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The Tipping Point

How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference

by Malcolm Gladwell

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Looks at why major changes in our society so often happen suddenly and unexpectedly.

Why did crime in New York drop so suddenly in the mid-90s? How does an unknown novelist end up a bestselling author? Why is teenage smoking out of control, when everyone knows smoking kills? What makes TV shows like Sesame Street so good at teaching kids how to read? Why did Paul Revere succeed with his famous warning? In this brilliant and groundbreaking book, New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell looks at why major changes in our society so often happen suddenly and unexpectedly. Ideas, behavior, messages, and products, he argues, often spread like outbreaks of infectious disease. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a few fare-beaters and graffiti artists fuel a subway crime wave, or a satisfied customer fill the empty tables of a new restaurant. These are social epidemics, and the moment when they take off, when they reach their critical mass, is the Tipping Point. In The Tipping Point, Gladwell introduces us to the particular personality types who are natural pollinators of new ideas and trends, the people who create the phenomenon of word of mouth. He analyzes fashion trends, smoking, children's television, direct mail and the early days of the American Revolution for clues about making ideas infectious, and visits a religious commune, a successful high-tech company, and one of the world's greatest salesmen to show how to start and sustain social epidemics. The Tipping Point is an intellectual adventure story written with an infectious enthusiasm for the power and joy of new ideas. Most of all, it is a road map to change, with a profoundly hopeful message--that one imaginative person applying a well-placed lever can move the world.

Chapter One The Three Rules of Epidemics

In the mid-1990s, the city of Baltimore was attacked by an epidemic of syphilis. In the space of a year, from 1995 to 1996, the number of children born with the disease increased by 500 percent. If you look at Baltimore's syphilis rates on a graph, the line runs straight for years and then, when it hits 1995, rises almost at a right angle. What caused Baltimore's syphilis problem to tip? According to the Centers for Disease Control, the problem was crack cocaine. Crack is known to cause a dramatic increase in the kind of risky sexual behavior that leads to the spread of things like HIV and syphilis. It brings far more people into poor areas to buy drugs, which then increases the likelihood that they will take an infection home with them to their own neighborhood. It changes the patterns of social connections between neighborhoods. Crack, the CDC said, was the little push that the syphilis problem needed to turn into a raging epidemic. ...

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Review and Summary: The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

Posted by Bella Ratmelia | Apr 9, 2019 | Reads of the month | 0

The Tipping Point was published in 2000, and it was well-received; more than 1.5 million copies were sold by 2006, six years after publication. Now, I’m 19 years late to the party as I’ve only read this book just last month but nevertheless, after reading this book, I felt that the key ideas and concepts outlined by Gladwell are still worth knowing and perhaps somewhat applicable today. In our current era where information can be spread at astronomical rates, as creators and consumers of information, Gladwell’s book certainly provides interesting food for thought. 

The premise of the book is essentially this: why do some ideas spread quickly among people while others do not? What are the factors that influence the spread? Gladwell structured the book neatly into 3 major chapters (the rest of the chapters are just introduction, case studies, and conclusion), each chapter representing what Gladwell called the three major rules of the tipping point. Here, he defined the “Tipping Point” as the “the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point”.

So what are the three rules?

Rule #1: The law of the few

The first rule addresses the messenger. The “few” here refers to three types of people who possess a special quality that enables them to spread an idea like wildfire. They are the connectors , the mavens and the salesmen .

• Connectors are people with a large network of acquaintances and friends. Characterized by Gladwell as “people with a special gift for bringing the world together”. These are the people who understand the strength of “weak ties” (read more about this concept in this paper ) and thrives from making social connections with various people.
• Mavens are “information brokers, sharing and trading what they know”. These are the people that most of us will rely on to get new information. Maven accumulates (rather intensively) specialized market knowledge and, unlike normal experts, they will eagerly share their wisdom with others.
• Salesmen are the charming and persuasive negotiator. These are the people whom Gladwell characterized as “very good at expressing emotions and feelings” and therefore “far more emotionally contagious than the rest of us”. Gladwell also cites several studies to further explain the characteristic of salesmen, one of them is by Howard Friedman, a psychologist at the University of California at Riverside, who has developed what he calls the Affective Communication Test to measure the ability to be emotionally contagious.

So, the role of each type can be described as such: The mavens provide the message, the connectors spread it, and the salesmen persuade those unconvinced by the message.

The Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen are responsible for starting word-of-mouth epidemics, which means that if you are interested in starting a word-of-mouth epidemic, your resources ought to be solely concentrated on those three groups. No one else matters.

Rule #2: The stickiness factor

The second rule addresses the message itself. To create a word-of-mouth epidemic, the message has to be ‘sticky’; it has to be memorable and spur people into action. How do you make it sticky? One way to do it is to know your target audience and find out what will make your message memorable for them. Gladwell gives an example in Sesame Street and Blue’s Clues case study about creating educational children programme. Some of the insights gained from those case studies show that unlike adults, children look away from the TV when they’re confused and continue to watch when they understand what’s going on. Repetition is likely to turn away the adults, but children love it as it helps to enforce what they’re learning. Clearly, the two target audience need to be approached differently.

There is a simple way to package information that, under the right circumstances, can make it irresistible. All you have to do is find it.

Rule #3: The power of context

The third rule addresses the environment and context surrounding the message and the messengers. Gladwell explained that people are highly sensitive to changes in context, however tiny. Small physical changes in the environment can tip an epidemic, just like graffiti and broken windows can tip the crime epidemic as outlined in the 80’s NYC high crime rate case study. Gladwell then cites the Stanford Prison experiment to further demonstrate how the changes in the environment affect human behavior. He also uses several theories such as the  broken windows theory , peer pressure , and diffusion of innovation theory to provide more insight on this third rule. The key point that can be gathered from this rule is this: to tip an epidemic, sometimes all you need to do is make that one small change.

Human beings are a lot more sensitive to their environment than they may seem.

The part that makes this book rather compelling to me is Gladwell’s use of many examples to explain his argument. In fact, he dedicated two chapters for case studies alone. All in all, I would shelve this book as a fun, easy, and leisurely read that provides adequate food for thought. There are about 304 pages on this book, and that’s counting the pages for acknowledgments, references, etc. It should take you about 3-5 hours to finish the book, depending on your reading speed.

What must underlie successful epidemics, in the end, is a bedrock belief that change is possible, that people can radically transform their behavior or beliefs in the face of the right kind of impetus.

About The Author

Bella Ratmelia

Bella is the advisory & consultation (A&C) librarian for the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. She has a Bachelor degree in Information Technology and a Masters in Information Studies. She enjoys playing video games, reading detective fiction (or anything else that strikes her fancy), and learning new stuff and skills just for the fun of it!

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Book Review – The Tipping Point

Malcolm Gladwell needs a haircut. This was one of the first things I noticed about The Tipping Point : the photo of Gladwell and his Yancey-like hair. It’s hard to take a guy with hair like that too seriously, but I’m glad that I did, as The Tipping Point is a fascinating book. The Tipping Point is a phrase used to describe that “magic moment when an idea, trend or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire.” While this book studies particular trends and fads, it is primarily a study of human behavior and what it is in people that makes them accept and champion particular causes or products. My interest in this book was twofold: I had a personal interest as the book had been recommended to me and I had seen it many times on the bestseller shelf. I was also interested in seeing how many of Gladwell’s ideas were similar to or the same as what is advocated by Church Growth experts.

