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The Business of Jews

charles Dellheim

in Constructing Corporate America: History, Politics, Culture

This chapter focuses on the economic culture of Jews with particular emphasis on myths and practices. While steering clear of essentialist assumptions about intrinsic ‘racial traits’, it asks whether ... More

This chapter focuses on the economic culture of Jews with particular emphasis on myths and practices. While steering clear of essentialist assumptions about intrinsic ‘racial traits’, it asks whether there was, in fact, anything distinctive about the attitudes and activities of Jewish entrepreneurs. It examines ‘Shylock's shadow’, the scurrilous stereotypes that pictured Jews as greedy, materialistic, and acquisitive; the historical and sociological literature regarding Jewish economic behaviour; and the role of Jews in specific sectors of the American economy, notably in book publishing. It is argued that the Jewish experience in American business underlines the role of social marginality as an important source of innovation.Less

The Business of Black Baseball

Rebecca T. Alpert

in Out of Left Field: Jews and Black Baseball

This chapter tells the story of the Jewish entrepreneurs who made up the majority of white men who owned and promoted black baseball teams beginning in the Great Depression. The Negro Leagues used ... More

This chapter tells the story of the Jewish entrepreneurs who made up the majority of white men who owned and promoted black baseball teams beginning in the Great Depression. The Negro Leagues used booking agents to schedule games and rent or lease ballparks, and Jewish entrepreneurs who had experience as middlemen gravitated to this work, following the path of other immigrant groups before them. Black team owners mostly welcomed Jewish business expertise, though they were also concerned by the competition these men offered. Also during this era William Plummer organized a team of black Jews, the Belleville Grays, that represented his religious community in Virginia, Temple Beth-El. Plummer's successor, his son Howard Zebulon, turned the Grays into the premier team in Virginia in the late 1930s, sending their best players to long careers in the Negro Leagues.Less

The Third-century Land-leases From Tholthis

Jean Bingen

in Hellenistic Egypt: Monarchy, Society, Economy, Culture

The leases that are the subject of this chapter were found in mummy wrappings (cartonnage) using discarded papyrus. The documents used for this purpose came from a village in the nome of Oxyrhynchos. ... More

The leases that are the subject of this chapter were found in mummy wrappings (cartonnage) using discarded papyrus. The documents used for this purpose came from a village in the nome of Oxyrhynchos. They concern the leasing out of land assigned to military settlers (cleruchs), in large parcels that they did not farm themselves. Instead, they leased them to middlemen, who paid a rent and then in turn subleased them to farmers who carried out the actual cultivation. The middlemen are in many cases the descendants of military settlers but were not at present in military service themselves. They had no landholdings of their own, nor did they farm, but they found an economic niche as intermediaries.Less

Coda: Butter Buyers

in On Demand: Writing for the Market in Early Modern England

This chapter considers William Harrison's Description, where he complains that middlemen are ruining local economies all over England, and suggests that Harrison is not simply the retrograde ... More

This chapter considers William Harrison's Description, where he complains that middlemen are ruining local economies all over England, and suggests that Harrison is not simply the retrograde clergyman he appears, nor as inattentive as he seems. It is rather that he does not quite know what he knows, or does not know how to express what he knows, about demand. His Description implies a gathering tendency of behaviors, desires, and thought that has yet to find a fully articulated rationale, and which must co-exist, perforce, with a very powerful strain of entrenched opinion.Less

Mrs. Uebayashi: Cottage Weaver on the Tango Peninsula on the Japan Sea

Tamara K. Hareven

in The Silk Weavers of Kyoto: Family and Work in a Changing Traditional Industry

Mrs. Uebayashi Chiyoko started weaving obi for Kyoto manufacturers when obi weaving was introduced to Tango in the 1970s. Mr. Uebayashi Akira, her husband, has continued to work as a fisherman. Like ... More

