DERBER, Charles (K.) 1944-

PERSONAL:

Born January 23, 1944, in Washington, DC. Education: Yale University, B.A. (summa cum laude), 1965; University of Chicago, M.A., 1967, Ph.D., 1971.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Dedham, MA. Office—Department of Sociology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02167. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, assistant professor of sociology, 1970-79; Boston College, Boston, MA, assistant professor, 1980-86, associate professor, 1986-91, professor of sociology, 1991—, associate director of program in social economy and social policy, 1986-87, director of program in social economy and social policy, 1988-90, 1993-95. Principal investigator and project director in funded research projects, 1980—.

WRITINGS:

The Pursuit of Attention: Power and Individualism in

Everyday Life, G. K. Hall (Boston, MA), 1979, 2nd edition published as The Pursuit of Attention: Power and Ego in Everyday Life, Oxford University Press (Oxford, England), 2000.

(Editor) Professionals as Workers: Mental Labor in Advanced Capitalism, G. K. Hall (Boston, MA), 1982.

(With William Schwartz) The Nuclear Seduction: Why the Arms Race Doesn't Matter—and What Does, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1990.

(With William A. Schwartz and Yale Magrass) Power in the Highest Degree: Professionals and the Rise of a New Mandarin Order, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1990.

Money, Murder, and the American Dream: Wilding from Wall Street to Main Street, Faber and Faber (Boston, MA), 1992.

What's Left?: Radical Politics in the Postcommunist Era, University of Massachusetts Press (Amherst, MA), 1995.

The Wilding of America: How Greed and Violence Are Eroding Our Nation's Character, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1996, 2nd edition published as The Wilding of America: Greed, Violence, and the New American Dream, Worth Publishers (New York, NY), 2001.

Corporation Nation: How Corporations Are Taking over Our Lives and What We Can Do about It, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2000.

People before Profit: The New Globalization in an Age of Terror, Big Money, and Economic Crisis, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2002.

Contributor of articles to books and periodicals, including the Boston Globe, Contemporary Sociology, Peace Review, Responsive Community, Social Policy, Tikkun, Utne Reader, Research in the Sociology of Organizations, edited by Samuel Bachrach, et al., 1991, Self and Society, edited by Ann Branaman, 2000, and The New Progressivism, edited by Henry Tam, 2001.

SIDELIGHTS:

Charles Derber is a sociologist and educator whose works examine economic, interpersonal, and political issues facing American society. Among his particular areas of research are social justice in the global economy, class studies, communitarianism, professionals as workers, and the impact of extreme individualism and greed on American life.

In his early study, The Pursuit of Attention: Power and Individualism in Everyday Life, Derber examines "conversational narcissism," the attention-giving and attention-getting behaviors typical in American society, and how it reflects patterns of social and economic dominance. In Derber's view, the interpersonal dynamics of conversation reveal much about the economic model and social structure of the United States, including class and gender differences. According to Suzanne W. Wood in Library Journal, the study is "solid, readable, and stimulating." However, a less favorable assessment was presented by H. Wayne Hogan in Social Forces. Hogan concluded that while the intention of the work has value, "the end result is a work fraught with underanalysis and overinterpretation." Another commentator, Mary F. Rogers, writing in the American Journal of Sociology, judged that The Pursuit of Attention "offers a refreshingly balanced, strongly grounded exploration of the routines Americans exploit in competing for attention," and in Contemporary Sociology, John P. Hewitt called it "an insightful book that reveals the interplay of social interaction and social structure in an imaginative light."

In another work of social critique, Money, Murder, and the American Dream: Wilding from Wall Street to Main Street, Derber examines what he sees as "unrestrained and sociopathic self-interest" threatening institutions and civil order in the late 1980s. He draws the term "wilding" from lawless and violent behavior described by the defendants in the 1989 case of the Central Park jogger, and extends its meaning to include a variety of crimes making headlines at the time, including the Menendez brothers' murder of their parents, the Stuart murder in Boston, the conviction of "junk bond king" Michael Milken on fraud and related charges, and the Savings & Loan crisis. A further critique of what he describes as "individualism run amok," The Wilding of America: How Greed and Violence Are Eroding Our Nation's Character offers such cases as Milken, O. J. Simpson, Donald Trump, and Newt Gingrich as modern examples of those driven to succeed at any cost.

Derber's studies of workers and workplace issues began with Professionals as Workers: Mental Labor in Advanced Capitalism, published in 1982. In the volume, Derber discusses the "proletarization" of educators, lawyers, doctors, and engineers in the second half of the twentieth century, as more professionals left private practice to join bureaucratic organizations and government agencies. In the later study Power in the Highest Degree: Professionals and the Rise of a New Mandarin Order, Derber, William A. Schwartz, and Yale Magrass further document the rise of the professional class and examine relationships between professional "experts" who commodify knowledge and the larger class of unskilled laborers. They consider various aspects of capital, labor, and knowledge in terms of capitalist production. Magali Sarfatti Larson, reviewing Power in the Highest Degree in American Journal of Sociology, concluded that "the book's lively style, the comprehensive synthesis of varied works, the abundant contemporary references, and the controversial questions it raises make it a welcome contribution to the growing literature on the new class."