Gladwell draws liberally from the concept of epidemics and viral marketing, showing that in many ways ideas spread like epidemics: they are contagious; little causes can have big effects; and change happens not gradually but at one dramatic moment. These principles are as accurate a description of the way measles moves through a grade-school classroom as they are of the way that Hush Puppies became a fashion phenomenon. The book is structured around three rules of epidemics, each of which receives a lengthy treatment in this 280-page book.

The first principle is The Law of the Few which states, quite simply, that “the success of any kind of social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gifts.” These three types of people he calls Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen. Connectors are those people with an extraordinary ability to make friends and acquaintances. These persons, heavily connected to others through social contact, stand as the connection between diverse groups of people. Much of their value lies in the fact that they do not only know a large number of people, but that they know many different types of people. The closer an idea comes to a Connector, or even to multiple Connectors, the more power and opportunity it has, and in turn the greater the chance that this idea will tip. Mavens are, quite simply, people who accumulate knowledge and are also known as “price vigilantes” or “market mavens.” These people are obsessed with knowing and understanding a particular product or market. They do not only accumulate knowledge about getting deals, but are also driven to help others get a deal. “To be a Maven is to be a teacher. But it is also, even more emphatically, to be a student. Mavens are really information brokers, sharing and trading what they know.” The final group are the Salesmen, who have “the skills to persuade us when we are unconvinced of what we are hearing, and they are as critical to the tipping of word-of-mouth epidemics as the other two groups.” If you put your mind to it, you will probably be able to think of examples in your own experience that would include each of these three divisions. The Law of the Few, then, says that there are exceptional people out there who are capable of beginning epidemics, if only they can be found.

The second principle is The Stickness Factor. In a fascinating chapter that compares and contrasts Sesame Street with Blue’s Clues , Gladwell attempts to explain why some ideas stick and others do not. He ultimately concludes that “there is a simple way to package information that, under the right circumstances, can make it irresistable. All you have to do is find it.” It seems that the line between acceptance and hostility towards a particular product or trend is often very narrow. In other words, an idea that catches on may only be moderately different than one that does not.

The third principle is The Power of Context. This rule is premised on the understanding that epidemics are sensitive to the conditions and circumstances of the times and places in which they occur. Once again, this is as true of a disease as it is of a cultural phenomenon. We are very sensitive to context, but the changes that are capable of tipping an epidemic are probably not what we might guess. Our external environment plays an exceedingly important role in how we behave and who we are. Very subtle changes can have a profound effect.

The book concludes with a pair of case studies and, in the paperback edition I read, an afterword from the author where he discusses the impact the book has had since its initial release several years ago.

I was not surprised to see that Church Growth has, in many ways, arrived at similar conclusions to The Tipping Point . One of Gladwell’s quotes particularly caught my attention: “There is a simple way to package information that, under the right circumstances, can make it irresistable. All you have to do is find it.” Now note the following quote by Church Growth superhero Rick Warren: “It is my deep conviction that anybody can be won to Christ if you discover the felt needs to his or her heart. That key to each person’s heart is unique so it is sometimes difficult to discover. It may take some time to identify it.” Church Growth, like the marketing efforts of the business world, is premised on the belief that a person can be manipulated to believe or accept anything if only the marketer finds the right button to push. Yet this concept is foreign to the Bible which teaches us that only those can believe in whom the Holy Spirit has begun a prior work. Church Growth ignores the spiritual dimension to conversion. It is simple enough to convince a person to attend a church and call himself a Christian. But no one can force the hand of God and it is ultimately only He who can change a heart.

In many ways, The Tipping Point could be a Church Growth textbook. Nothing Gladwell writes is founded upon Scriptural principles of course, but this just emphasizes that the same is true, by and large, of the Church Growth Movement. Interestingly enough, Gladwell has also noted the connection and has written an article dealing with none other than Rick Warren.

I found much within this book that challenged the way I look at the world. I was able to see just how predictible we are as human beings, for marketing can only work where people act in a particular way! I was fascinated by the concepts of Connector, Maven and Salesmen and wonder what lesson, if any, the church can learn from this these extraordinary people. And I learned a lot about the power and importance of groups. Many of the changes that lead an epidemic to tip are based on groups, as groups play a crucial role in social epidemics. But, Gladwell teaches, groups can only rise to a certain level before they begin to lose effectiveness. It seems to be a global truth that groups begin to lose their power when they rise above 150 members. Anyone who has been in a church should be able to relate that a change came to the body as it grew above this number. If this is hardwired human behavior (one Gladwell attributes to evolution but which, if true, Christians would see as being placed in us by God), there may be a lesson that we can learn from this.

The Tipping Point was fascinating from cover-to-cover. It makes sense of some phenomena that really seem to make very little sense (after all, Hush Puppies are not the most attractive or practical shoes in the world!). It makes complex theories clear and shows just how simple it is to make human beings do things that may surprise even them.

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The free online psychology textbook, book review: the tipping point by malcolm gladwell.

June 25, 2020 Daniel Edward Blog , Books , PsyZine 0

Though it’s been 20 years since The Tipping Point was first published, it’s still a great read – relevant and topical.

Malcolm Gladwell is a fantastic writer, and if this is the first of his books that you read I’m sure that you’ll be heading back to the bookshop to buy more of his work as soon as you’ve finished reading this one.

His style is fairly conversational. He’s not a scientist, he’s a journalist, and therefore through his years of interviewing people and writing features, Gladwell has perfected the art of storytelling.

His books are packed full of interesting research studies, fascinating people and engaging anecdotes.

More by Malcolm Gladwell

Talking to Strangers

Malcolm Galdwell’s latest book came out a couple of months ago. It challenges our assumptions about other people, and is even more topical than Gladwell could have predicted when it hit the shelves in April.

Outliers: The Story of Success

Maybe Gladwell’s most famous book. This book tackles the question of how some people succeed way beyond the achievements of the average person.

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

This is a book about instincts and intuition. Gladwell uses his flair for storytelling to argue that there are ways to hone and develop our instinctive thoughts, to enhance our relationships and professional lives.

David and Goliath

A feel-good book on a classic theme. Taking on giants. Again, Gladwell’s storytelling prowess comes to the fore in this book. A very enjoyable read.

Case studies – liberally used throughout the book – whilst not current, don’t seem outdated. And an additional endnote, penned in 2013, provides additional case studies.

Gladwell’s overarching argument is that there are clear conditions required to “tip” a phenomenon into an epidemic – though what the specifics of each case are (or are not) will not always be revealed until afterwards.

This seems especially relevant to the world in 2020.

Gladwell details the dramatic reduction of violent crime in New York City as a consequence of thoroghly cleaning the Subway system. Social psychologists predicted that these seemingly unconnected factors were linked – and they were proved correct.

On the other hand, a case study that Gladwell often refers to regards the shoe known as a Hush Puppy. The Tipping Point for the adoption of this shoe into mainstream fashion came from an unpredicable – or rather, un-organised – transition.