Mrs. Uebayashi Chiyoko started weaving obi for Kyoto manufacturers when obi weaving was introduced to Tango in the 1970s. Mr. Uebayashi Akira, her husband, has continued to work as a fisherman. Like the other women in the village, Mrs. Uebayashi also does farming on her little family plot on the slope of the mountain. The Uebayashi family lives in a spacious new wooden house, built in the traditional style with ornate traditional wood carvings. Since Mrs. Uebayashi was the weaver, her husband fulfilled the role that the hostess would normally have and took a secondary role in the interview. She started weaving as a part-time job, but it has become a full-time job for her. She said that there are many people who quit weaving due to the depression and the middlemen.Less

Archaeology and Townley-Read's Economy: Faunal Remains, Red Stone, and Alcohol Bottles

Kurt A. Jordan

in The Seneca Restoration, 1715–1754: An Iroquois Local Political Economy

This chapter uses archaeological evidence to examine the Seneca local political economy at Townley-Read in terms of animal use (for both subsistence purposes and the fur trade), involvement as ... More

This chapter uses archaeological evidence to examine the Seneca local political economy at Townley-Read in terms of animal use (for both subsistence purposes and the fur trade), involvement as geographic middlemen, and access to alcohol. Although these issues are crucial to the interpretation of eighteenth-century Seneca history, the Europeans viewed Seneca local economic practices only infrequently. Even when European observers took pen to paper, they did not document these issues with the level of detail needed for the interpretation of short-term local political economies. Archaeology provides a crucial missing piece in scholarly reconstructions, and the Townley-Read evidence demonstrates that local economic practices, either unseen by or of little interest to Europeans, could be quite different from what contemporary observers and subsequent scholars imagined them to be.Less

The art of fundraising

Beth Breeze

in The New Fundraisers: Who Organises Charitable Giving in Contemporary Society?

Chapter 4 focuses on the ‘art’ or the non-technical aspects of fundraising, exploring how the social and personal skills of fundraisers enable them to succeed. Drawing on interviews with 50 ... More

Chapter 4 focuses on the ‘art’ or the non-technical aspects of fundraising, exploring how the social and personal skills of fundraisers enable them to succeed. Drawing on interviews with 50 successful fundraisers, this chapter highlights the metaphors that fundraisers use to describe their work, the importance of skills such as reading body language, and exercising good judgments about how, and how fast, to progress relationships with donors. The importance of seemingly trivial decisions, such as the precise wording of an email or whether or not to send a birthday card, illustrates the difficulty of codifying this knowledge. It is argued that the art of fundraising involves responding creatively to the fact that each unique donor has different intentions, attitudes and aspirations in the context of each giving scenarios. As the language of gift giving is, by convention, oblique, it is also argued that the art of fundraising involves an ability to hear the ‘unsaid’ in order to understand donors’ desires and respond accordingly. Less

The Imperial Moshko

Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern

in Lenin's Jewish Question

This chapter provides some background information about Moshko Blank. It explains that he was an Ashkenazic, Yiddish-speaking Jew born to a traditional Jewish family in the pre-partitioned ... More

This chapter provides some background information about Moshko Blank. It explains that he was an Ashkenazic, Yiddish-speaking Jew born to a traditional Jewish family in the pre-partitioned Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In his life in Starokonstantinov, Blank was more interested in improving his town's morals that its appearance and he bombarded the town administration, the district authorities, and the provincial governor with proposals, appeals, notes, protests, allegations, claims, and denunciations. According to East European archives, Blank was registered as an urban dweller and worked as a middleman.Less

The Middleman and the Role of the Community in Land Transactions

Patrick H. Hase

in Custom, Land and Livelihood in Rural South China: The Traditional Land Law of Hong Kong's New Territories, 1744-1948

The middleman represented the village community and was there to ensure the fairness of a land transaction. He verified that the close relatives had been offered first refusal, negotiated the ... More

