Editor Reviews:

Book Description:
From the time of Booker T. Washington to today, and William Julius Wilson, the advice dispensed to young black men has invariably been, "Get a trade." Deirdre Royster has put this folk wisdom to an empirical test--and, in Race and the Invisible Hand, exposes the subtleties and discrepancies of a workplace that favors the white job-seeker over the black. At the heart of this study is the question: Is there something about young black men that makes them less desirable as workers than their white peers? And if not, then why do black men trail white men in earnings and employment rates? Royster seeks an answer in the experiences of 25 black and 25 white men who graduated from the same vocational school and sought jobs in the same blue-collar labor market in the early 1990s. After seriously examining the educational performances, work ethics, and values of the black men for unique deficiencies, her study reveals the greatest difference between young black and white men--access to the kinds of contacts that really help in the job search and entry process.

Rating : - DISCRIMINATION OR ECONOMICS ?
This is an interesting but flawed study. The author wishes to prove that informal social networks among Whites give them an advantage over Blacks who lack those networks in securing blue-collar jobs. This seems to be a common sense observation and I have no doubt that it is true. However to buttress this theory, the author utilizes interviews of only 38 students from ONE trade school in Baltimore. How this can be extrapolated for the entire country is beyond me. The time period for this study in Baltimore also occurred during a period of economic downturn.

The author also has a particular axe to grind. Her "study" is merely a polemical cheer for affirmative action. Rather than address the structural restraints on the economy such as regulations and taxes, she proposes instead programs that would restrain the effectiveness of informal networks and opts for an affirmative action program of coerced mandates and governmental control. This can only result in conditions going from bad to worse.