of the subject is timely and though the book is filled with polemic, it may be the spark that ignites debate.

Pub Date: June 16, 1976

ISBN: 043490399X

Page Count: 214

Publisher: Harper & Row

Review Posted Online: May 16, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1976

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THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE

50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...

Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.

Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").

Pub Date: May 15, 1972

ISBN: 0205632645

Page Count: 105

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972

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NUTCRACKER

This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

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