The middleman represented the village community and was there to ensure the fairness of a land transaction. He verified that the close relatives had been offered first refusal, negotiated the purchase price between the vendor and the purchaser. Then he arranged a date for the transfer to take place. The transfer of land also required witnesses; one of them was the deed writer, a neutral party. Sometimes the middleman was the deed writer. Other formal witnesses included the deed checker and the village elders. On the day of the transfer, the middleman pointed out the exact plots to be transferred and negotiated the exact price the land was worth. The village community was present during the transfer so that they could take the opportunity and voice their opinions on the day if they have any. After the transfer, the purchaser might claim warranty from the middleman if the statements made during the transaction were found to be incorrect.Less

Agents of Development Jews, Arabs, and the Middlemen of Empire

Jacob Norris

in Land of Progress: Palestine in the Age of Colonial Development, 1905-1948

Chapter Two begins the discussion of the post-Ottoman period by focusing on a particular feature of British development policy in Palestine: the preference for Jews as colonial auxiliaries. As a ... More

Chapter Two begins the discussion of the post-Ottoman period by focusing on a particular feature of British development policy in Palestine: the preference for Jews as colonial auxiliaries. As a vital backdrop to the discussion of Haifa and the Dead Sea that follows, this chapter pauses to consider the cultural and ideological basis for that preference. Rather than supporting Zionism as a movement of national emancipation, it is argued that Britain’s initial support for Jewish settlement in Palestine was the product of a centuries-old trend by which colonial governments sought to increase economic productivity through the migration of ‘middlemen minorities’. Importantly, a number of other groups in the Eastern Mediterranean, including Arabs, had long been viewed in a similar light. The chapter charts the process by which these other groups came to be side-lined in British policy formulations around the time of the First World War as notions of population redistribution, ethno-national difference and scientific governance took hold.Less

Middlemen, Social Networks, and State-Building in Republican Shanghai

Nara Dillon and Jean C. Oi

in At the Crossroads of Empires: Middlemen, Social Networks, and State-Building in Republican Shanghai

This chapter, which provides a discussion on middlemen, social networks, and state-building in Shanghai of the Republican period, focuses on three middlemen: activist Huang Yanpei, comprador Wang ... More

This chapter, which provides a discussion on middlemen, social networks, and state-building in Shanghai of the Republican period, focuses on three middlemen: activist Huang Yanpei, comprador Wang Yiting, and gangster Du Yuesheng. The differences in the nature of military power and the role of the masses in politics had led in a clearly different pattern of development in Shanghai that shows both the vulnerabilities and the interdependence of city and state in the modern world. It is noted that the three middlemen played prominent roles in Shanghai's political and social circles, emerging again and again as key players at critical points in the city's history. They also helped foster a distinctive hybrid urban elite culture that created commonality where none existed before. An overview of the chapters included in this book is also given.Less

The Colonial Compass

Gurucharan Gollerkeri and Natasha Chhabra

in Migration Matters: Mobility in a Globalizing World

The Emigration Act of 1983 that constitutes the regulatory framework extant in India today is dated and has several shortcomings—intrinsic and instrumental. The intrinsic flaws stem from its emphasis ... More

The Emigration Act of 1983 that constitutes the regulatory framework extant in India today is dated and has several shortcomings—intrinsic and instrumental. The intrinsic flaws stem from its emphasis on exit control, the arcane institution of the Protector General of Emigrants, and the institutional constraint it faces. The instrumental flaws include the absence of policy coherence: horizontal and vertical, the top-heavy, excessively centralized regulatory framework which leaves little space for the governments at the sub-national level to intervene, an inadequate institutional apparatus to design and execute policy or make interventions on a real time basis, an inability to mobilize non-state actors who are important stakeholders in migration—civil society, migrant networks, and non-government organizations that are more proximate to the community. The scarcity in India’s migration praxis is not of resources, nor even of virtue, but of understanding.Less

Trading with Kidnappers

Anja Shortland

in Kidnap: Inside the Ransom Business

Once a price is agreed, kidnappers tend to demand payment in unmarked, small-denomination notes. How do people deliver the cash to the right addressee without putting themselves at risk? How do ... More