The shoes were unpopular. However, a small subculture accepted the design. This was then picked up by some fashion photographers and designers, and suddenly – boom! – the shoes “tipped” and anyone who was anyone wanted a pair too.

All because of a small group of “trendsetters” who only bought the shoes because they weren’t part of mainstream culture!

The Tippping Point is divided into eight chapters, followed by a 2013 addendum.

Gladwell suggests that there are three “rules” of the tipping point:

• The law of the few
• The stickiness factor
• The power of context

These three, albeit poeticised, “rules” are expertly presented, such that the reader is left with little doubt of Gladwell’s accuracy in their importance.

The law of the few focuses attention on three very special types of individual, all who play key roles in “tipping” ideas and products.

“Connectors”, as their title suggests know everyone and have a strong network of people around them. If you’ve heard of the six degrees of separation, for these people it’s more like three degrees.

“Mavens”, the second of Gladwell’s select “few”, collect information rather than people. Whilst they may have a smaller social network than connectors, they are the go to person for knowledge in their area. These people have a lot of influence as an “expert”.

The third type of person Gladwell says is required to “tip” an epidemic is the “Salesman”. These are the people within society who help you realise why you need to invest in their idea.

Connectors know lots of people. Mavens know lots of facts. And Salesmen know how to make you feel the same way as they do about something.

Chapter three considers the message iself. The stickiness of a message is critical to ensuring its success.

Gladwell uses examples from children’s television to highlight why some shows succeed and others don’t. He says the successful shows are “sticky”.

Though I think a more scientific approach could aid in the presentation of this idea, the case studies Gladwell presents do go some way to tackiling the complex notion of something gripping an individual to such an extent that they might be conisdered stuck or glued to it.

The two chapters on context are hugely important and provide a strong nod to the powerful role of social factors in the transmission and acceptance of ideas.

Chapter four looks specifically at the local environment as a physical social context. And chapter five delves deeper to tackle the question of what a social group is – how large, and what role does it play?

The two chapters dedicated to case studies are fascinating. This is Gladwell’s USP. His storytelling ability is really on display here.

Gladwell offers case studies from a wide spread of backgrounds and disciplines: physical case studies, behavioural case studies, American, British, and even Micronesian case studies. There is very much a sense of universality in Gladwell’s argument.

If there is any weak moment of this book, it’s Gladwell’s conclusion. This chapter is rather unmemorable, though perhaps this should be seen as a sign of the strength of the rest of the book rather than a weakness of this particular chapter.

The afterword stands out as a public dialogue between Gladwell and some readers who have engaged with his ideas since The Tipping Point was first published.

New case studies – provided by readers – and even a tipping point grant fund are quoted by Gladwell as he openly discusses the impact and legacy of his book.

This reflection adds authenticity to Gladwell’s argument and his reason for writing the book to begin with.

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The Tipping Point

Malcolm gladwell, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

At various points in modern history, ideas, products, messages, and other behaviors have suddenly and unexpectedly become very popular. Certain clothes become fashionable, crime rates go down at an unprecedented rate, and religions find millions of new worshippers. This phenomenon is called a social epidemic. Intuitively, most people would like to think that social epidemics happen slowly and gradually. But in fact, many changes in society are so sudden that they almost seem to happen overnight. The moment at which a social epidemic goes from invisible to seemingly ubiquitous is called a “Tipping Point.” The book seeks to understand how social epidemics happen, and whether it’s possible to start and control them.

There are three ways to understand social epidemics: in terms of the people who cause them; in terms of the content of the epidemic (i.e., the product, message, idea, or behavior being spread); and in terms of the environment or context in which the epidemic takes place. Each way of understanding a social epidemic corresponds to a different rule or law of epidemics.

The first law of social epidemics is the Law of the Few. In all social epidemics, a small handful of people wield a disproportionate amount of power. All people are connected to other people through family, friendship, work, hobbies, etc. But some people have more connections than other people—these people are called “Connectors.” Connectors have so many friends and acquaintances that when they hear an important piece of information, they’re likely to spread that information to many other people. Another kind of person who’s important to social epidemics is a “Maven.” Mavens are important because they love to accumulate knowledge. When there’s an exciting new product, a Maven will tell other people about the product, explaining why it’s such a good bargain. If the Maven tells a Connector about his discovery, then news of the product will reach many people, helping the product to become a major trend. The third kind of person who’s important to social epidemics is the Salesman. Salesmen are adept at persuading people to change their behavior. If a Salesman becomes aware of a new trend, then he will be likely to persuade many of his friends to “get in on” the trend. So when news of a trend passes from Mavens to Connectors to Salesmen, the trend will influence the behavior of many people, allowing the trend to reach its Tipping Point.

The second law of social epidemics is the concept of “stickiness.” People are important in disseminating information and spreading word about trends, but that’s not enough. The idea, product, or message being spread must be at least somewhat intriguing, memorable, or addictive—in a word, “sticky.” Advertising agencies often spend millions of dollars to identify what is and isn’t “sticky” for consumers. One of the best examples of stickiness is the TV show Sesame Street . The show’s producers devoted an unprecedented amount of research to determining what attracts young children’s attention. The producers tried to teach children about reading and math by first interesting them. Researchers for Sesame Street found that children enjoyed TV shows that blended “fantasy and reality,” hence famous characters like Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch. Later on, children’s shows like Blue’s Clues improved on Sesame Street research by showing that children like shows with strong narrative and lots of repetition. Sesame Street and Blue’s Clues have not only been very popular, but also educated millions of children about reading and counting—demonstrating how “stickiness” can be of great help to TV watchers.

The final rule for understanding epidemics is the principle of context. Intuitively, people believe that human beings behave a certain way because of their innate talents, personalities, or inclinations. But in reality, real-world human behavior is more often dictated by context—in other words, the physical environment in which humans live and move. A good example of the importance of context and environment in shaping human behavior is the Broken Window Hypothesis—the idea that cities can cut down in serious crime by preventing minor crimes like graffiti and public urination. Gladwell argues that the Broken Window Hypothesis proved to be successful in New York City in the 1980s and 90s: officials focused on fighting seemingly minor crimes, thereby making the overall environment, or “context,” of the city safer. The people of New York City had the same personalities and abilities before and after officials enacted the Broken Window Hypothesis, but they were less likely to commit serious crimes, because their city’s environment did not encourage these crimes.

Another important example of the importance of context is group size. Scientists have determined that groups of more than 150 people tend to be less cooperative and close than groups of 150 people or less—even an increase from 145 people to 185 people has big implications for the cooperativeness of the group. Businesses like Gore Associates have been successful in part because they keep their office sizes capped at 150 people. As a result, Gore employees know one another well, cooperate, and feel comfortable specializing in specific areas of the company.

There are many potential applications of the three laws of social epidemics. One potential application is marketing and advertising. In the 1990s, a shoe called Airwalk became very popular among young, “hip” people. Airwalk was successful in large part because it was able to stay informed about new trends and popular ideas, and then incorporate these ideas into its commercials and ads. In other words, Airwalk was able to reach a large number of Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen, who were inspired by the “stickiness” of Airwalk, and spread news of the product to their friends.

