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

JACOBS, Jane.

$325.00

Item Number: 145777

New York: Random House, 1993.

First edition of this classic work. Octavo, original cloth. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the half-title page, “I hope you enjoy this, Barbara Fryrear, Sincerely, Jane Jacobs Dallas May 1993.” Fine in a fine dust jacket. Book design by Carole Lowenstein.

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.