Once a price is agreed, kidnappers tend to demand payment in unmarked, small-denomination notes. How do people deliver the cash to the right addressee without putting themselves at risk? How do kidnappers collect it without being apprehended? And why would they release a potential future witness after getting the ransom? This chapter analyses how these tricky logistical, contracting, and enforcement problems are resolved in practice. Different solutions are appropriate in different local contexts and price segments. We observe a vibrant market for (cost-)effective solutions to trade problems and intense evolutionary competition between providers. Market concentration and excellent information flow ensure great financial rewards for successful innovators.Less

The Red–Black Collusion

Peng Wang

in The Chinese Mafia: Organized Crime, Corruption, and Extra-Legal Protection

Chapter 6 focuses on the red–black collusion between police officers and local gangsters. It offers a detailed description of Chongqing’s anti-crime and anti-corruption campaign. Analysis of this ... More

Chapter 6 focuses on the red–black collusion between police officers and local gangsters. It offers a detailed description of Chongqing’s anti-crime and anti-corruption campaign. Analysis of this campaign enables the author to investigate why organized crime groups need police protection, how gangsters employ guanxi networks to purchase extra-legal protection from corrupt officials, and what kinds of services officials provide. This chapter suggests that key norms of guanxi—including reciprocity, mianzi (face), renqing (favour or obligation), and ganqing (affection or sentiment)—encourage profit-seeking government officials to conduct corrupt transactions with their guanxi members. In many circumstances, guanxi norms even force honest public officials to break the rule of law and supply unlawful benefits to those close to them in the guanxi network, because a violation of guanxi norms will cause serious negative repercussions on the reputation of the violator.Less

Avoiding the Middleman

Susan V. Spellman

in Cornering the Market: Independent Grocers and Innovation in American Small Business

This chapter contends that the turn-of-the-twentieth-century grocery trade’s seemingly outmoded distribution chain was at the time the most efficient method for moving goods. It was, by standards ... More

This chapter contends that the turn-of-the-twentieth-century grocery trade’s seemingly outmoded distribution chain was at the time the most efficient method for moving goods. It was, by standards most often evoked by historians and economists, antiquated, expensive, and wasteful; but it proved resilient in light of challenges from retail buying syndicates, department stores’ mail-order catalogs, and antitrust legislation. To protect their interests and battle against growing competition, wholesale grocers banded together, forming cooperative organizations such as the Boston Wholesale Grocers’ Association and Southern Wholesale Grocers’ Association, establishing collusive agreements with manufacturers and fixing prices. Their efforts faced criticism from retail grocers, who in turn organized buying syndicates, groups that proposed to eliminate wholesalers from the trade. Redrawing the boundaries of distribution, wholesale and retail grocers pointed toward methods that ultimately defined the modern grocery trade.Less

The Innovation Paradox

Jeremias Prassl

in Humans as a Service: The Promise and Perils of Work in the Gig Economy

This chapter turns to the innovation narrative. It argues that, as far as work is concerned, gig-economy innovation is a myth. The software and hardware on which apps and platforms draw are often the ... More

This chapter turns to the innovation narrative. It argues that, as far as work is concerned, gig-economy innovation is a myth. The software and hardware on which apps and platforms draw are often the direct result of truly revolutionary innovation and breakthroughs, from GPS locators and the Internet to powerful processors that fit into the palm of your hand. This is the innovation paradox: contrary to the industry’s claims, the underlying business model is anything but novel, as illustrations ranging from nineteenth-century homework in the ‘sweated trades’ to dock labour in the early twentieth century demonstrate. The gig economy is but the latest (and perhaps the most extreme) example of labour market practices that have been around for centuries, with low-skilled tasks instead of complex jobs, powerful intermediaries controlling large workforces, and hybrid arrangements between open market and closed hierarchies replacing the traditional binary contract of employment.Less