Another potential application of the discussion of social epidemics is the trend of teen smoking in the United States, which bears a lot of resemblance to the teen suicide epidemic in Micronesia. Even if a behavior like teenage suicide or smoking doesn’t seem at all healthy or desirable, it can be both sticky and contagious. Studies suggest that many of the teenagers who began smoking were originally inspired by “cool” people who also smoked. In other words, the teenage smoking epidemic is partly the result of powerful Salesmen who persuade teenagers to smoke. Also, smoking is a sticky behavior in itself because it’s chemically addictive. The question becomes, then, if the government wants to reduce teen smoking, should it try to reduce the stickiness of smoking or try to change Salesmen to persuade teenagers not to smoke? Gladwell argues that it would be highly difficult to change the power of Salesmen, since adults’ attempts to persuade teenagers not to smoke often serve to make smoking seem “forbidden” and therefore more desirable. Gladwell suggests that instead, officials should try to make smoking itself less addictive, either by mandating that tobacco companies reduce the amount of nicotine in their cigarettes or perhaps by trying to treat depression, which often acts as a chemical trigger for teenagers to become addicted to nicotine.

The book concludes that the world is not immoveable. In fact, the world is constantly “tipping” in different directions, because of the laws of social epidemics.

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The Tipping Point Summary and Review | Malcolm Gladwell

posted on April 8, 2021

How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

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The Tipping Point considers why certain products, diseases, or ideas become viral. Each epidemic shares a few common features that are enough to kickstart a significant rise in sales, diagnoses, or conversations. Malcolm Gladwell considers the importance of context and the finer details in our environments. Plus, he provides an outline of the types of people who are integral to spreading an epidemic. Therefore, Malcolm provides building blocks for business people who want to make their product, service, or idea viral. The key is to find your idea’s tipping point and implement it consistently. 

About Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell is a British-born Canadian author of five New York Times bestsellers: The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, What the Dog Saw, and David and Goliath. He started his writing career working for conservative publications. Then, he became a staff writer at The New Yorker in 1996. Gladwell gained popularity with two particular New Yorker articles that year, ‘The Tipping Point’ and ‘The Coolhunt.’ These two articles formed the basis for this book, The Tipping Point. Malcolm has been working at The New Yorker ever since. Malcolm is the co-founder of Pushkin Industries, an audio content company that produces Malcolm’s podcasts Revisionist History and Broken Record. Revisionist History reconsiders overlooked and misunderstood events from the past. Broken Record is a music podcast where Malcolm, Rick Rubin, and Bruce Headlam interview musicians from various genres. Gladwell has been included in the Time 100 Most Influential People list and was appointed to the Order of Canada on 30th June 2011. 

“The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire.” – Malcolm Gladwell

On Epidemics

Malcolm Gladwell describes a tipping point as a moment when a trend turns into an epidemic. Subsequently, this trend spreads like wildfire. Malcolm provides an example of the flu. The flu generally starts by spreading slowly through a population, then day-by-day, the number of daily transmissions increases. This transmission rate continues to increase until it reaches a tipping point where the epidemic spins out of control. Although written in 2000, this analogy applies perfectly to the Coronavirus pandemic. You can imagine the Coronavirus curve of growth. Initially, there would have been a gradual increase. Then, once the tipping point has been passed, the curve juts up immediately. 

Malcolm also explained how this effect could also be seen with the spread of technological innovations. In 1984, Sharp made the first affordable fax machine. At that point, the machine only sold about 80,000 in the first year. This number slowly rose over the next couple of years until sales skyrocketed in 1987. The tipping point had been met.

Tipping points are a time when a fundamental change takes place. Regarding the fax machine, its tipping point was so many people owning a fax machine that it pushed everybody to get one.

A Few People Are Enough to Ignite an Epidemic

“There are exceptional people out there who are capable of starting epidemics. All you have to do is find them.” – Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm outlines the importance of the 80-20 Rule. This rule is a sociological phenomenon that suggests that 20 percent of a group tends to influence 80 percent of the outcome. Here are some examples that Malcolm provides in the book:

• 20 percent of employees carry out 80 percent of the work
• 20 percent of criminals commit 80 percent of the crimes
• 20 percent of drivers cause 80 percent of all accidents
• 20 percent of beer drinkers drink 80 percent of the beer

In contrast, Malcolm explains that virus epidemics only require a few key people to spark an epidemic. A small percentage of infected people do most of the work in spreading the disease. Malcolm provides an example of an American flight attendant who had sex with more than 2,500 people in North America. This flight attendant had contracted AIDs, so was a superspreader that sparked the AIDs epidemic.

Connectors Instigate the Rapid Spread of Ideas

Malcolm describes Connectors as people with a vast social network. This vast social network allows Connectors to spread ideas to a vast amount of people in a short period. Importantly, Connectors are often well-connected in many different areas. Connectors know how to effectively communicate with lots of different people and enjoy the process of doing so. Connectors have several ‘weak ties’ at their disposal. The weak ties are often acquaintances from different walks of life. Malcolm explains that having several weak ties is far more valuable, in terms of spreading ideas, than a few very close ties with friends. If a virus only spreads within a closed circle, then an epidemic cannot occur. This is the same for social and viral epidemics. 

Malcolm reminds readers of the social experiment from the 1960s. Scientists found out that every person in the world is connected to everyone else through just a few people. Importantly, though, these connections won’t necessarily be distributed equally. Epidemics often rely on small groups of Connectors. Hence, if you are aiming to spread an idea by word of mouth, you should be focusing on connectors. In doing so, you can potentially spark a social epidemic. 

Some People are Natural Salesmen

Some people are born salesmen. These people are optimists who have an abundance of energy and enthusiasm. These qualities help them persuade others of new ideas. However, their greatest strength is their outstanding non-verbal communication. This non-verbal communication creates a rhythm in the conversation that establishes a sense of trust and intimacy. Salesmen know how to synchronize themselves with others.

Malcolm also explains that salesmen express their emotions so clearly that they are contagious. Others are easily able to empathize with salesmen to the extent that they change their behavior. Based on this, salesmen are in a strong position to influence people and spread ideas. 

Mavens Obtain Information and Pass It On

Mavens also have a significant part to play in the spreading of social epidemics. Mavens are knowledgeable about multiple topics. Therefore, they are always gaining new information and making links between this information and their knowledge. However, the most common information these people obtain is related to trends or specific products. 

Mavens combine this ability to obtain information with advanced social skills. These social skills allow Mavens to pass their information on to others efficiently. Although mavens do not have vast social networks, they significantly influence those within that network. Mavens are trusted by those around them as they are individuals with insider knowledge. Therefore, their friends and family follow their recommendations. Generally, Mavens are willing to recommend any product or service they are confident about.

Not All Ideas Will Spread

Ideas have to spark interest before they are spread. Therefore, Malcolm explains that an idea needs to include something special or catchy. Your idea will need to stand out from mundane daily information. Even the smallest detail can make a big difference in how likely it is that the idea will stick.

