mkesten's review against another edition
3.0
Brian Alexander’s provocative book, “Glass House: The 1% Economy and the Shattering of the All-American Town” takes the measure of capital as a malevolent force in American society. He draws a line from the Wall Street raiders of the 1970’s to the decay and decline of the American industrial heartland.
Alexander’s book should be read along side Arlie Russell Hochschield’s “Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger on the American Right.” Hochschield aims her sharpest arrows at the American chemical industry for their willful disregard of the ecology of the Deep South, their despoliation of the bayou, the swamps, and the wetlands adjoining their chemical plants and depots.
In “Glass House” we have an Ohio town that struck it rich in the early 1900’s when landowners discovered a rich and cheap reservoir of natural gas and parlayed it into a strong glass industry. They built their plants, they hired their workers, and things seemed to be going along tickety-boo until Carl Icahn arrived with a plan to blast open their companies to “unlock shareholder value” trapped in the aging corporations.
After a series of mismanaged takeovers, plant closures, and bankruptcies, the workers are left with worse wages, few benefits, and no security. Their municipality having given huge tax concessions to the new shareholders are facing bankruptcy as well. And community services consist largely of jailing drug abusers and drug dealers. There is little opportunity for the residents, so they either drift into crime and they drift to nearby Columbus.
Then business turns south, the outsiders blame government taxes, greedy unions, foreign competition, and lazy workers for their misfortunes.
Alexander has a good point. There is a connection between business and the communities they serve. I emphasize the communities they SERVE. The community isn’t just another asset to squeeze.
But is this the whole story?
Just before reading this book I also read “The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American innovation,” by Jon Gertner. Long before AT&T was broken up by fiat of Congress, the telephone monopoly’s research subsidiary, Bell Labs, assembled the most extraordinary group of engineers, physicists, and chemists to tackle the thorniest problems the telephone company faced.
Bell’s scientists discovered the transistor, found ways to pump information through fibre optic cables, pioneered satellite communications, and developed the first cellphone network. While an employee of Bell Labs, Claude Shannon first put down his Information Theory and opened people’s eyes on how to convert all information into zero’s and ones, one of the foundations of today’s computer industry.
In the American context, capital has helped create some of the greatest wonders of the 20th and now the 21st century. Not always malevolent, you say.
The “All American town” of Alexander’s story, Lancaster, Ohio, is not so squeaky clean. It has a history of race baiting and social exclusion. Alexander starts the story long after the plains have been cleared of Amerindians, after Europeans stole the land for their own farmers.
The ugly side of America is also part of its heritage. Winner take all is as sacred as the Second Amendment. Are we so surprised it has spawned a predatory culture that feeds upon itself?
Alexander’s book should be read along side Arlie Russell Hochschield’s “Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger on the American Right.” Hochschield aims her sharpest arrows at the American chemical industry for their willful disregard of the ecology of the Deep South, their despoliation of the bayou, the swamps, and the wetlands adjoining their chemical plants and depots.
In “Glass House” we have an Ohio town that struck it rich in the early 1900’s when landowners discovered a rich and cheap reservoir of natural gas and parlayed it into a strong glass industry. They built their plants, they hired their workers, and things seemed to be going along tickety-boo until Carl Icahn arrived with a plan to blast open their companies to “unlock shareholder value” trapped in the aging corporations.
After a series of mismanaged takeovers, plant closures, and bankruptcies, the workers are left with worse wages, few benefits, and no security. Their municipality having given huge tax concessions to the new shareholders are facing bankruptcy as well. And community services consist largely of jailing drug abusers and drug dealers. There is little opportunity for the residents, so they either drift into crime and they drift to nearby Columbus.
Then business turns south, the outsiders blame government taxes, greedy unions, foreign competition, and lazy workers for their misfortunes.
Alexander has a good point. There is a connection between business and the communities they serve. I emphasize the communities they SERVE. The community isn’t just another asset to squeeze.
But is this the whole story?
Just before reading this book I also read “The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American innovation,” by Jon Gertner. Long before AT&T was broken up by fiat of Congress, the telephone monopoly’s research subsidiary, Bell Labs, assembled the most extraordinary group of engineers, physicists, and chemists to tackle the thorniest problems the telephone company faced.
Bell’s scientists discovered the transistor, found ways to pump information through fibre optic cables, pioneered satellite communications, and developed the first cellphone network. While an employee of Bell Labs, Claude Shannon first put down his Information Theory and opened people’s eyes on how to convert all information into zero’s and ones, one of the foundations of today’s computer industry.
In the American context, capital has helped create some of the greatest wonders of the 20th and now the 21st century. Not always malevolent, you say.
The “All American town” of Alexander’s story, Lancaster, Ohio, is not so squeaky clean. It has a history of race baiting and social exclusion. Alexander starts the story long after the plains have been cleared of Amerindians, after Europeans stole the land for their own farmers.
The ugly side of America is also part of its heritage. Winner take all is as sacred as the Second Amendment. Are we so surprised it has spawned a predatory culture that feeds upon itself?
aileenginny's review against another edition
I tried to listen to the audio book but the narration was too monotone for me, and it was difficult to tell when a direct quote was being read. The topic was somewhat interesting, but the book was too slow paced to draw me in.
alexander58's review against another edition
1.0
Got through the first 100 pages. Thought “when will the details about acquisition after acquisition end.” Flipped to page 250. Saw more of the same. I stopped there.
shelfimprovement's review against another edition
4.0
The "Hocking" in Anchor Hocking is the name of the river that I could see from the window in my childhood bedroom, less than an hour south of Lancaster. This book tells a story that is very important to me, personally.