In his study Corporation Nation: How Corporations Are Taking over Our Lives and What We Can Do about It, Derber analyzes the growing concentration of power in large corporations and relates it to such social trends as antiunionism, corporate downsizing, and the breakdown of the nuclear family. According to a reviewer in Publishers Weekly, "Derber is genuinely engaged; generally even-handed, this is a necessary critique."

Derber's works on international relations include the 1990 volume The Nuclear Seduction: Why the Arms Race Doesn't Matter—and What Does. In this work, Derber and his collaborators maintain that during the 1980s, too much attention was given to the technological aspects of building nuclear arsenals, rather than to the issues that might lead to the use of such weapons. Jennifer Scarlott, in Library Journal, called it a "thought-provoking book" that "deserves a wide audience." In Journal of Peace Research, Gregory McLauchlan stated, "The Nuclear Seduction makes a major, and what many will find controversial, contribution to both scholarly and political discourse."

In What's Left?: Radical Politics in the Postcommunist Era, Derber and others discuss the future of leftist politics after the failure of Marxist doctrines in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. What's Left? advocates "left communitarianism," which emphasizes morality, family, and community as central to political reform. According to Steven M. Buechler in Contemporary Sociology, "this book exemplifies broad vision, clear argument, accessible writing, and a compelling recognition of the crisis of civil society."

One of the first books written after the attacks of September 11, 2001 to examine the impact of globalization, People before Profit: The New Globalizationin an Age of Terror, Big Money, and Economic Crisis outlines proposals for stabilizing the world economy through increasing local democracy and the social accountability of large corporations. In addition to large scale prescriptions for change, Derber offers examples of individual action that can foster change. According to a reviewer in Kirkus Reviews, "Derber wants long-term stability, where accountability starts at and proceeds from the individual guided by the basic tenets of human decency."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Journal of Sociology, July, 1981, Mary F. Rogers, review of The Pursuit of Attention: Power and Individualism in Everyday Life, pp. 239-41; March, 1991, Magali Sarfatti Larson, review of Power in the Highest Degree: Professionals and the Rise of a New Mandarin Order, pp. 1310-1312.

American Political Science Review, December, 1990, Douglas P. Lackey, review of The Nuclear Seduction: Why the Arms Race Doesn't Matter—and What Does, pp. 1455-1457.

Booklist, April 1, 1992, Mary Carroll, review of Money, Murder, and the American Dream: Wilding from Wall Street to Main Street, p. 1417; January 1, 1996, Mary Carroll, review of The Wilding of America: How Greed and Violence Are Eroding Our Nation's Character, p. 759; November 1, 1998, David Rouse, review of Corporation Nation: How Corporations Are Taking over Our Lives and What We Can Do about It, p. 469.

Business Horizons, May-June, 1999, Thomas A. Hemphill, review of Corporation Nation, pp. 84-85.

Choice, January, 1983, review of Professionals as Workers: Mental Labor in Advanced Capitalism, p. 741.

Contemporary Sociology, March, 1982, John P. Hewitt, review of The Pursuit of Attention, pp. 235-36; September, 1991, Eliot Freidson, review of Power in the Highest Degree, pp. 683-85; July, 1996, Steven M. Buechler, review of What's Left?: Radical Politics in the Postcommunist Era, pp. 489-90.

Foreign Affairs, spring, 1990, Gregory F. Treverton, review of The Nuclear Seduction, pp. 169-70.

International Labour Review, autumn, 2002, review of The Pursuit of Attention, p. 295.

Journal of Peace Research, August, 1991, Gregory McLauchlan, "Does the Nuclear Arms Race Matter?," pp. 325-30.

Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 1990, review of Power in the Highest Degree, pp. 623-24; February 15, 1992, review of Money, Murder, and the American Dream, p. 227; October 1, 2002, review of People before Profit: The New Globalization in an Age of Terror, Big Money, and Economic Crisis, p. 1441.

Library Journal, November 15, 1979, Suzanne W. Wood, review of The Pursuit of Attention, p. 2477; October 1, 1989, Jennifer Scarlott, review of The Nuclear Seduction, p. 109; November 1, 1998, Susan C. Awe, review of Corporation Nation, pp. 104-05.

Monthly Labor Review, March, 1984, John Dreijmanis, review of Professionals as Workers, pp. 61-62.

New England Journal of Medicine, October 26, 1991, Arthur R. Derse, review of Power in the Highest Degree, p. 1257.

New Statesman, April 21, 2003, Philippe Legrain, review of People before Profit, pp. 48-49.

New York Times Book Review, February 4, 1996, Ellis Cose, "Feeling Bad? Get Better!," p. 20.

Publishers Weekly, February 10, 1992, review of Money, Murder, and the American Dream, p. 64; November 13, 1995, review of The Wilding of America, p. 54; October 19, 1998, review of Corporation Nation, p. 71; October 28, 2002, review of People before Profit, pp. 60-61.

Social Forces, December, 1980, H. Wayne Hogan, review of The Pursuit of Attention, pp. 583-84.

Tikkun, March-April, 2003, review of People before Profit, p. 80.

Utne Reader, July-August, 1995, Miles Harvey, review of What's Left?, p. 106.

Washington Monthly, June, 1996, Wendy Kaminer, review of The Wilding of America, p. 59.*