Malcolm provides an example of a cigarette brand, Winston, who advertised their new filter cigarettes in 1954 with the slogan, “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should.” They deliberately incorporated a grammatical error by using “like” instead of “as.” Subsequently, there was a small sensation surrounding this slogan. The message stuck, and Winston became the most popular cigarette brand in the US.

Another example of small details making all the difference was Sesame Street. Unlike other shows, Sesame Street decided to bring the fictional characters, the Muppets, into the scenes where the real actors were being filmed. Children had become bored with shows that separated the fictional characters from the real actors. This small change made Sesame Street one of the most popular children shows of all time. Sesame Street’s co-founder, Joan Cooney, also used other tools to make the passive medium of television more interactive for children. He looked to Blue’s Clues for inspiration. Blue’s Clues did not have the same creativity or imagination as Sesame Street, but it was far more popular in the 1990s. Sesame Street lacked the repetition and an easy-to-follow story that Blue’s Clues incorporated into all of its episodes. Researchers have suggested that children prefer to watch things that incorporate a narrative and predictability. Subsequently, Joan Cooney encouraged the inclusion of a repeated gold box treasure hunt. On the back of these changes, Sesame Street obtained record-breaking viewing figures. 

External Circumstances Have a Significant Influence on Our Behaviors

“That is the paradox of the epidemic: that in order to create one contagious movement, you often have to create many small movements first.” – Malcolm Gladwell

Our behavior is dependent on external circumstances, as well as our inner nature. Therefore, small changes in our environment can have a significant impact on our behaviors. 

Malcolm provided an example study where small changes in the participants’ environment impacted on their behaviors. In the study, students had to give a talk in a lecture hall. Half of the students were told that there was no rush to get there, while the others said they must avoid being late. Both groups encountered a collapsed man en route to the lecture hall. In the first group, 63% of students stopped to help, while only 10% stopped when they were warned about being late. 

Another example of the environment impacting on human behavior is the Stanford Prison Experiment. In this experiment, 24 healthy males spent two weeks in a mock prison. Each individual was assigned a specific role to play: guard or prisoner. However, the results were astounding. The guards exploited their power by abusing the prisoners physically and emotionally. As the days passed, the guards became increasingly cruel and aggressive. Many of the prisoners suffered from emotional breakdowns based on torture. The experiment was canceled after six days due to the unethical practices that the psychologists were observing. In this instance, despite the artificial roles, the environment and roles led to participants behaving entirely out of character. The experiment’s lead psychologist, Philip Zimbardo, concluded that intense situations could lead to intense behaviors. 

Context Influences the Chance of an Epidemic

Context often decides whether an epidemic kicks off or not. Malcolm provides an example of New York City in the mid-1990s. Crime had become a public talking point in New York of the 1980s. A white man, Bernhard Goetz, shot four black youths on a New York City subway in 1984. The media described this event as the height of the city’s crime epidemic. After this event, Bernhard was a divisive figure. Some viewed him as a criminal but most praised him for stopping what some believed to be a potential mugging. Either way, crime was increasing at a worrying rate during this time.

The police looked at the bigger picture and aimed to consider the context of the increase in crimes. The police believed that graffiti on subways and people avoiding paying subway fares were the cause. They argued that letting people get away with these crimes led to people becoming more confident that they could get away with serious crimes. The authorities reacted to these thoughts by removing graffiti and making fare evasion a punishable crime. Although this might have seemed a trivial connection, this zero-tolerance approach had a significant impact. The crime rate dropped rapidly in the following years. Malcolm explains that the potential epidemic of crime was reversed due to small interventions that considered the context of the epidemic. A criminal’s environment can determine their mindset and behavior, and these changes altered the environment of criminals for the better. Malcolm describes humans as being “exquisitely sensitive” to changes in circumstances. He also applied this sensitivity to epidemics. 

Another contextual factor that impacts epidemics’ success rate, specifically social epidemics, is a group’s size. Malcolm describes the rule of 150, which suggests you should establish groups no larger than 150 if you want to create a social epidemic. The rule of 150 suggests that an epidemic dynamic can only develop beyond the group if the group is intimate enough. Therefore, Malcolm suggests that clubs, communities, companies, and schools are kept relatively small. 

Airwalk Utilized the Three Fundamentals of Epidemics

One company that has utilized all three fundamentals of epidemics to achieve success is Airwalk. In essence, Airwalk utilized a social epidemic to turn itself from a skateboarding niche product to a wildly popular commercial brand. 

Firstly, Airkwalk based its branding on the principles of epidemic transmission. Specifically, with a new product, adventurous innovators are those that will first adopt a new trend. Following from these innovators, early adopters help spread the trend to a broader population. Innovators guide a trend from the early majority through to the later majority. The early majority is what Malcolm described as translators. They spread innovative ideas and products to a broad audience based on them having specific social circles and being renowned for having reputable information. 

After getting multiple early adopters on-board, companies like Airwalk use rumors or stories to spread the brand into everyday conversations. The sociologist Gordon Allport describes this as being a three-step process of distortion.

• The teller of the rumors omits specific details to increase interest and let others fill in the gaps
• The rumors are made more interesting when the remaining details are suddenly made more specific
• Then, these rumors are adopted into society when the population starts talking about the rumor in their everyday conversations

Airwalk aimed to take advantage of each of these tools. They wanted their ad campaign to reach the innovators within the younger generation. Their target audience was teenage connectors, mavens, and salesmen. These were the innovators who would help spread their brand’s message with enthusiasm and legitimacy. To find these innovators, Airwalk used a branding agency, Lambesis. Lambesis and a research expert, DeeDee Gording, identified and followed young innovators within major cities. Then, this branding agency learned about the subcultures that included trendsetters. Based on this research, Airwalk attempted to target these subcultures with their ad campaigns. Lambesis also utilized their new understanding of cultural concepts to make these subcultures mainstream. Specifically, they used the process of rumors, leveling, sharpening, and assimilating to help their brand fit their target audience. 

Planning For the Future

As well as considering how epidemics are encouraged and ways to solve some epidemics, there are still some unsolved epidemics that Malcolm considers in The Tipping Point. The specific problems that Malcolm chooses to focus on are:

• The epidemic of teenage smoking
• The epidemic of male teenage suicides in Micronesia

Suicide is generally contagious. For example, high-profile suicides can be tipping points that encourage an epidemic of suicide. Malcolm explains that the first suicide gives imitators license to copy the high-profile individual’s method of death. In this way, Malcolm describes suicide as “a private language between members of a common subculture.” In the same way, teenage smoking is a shared language. For example, many people associate smoking with sophistication based on a sophisticated smoker they remember from when they were younger. 