I have millions of thoughts on this book and I will eventually coalesce them into something coherent, but for now just let me say: fuck Milton Friedman. Fuck him with the biggest, thorniest stick on the planet. Fuck Ronald Reagan for legitimizing Friedman, fuck Mitt Romney for his "corporations are people" bullshit, and fuck Donald Trump for being the prime example of the kind of economics that Brian Alexander is trying to shine a light on here.
I have millions of thoughts on this book and I will eventually coalesce them into something coherent, but for now just let me say: fuck Milton Friedman. Fuck him with the biggest, thorniest stick on the planet. Fuck Ronald Reagan for legitimizing Friedman, fuck Mitt Romney for his "corporations are people" bullshit, and fuck Donald Trump for being the prime example of the kind of economics that Brian Alexander is trying to shine a light on here.
revafisheye's review against another edition
4.0
This book will haunt me for a while. Glass House is a book about the economic collapse of my hometown of Lancaster, Ohio, like so many other small industrial towns across America. As the author recounted local history I somehow just knew as a kid, as well as some less savory bits I did not, and took the reader on a tour of local landmarks I felt a wild mix of nostalgia, sadness, and rage, knowing the devastation to come. My immediate family left before the worst came to Lancaster — the Carl Ichans and the private equity marauders and the easy heroin and the moralists who blame desperate people for just trying to get by the only way they can — but it's still my town and I take it personally that anyone would hurt the people there.
givnuapeacesign's review against another edition
5.0
This one made me cry tears. Rarely do I choose nonfiction that isn't biography, memoir, etc. My nonfiction tells a story of people. This broadly and savagely undresses the dirty raping of American blue collar factories by way of acquisitions, mergers, profit, selling debt, bottom line, sell it fast tactics. I'm ignorant of finance economics. I am Union proud. The destruction of hope and declining resiliency this author so brilliantly displayed brought me to the depths of despair. Lancaster is every town. Our middle class jobs which gave us hope, a sense of community, pride, and a means to provide for our families are stripped bare. Fat cats get richer as the spoils become addicts. This book is hard to read. It has a plethora of names which intertwine. It has boring history which drones. Yet small towns are just that, droning groups of folk grasping for their dreams. Our small town America has nothing but nightmares now. What could be worse than a drug addled nightmare that only gets worse and you never escape?
kilks401's review
2.0
Mildly interesting snapshot of a town outside of Columbus, Ohio battered by the collapse of a couple of local employers, but undone by its unwillingness to grapple with the policies that created this situation, and what policies could potentially help, as well as which party is more or less likely to support such efforts.
There's an unwillingness to be specific about which politicians pushed for the financialization of the economy, which undid the main business far more than NAFTA, or any recognition of how the drug crisis is a public health issue and continually locking people up does not work.
For instance, should the SEC change the rules? Which ones? And which party resists such efforts more?
What would harm reduction look like in terms of the addiction crisis faced by towns like this? A place for people to safely inject? Obviously this is a town that would oppose such an effort, but would have been good to mention.
Not to mention the virulent racism that comes through in asides from various characters but is basically ignored otherwise, both in current times and back to the days when it was prospering and this town was a hotbed for the Klan. I'm glad the author did not ignore it, but how much of the towns problems
is because of their racism, and not just
There's an unwillingness to be specific about which politicians pushed for the financialization of the economy, which undid the main business far more than NAFTA, or any recognition of how the drug crisis is a public health issue and continually locking people up does not work.
For instance, should the SEC change the rules? Which ones? And which party resists such efforts more?
What would harm reduction look like in terms of the addiction crisis faced by towns like this? A place for people to safely inject? Obviously this is a town that would oppose such an effort, but would have been good to mention.
Not to mention the virulent racism that comes through in asides from various characters but is basically ignored otherwise, both in current times and back to the days when it was prospering and this town was a hotbed for the Klan. I'm glad the author did not ignore it, but how much of the towns problems
is because of their racism, and not just
chicagoliz's review
4.0
This is a must-read, especially if you are interested in the state of our country and the anger of the working class. This is actually better than Hillbilly Elegy -- both books written by native Ohioans about their hometowns, although Hillbilly Elegy is more strictly memoir whereas this book is more of a journalistic piece. Although this is why I knock off a star -- the author writes about his hometown, but struggles to keep the reporting at a distance. But this isn't acknowledged, and often the book 'breaks the fourth wall' so to speak, yet in other places ignores the personal connection the town has to the author. This might have worked better had it been written by a journalist without a direct connection to the town. Also there were parts that were confusing -- like they were things the author knew, but a reader unfamiliar with the town would not know. There were also many people discussed in the book and I found it hard to keep some of them straight.
All in all, though, this is an excellent description of what has gone wrong in our country. The simple fact is that LBOs and other similar financial maneuvers should be outlawed, as they have directly dismantled and destroyed our towns and our society. The government has decreed that corporations are people, but they allow them to get away with refusing to pay the social costs and encourage them not to become a part of the fabric of the community but rather to rip it apart. There is no reason it has to be this way.
All in all, though, this is an excellent description of what has gone wrong in our country. The simple fact is that LBOs and other similar financial maneuvers should be outlawed, as they have directly dismantled and destroyed our towns and our society. The government has decreed that corporations are people, but they allow them to get away with refusing to pay the social costs and encourage them not to become a part of the fabric of the community but rather to rip it apart. There is no reason it has to be this way.