Malcolm calls this shared language the Law of the Few. Instead of the act of smoking being considered cool, a teenage culture sees the smokers as cool. Then, these behaviors can become an epidemic as smoking is addictive. Nicotine provides pleasure to smokers, which makes the habit ‘sticky.’ To tackle the teenage smoking epidemic, Malcolm suggests that we must find the Tipping Point in the epidemic. The most effective way of doing so is to address the habit’s contagion and stickiness separately. It is more difficult to tackle the contagious part of teenage smoking, as they are more influenced by their peer group than their home environment. The most effective approach would be to make small changes within teenagers’ environment to reduce their likelihood of smoking. However, Malcolm does not provide a conclusive solution to this problem. Instead, he provides two approaches to solving cigarettes’ stickiness:

• Smoking has strong associations with clinical depression. Therefore, if we can find a way to treat depression effectively, this could reduce the stickiness of cigarette smoking
• Through research, we can find the nicotine addiction threshold. This threshold would be the right amount of nicotine that an individual can have before developing an addiction. After finding this threshold, governments could enforce a reduction of nicotine levels. Subsequently, this could stop smoking from becoming a habit in the first place

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The Tipping Point

How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

Malcolm Gladwell | 4.19 | 1,199,892 ratings and reviews

Ranked #1 in Social Psychology , Ranked #1 in How Things Work — see more rankings .

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Reviews and Recommendations

We've comprehensively compiled reviews of The Tipping Point from the world's leading experts.

Ev Williams Co-Founder/Twitter, CEO/Medium Recommends this book

Kevin Rose Co-founder/Digg Bunch of really good information in here on how to make ideas go viral. This could be good to apply to any kind of products or ideas you may have. Definitely, check out The Tipping Point, which is one of my favorites. (Source)

Simon Sinek Author Recommends this book

Steve Blank Recommends this book

Seth Godin Author, Marketer, Entrepreneur Malcolm Gladwell's breakthrough insight was to focus on the micro-relationships between individuals, which helped organizations realize that it's not about the big ads and the huge charity balls... it's about setting the stage for the buzz to start. (Source)

Cat Williams-Treloar The books that I've talked the most about with friends and colleagues over the years are the Malcolm Gladwell series of novels. Glorious stories that mix science, behaviours and insight. You can't go wrong with the "The Tipping Point", "Outliers", "Blink" or "David & Goliath". (Source)

Bryan Choo Question: What five books would you recommend to young people interested in your career path & why? Answer: Anthony Robbins Unlimited Power Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers / The Tipping Point Stephen R. Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Simon Sinek's Start With Why Robert Cialdini's Influence: Science and Practice (Source)

Catrinel Hagivreta The Tipping Point – Malcom Gladwell – to understand better the expression “baby steps in the right direction is still moving forward”. (Source)

Armina Sirbu Blink and The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell - through them I learned what systemic thinking is and started to realize that every little thing will have an impact somewhere. (Source)

Rand Fishkin During my travels, I managed to wrap up Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point. It was a great read, and deserves the level of attention it's received. The theories behind the work are well fleshed out, compelling and supported by very good examples. (Source)

Sean Si Recommends this book

Burly Vinson eval(ez_write_tag([[250,250],'theceolibrary_com-large-mobile-banner-2','ezslot_5',164,'0','1'])); Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point really showed me how it’s not always about the big picture, but sometimes it’s the tiny details that make all the difference. People tend to think that if something isn’t working then big changes need to happen to see the results you want. But that’s not the case. A lot of the time, the only separation between success and failure is a slight tweak or pivot. (Source)

Scott Keyes Other than How To Win Friends And Influence People and Daily Rituals (for the reasons outlined above), I would recommend reading both Malcolm Gladwell’s collection, everything from Tipping Point to David & Goliath, and Michael Lewis’ as well, from Moneyball to The Blind Side. Irrespective of content, both are wonderful writers who use stories in effortless, compelling ways to make larger points. It’s something that can and should be emulated by everyone, not just writers. (Source)

Bogdana Butnar I thought I might put my money where my mouth is. I keep whining that young people are not in touch with some essential books on advertising that have helped me shape the way I practise my trade today, but I never did anything about it. So I am starting here the ultimate books to read list. I will add to it as I get suggestions and as more good books get written. (Source)

Mark Lynas Malcolm Gladwell is a master at branding himself. He puts brands on all his concepts and they’re very memorable as a result. I’m not sure that it was him who came up with the idea of the tipping point, but he certainly popularised it. (Source)

Brett Wigdortz This was a book that I read when I was starting Teach First, and it had a big influence on me. I had all my early staff read it. I think the leadership lesson here is that big change can happen through little things. For example, at Teach First when we began, people thought that it was impossible and that exceptional graduates would never be interested in teaching in challenging schools. It meant completely tipping people’s perception of it, to do something that no one would dream of doing. We were aiming for it to be the absolutely most prestigious thing that people would want to do – even... (Source)

Foti Panagio Honestly, it’s not really as simple as following a career path, at least not anymore. I’d recommend instead reading books on innovation and leadership because that can give you the confidence you need to blaze your own trail and to take your career as it comes. I’d suggest that a good background reading list would include [...] The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. (Source)

Andy Stern I think that when we talk about making change, it is much more about macro change, like in policy. This book reminds you that at times when you're building big movements, or trying to elect significant decision-makers in politics, sometimes it's the little things that make a difference. Ever since the book was written, we've become very used to the idea of things going viral unexpectedly and then having massive impact. The Tipping Point, to me, is really an appreciation that very small things can rearrange thinking in ways – like infectious diseases – that have huge implications. While we're... (Source)

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The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell: Book Review

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Alex Turner

Have you ever wondered how small actions can lead to big changes in the world? If so, “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell is a must-read for anyone curious about how ideas spread and trends start.

Sneak Peek “The Tipping Point” explores the concept of how ideas, trends, and behaviors reach a tipping point where they spread rapidly and become popular. Gladwell delves into various case studies and anecdotes to explain the factors that contribute to this tipping point.

My Take I found “The Tipping Point” to be a fascinating and engaging read. Gladwell’s storytelling keeps readers hooked as he unravels the intricate patterns behind societal shifts. One aspect I appreciated was his ability to break down complex phenomena into easily understandable concepts. For instance, he discusses the significance of connectors, mavens, and salesmen in influencing the spread of ideas, offering real-world examples to support his theories.

On the flip side, some readers might find the anecdotes overwhelming or the content repetitive at times. However, these instances do not detract significantly from the overall value of the book.

What Makes the Book Unique What sets “The Tipping Point” apart is Gladwell’s talent for blending research with real-life stories, making the academic theories accessible and relatable to everyday life. The book is a thought-provoking exploration of how seemingly small changes can have major impacts, making it a compelling read for anyone interested in sociology, psychology, or business.

Conclusion In conclusion, “The Tipping Point” is a thought-provoking and insightful book that sheds light on the dynamics of social epidemics. With its engaging narrative and compelling insights, this book is a valuable resource for understanding how ideas take root and spread in our interconnected world. I highly recommend “The Tipping Point” to readers eager to explore the factors that drive societal change.

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

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Book Review: The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

The little things that make a difference, publisher description.

It can be hard for busy professionals to find the time to read the latest books. Stay up to date in a fraction of the time with this concise guide. The Tipping Point is a bestselling book by Malcolm Gladwell and explains how social phenomena come about and what triggers a social epidemic. Using case studies and experiments in social psychology, Gladwell presents the three aspects that he considers essential to create a social phenomenon; rare birds, adherence and context. It is when these three factors align that a situation will reach its 'tipping point'; the phenomenon will grow spontaneously and snowball into a social epidemic. Over 1.7 million copies of The Tipping Point have been sold to date, and Time magazine named Gladwell one of its 100 most influential people in 2005. This book review and analysis is perfect for:  • Anyone looking to understand social trends • Anyone with an interest in sociology or psychology • Anyone hoping to become a ‘rare bird’ and influence others About 50MINUTES.COM | BOOK REVIEW The Book Review series from the 50Minutes collection is aimed at anyone who is looking to learn from experts in their field without spending hours reading endless pages of information. Our reviews present a concise summary of the main points of each book, as well as providing context, different perspectives and concrete examples to illustrate the key concepts. 

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“Vulture Capitalism: Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts and the Death of Freedom” – book review

The ‘free market’ was supposed to liberate us from the looming ‘serfdom’ of the potentially totalitarian ‘nanny’ state, according to the neoliberals. However, as Grace Blakeley argues in Vulture Capitalism , there’s nothing ‘free’ about the free market. In reality, actually existing capitalist markets are dominated by powerful corporations. Historically, indeed, the putative importance of free trade in the history of capitalism is highly questionable.

Grace Blakeley, Vulture Capitalism: Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts and the Death of Freedom (Bloomsbury 2024), 416pp.

Mercantilism, as in the state licensing of monopolies such as the East India Company, was the form capitalism took in eighteen-century Britain. The East India Company’s colonial domination of India, in effect as the state power, allowed for British textile exports to saturate the Indian market, destroying the indigenous craft textile industry and impoverishing Indian artisans, but fuelling the profits of British manufacturers. Rather than the abstract principles of market economics bringing about prosperity, this was political power exercised to engineer wealth for a tiny few at the expense of many millions.

The textile industry was the engine of the industrial revolution, so it was empire and monopoly which led to British capitalism’s emergence as ‘the workshop of the world’. Britain only adopted the principles of free trade once it was in a position to dominate as a result. For the U.S. as well, the mantra of free trade came after a policy of protectionism allowed it to build up its industrial competitiveness. ‘States and markets’ far from being ‘fundamentally different spheres of activity’ have in fact been closely intertwined through the history of capitalism: ‘corporations are political entities’ (p.120).

It follows that capitalism is in no way synonymous with free markets, but instead should be ‘defined by the domination of society by capital’ (p.27). That is, capitalism is inseparable from class and exploitation:

Capitalism is, at its core, defined by this divide: the divide between the people who own all the stuff required to produce commodities, and those who are forced to sell their labour power to the capitalists to buy those commodities. The profit of the capitalist comes through the exploitation of the worker—the interests of the two are diametrically opposed (p.29).

The central propaganda points of mainstream economics, a highly ideological endeavour, fall apart upon serious inspection. ‘Free markets’ are supposed to deliver optimum outcomes for all; maximally efficient production for the best value possible, alongside the ‘freedom’ of consumers to choose products as they wish. Blakeley annihilates the plausibility of these claims in the course of the book.

Boeing and the power of monopoly

The first case study demonstrating the hollowness of those mainstream claims is the story of Boeing and its 737 Max aeroplane, which, notoriously, suffered two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019, which killed 346 people in total, and required the whole fleet to be grounded. Blakeley shows how these disasters stemmed directly from the nature of contemporary corporate capitalism. Far from the neoliberal ‘free market’ ensuring efficiency and best value for consumers, the pursuit of profit through shareholder value created an authoritarian management culture which ‘sought to denigrate engineering expertise’ while pushing a ‘radical cost-cutting agenda’ (p.21).

Seeking bigger planes with bigger engines to fly more passengers more cheaply, Boeing avoided the expense of creating and certifying a completely new plane design by changing the existing 737 design until the airframe was dynamically unstable. The software bodge to get round this issue resulted in the ‘world’s first self-hijacking plane’ (p.22). Employees had been warning of problems, with one reported as saying ‘people “will have to die before Boeing will change things”’ (p.23). Meanwhile, the company was a great success for the financial markets: it ‘distributed $24.6 billion dollars in dividends to shareholders—many of which were executives within the company—and bought back $43.4 billion worth of shares’ (p.22). The free market had not worked at all as advertised to produce the best, most efficient outcome, unless of course, that always only meant the greatest possible profits for the capitalists themselves.

Another key element of neoliberal propaganda is shot to pieces in this story. That is the idea that the neoliberal state does not interfere in the markets. Boeing’s disasters should really have destroyed the company, but it had long been an essential part of the USA’s military-industrial complex, and thus it could not be allowed to fail. During the pandemic, the U.S. passed a stimulus package, which included:

$17bn worth of loans for businesses deemed “critical” to national security, of which Boeing was one. According to the Washington Post , this national security clause was “crafted largely for the company’s benefit” and came on top of nearly $58bn in loans provided to the wider airline industry—a figure strikingly close to the $60bn demanded by Boeing executives for the airline industry in March 2020 (p.25).

Boeing’s safety problems have continued, and its financial loses mount; the company recently announcing that it wouldn’t release a financial outlook for the year. Despite all this, it seems very unlikely that it will be allowed to fail.

Planning and competition

The corporate procurement scandals arising from the pandemic in the UK may have habituated us to an aura of corruption around corporate lobbying and government decision making, but Blakeley’s argument is that a systemic relationship has developed, which violates the basic supposition of a ‘free-market’ economy: ‘The pressures of competition are often very far from the minds of the executives running the U.S.’ largest corporations … they’re more concerned with artificially inflating their share prices, lobbying politicians and covering up the latest corporate scandal’ (p.26). This renders null all the neoliberal arguments about competition disciplining large corporations like Boeing: again in 2020, ‘as bond markets began to seize up …, the Fed stepped in to announce that it would purchase up to $20bn in corporate debt—effectively agreeing to guarantee the borrowing of some of the most powerful companies in the world’. Boeing itself was then able to issue $25bn of new bonds, ‘the sixth largest on record at the time’ (p.25).

Competition does still exist in this world of monopoly capitalism, however. For Boeing, the competitor is the European Airbus, similarly enamoured of cost cutting and supported by the EU (p.33). These firms don’t compete on price in the way that classical economic theory assumes, rather ‘the firms compete to keep down their costs—with the effect of making shoddy planes … and putting pressure on suppliers to reduce costs’ (p.26). Another area in which such firms compete, which Blakeley leaves unexplored in Vulture Capitalism , is over investment capital, which is why being too big to fail from the point of view of a major state, like the U.S., becomes a major advantage to a large corporation. Ultimately, however, the fundamentals of capitalism remain unchanged, as Blakeley goes on to explain; it is the class power of capital over labour that really defines the system.

The purpose of Vulture Capitalism is not merely to explode the myths of neoliberal economic ideology, but to argue further that the dichotomy between ‘free markets’ and ‘economic planning’, conceived of as being led by the state, is a fundamental misconception. Corporations engage in complex long-term planning, as Blakeley illustrated with the case of Boeing, for example. It’s just that they do that purely for the sake of profit, and because many such corporations are too large to be subject to the ‘discipline’ of the market, they can pursue that profit without real regard to utility, in neoclassical terms, or in Boeing’s case, to actual human lives.

The capacity of capitalist firms to engage in ambitious planning is also nothing new, as shown by the example of the Ford company’s factory town Fordlandia in the Brazilian Amazon, built in 1928 (p.38). Neoliberalism did not end this at all:

What changed between the post-war period and the neoliberal period wasn’t the presence or absence of planning: what changed was who was doing the planning, and whose interests they were serving (p.40).

Planning is limited by the interests of profit making, but also since competition between firms is still ferocious, it is an unpredictable process. An ‘anarchic market mechanism’ still operates, and so ‘capitalism and crisis go hand in hand’ (p.53).

The role of the state

Blakeley doesn’t fall into the trap of idealising the social-democratic post-war era, and emphasises at several points the capitalist nature of the state in both the post-war and the neoliberal era (p.168 and p.190). She notes, nonetheless, that in the post-war period, the working class did have some limited influence over economic policy, and this, together with Keynesian policies that aimed at low unemployment, ‘undermined the authority of capital over labour … [and] undermined the “governability” of society by making it harder to threaten workers with precarity and poverty’ (p.41).

In this view, the main point of neoliberalism was precisely to break the relative influence of labour, and to restore the power of capital over the working class. Having crushed working-class movements in the 1980s, the state then could focus less on managing relations between capital and labour, and more on supporting ‘capital’s relentless pursuit of profit and clearing up after the crises caused by this greed’ (p.41).

Thus we find ourselves in a world where banks and corporations were bailed out in 2008, and again in the pandemic, but public services are ground into the dust. All the while, state spending has grown rather than shrunk, as was ostensibly supposed to happen under neoliberal policy: ‘In the U.S., state spending as a percentage of GDP is far higher today than it was during the 1970s’ (p.48). In France, during the pandemic, the top companies benefitted from government support, while paying out €34bn to shareholders, and sacking 60,000 workers worldwide. A French report further found that ‘public assistance to the private sector now exceeds the amount paid out in social welfare’ (p.62).

The increasing concentration of capital has created effects which confound the neoclassical understanding of how capitalism is supposed to work. Amazon is a leading example of this. It had lost $6.2bn by 1999, yet its capitalisation was even then $450bn , not turning a profit until 2018. In a section on Softbank and WeWork, Blakeley argues that it is in fact decisions by ‘the banks’ about which companies to lend to actually determine which ones become the most profitable’ (p.135). Blakeley also observes that ‘Amazon survived despite market forces, not because of them. Even today, the structure of the company looks highly irrational: certain areas of Amazon … are highly profitable, while services like Prime make a loss. The market is telling Amazon one thing, but it seems to be doing another’ (p.92).

Profits and politics

Blakeley’s exploration of the self-reinforcing circularity of monopoly capitalism is certainly powerful, but there are some limitations to the perspective. One is that it could give the reader the impression that the problem is simply one of corruption in the nexus between finance institutions, corporations and politics. To be fair, Blakely specifically warns against this direction of thought, emphasising that the ‘fusion of political and economic power’ is natural to the functioning of capitalism and ‘not an aberration resulting from conspiratorial networks or clandestine societies’ (p.54). Rather, our only way to escape the class exploitation and crises of capitalism is ‘through the thorough democratization of our entire economy’ (p.55).

In the discussion of ‘anti-trust’ laws to break up monopolies, Blakeley notes the failure of such laws, in the U.S. particularly, to restrain their growth, due to the fact that ‘competition authorities have consistently failed to act to prevent mergers’ (pp.168-9). However, the argument here effectively reduces the issue to a political problem. This is despite the fact that, as Blakeley acknowledges, the drive towards the concentration of capital is a fundamental tendency in capitalism. This mismatch does point towards a weakness in the analysis since, in fact, anti-monopoly sentiment is not merely a pet grievance of the left, but has always had widespread purchase across politics, particularly in the United States. So why is the political failure so marked?

There is more to the situation than the political influence of the giant corporations. Their power derives from their dominant role in production and profit-making. Nonetheless, despite much reference to Marx, the source of the weakness in the book’s argument is the absence of consideration of some of the other fundamentals of capitalism. To be sure, Blakeley does explicitly ground her analysis in the U.S. Marxist Monthly Review school theory of monopoly capitalism (pp.109-10). This theory has its strengths, but also its problems, because it is underpinned more by Keynesian economics, than by Marx’s theory of value and his analysis of the core dynamics of capitalist production. As a result, there is no real explanation in Vulture Capitalism of why capitalism has been behaving the way it has done for the last half century.

The ruthless dismantling of the social-democratic welfare state, and the relentless attack on workers’ rights and standards of living worldwide, stem not simply from the rise in the concentration of capital, but from the difficulty capital has had since the 1960s in maintaining the rate of profit. The ongoing profitability crisis of capitalism, which erupted again in 2008, and from which there has been no real recovery, has driven the neoliberal stranglehold on economic policy domestically and internationally. The ongoing crisis only reinforces corporate influence, since the mass of profit that giant corporations command goes some way towards balancing the profitability problem and helps to explain their apparently impregnable political influence.

Blakeley does not seem to think that a simple return to the social-democratic past is possible, but does not substantiate why the capitalist class will not countenance such a turn, despite the increasing instability of the system. An analysis which concentrates only on the effects of monopoly power itself, particularly its political influence, is not able to explain fully the nature of these problems.

Related to this, there is another aspect to the development of capitalism that is also left curiously unexplored in Vulture Capitalism , and that is the nature of technological development. This is also part of the systemic drive towards gigantic monopoly firms. As technology has become ever more complex and advanced, so greater quantities of capital, and tremendously specialised production facilities are required for such things as computer chips. This drive, and new essentially infrastructural industries, represented by the likes of Google and Microsoft, create a massive bias towards giant corporations to dominate the global economy. Blakeley blames monopolies for stagnation in innovation, but such giants are the consequences of technological development, rather than being the prime movers in its trajectory.

Furthermore, all that sophisticated technology acts to reduce the proportion of human labour involved in production, and therefore reduces the production of surplus value, from which profit derives, in the economy as a whole. The more capitalism develops in this way, the greater problem capital has in reproducing itself, due to this tendency for the rate of profit to fall. The contradiction fuels the crisis, and means that there are no sane voices in the ruling class capable of accepting a social-democratic rebalancing to stabilise their increasingly crisis-ridden system.

How to change it

Blakeley repeatedly insists on the class power of capital as being central to the system, but awareness of that seems, at times, absent from the final section of Vulture Capitalism , which contrasts the planning-for-capital analysed previously in the book to the possibility of democratic planning for the social benefit. Blakeley rightly emphasises that capitalism and socialism are not to be identified with markets or state planning respectively, since markets ‘existed long before the emergence of capitalism and state planning existed long before the emergence of socialism’ (p.242).

Socialism is instead about collective agency: ‘Socialism should not base itself on asking people to trust politicians—it should be a movement based on asking people to trust each other’ (p.242). Among the examples she gives of what this means, Blakeley gives an account of the Lucas plan; a strategy drawn up by the workers of Lucas Aerospace Corporation in 1976 to move the company away from arms manufacturing towards socially useful products, from dialysis machines to wind turbines, as an answer to its market difficulties.

Needless to say, the workers’ initiative was not well received by management or the government, but it remains an inspirational moment for imagining how the economy could work in a radically different way. It certainly is a good example of the potential for industries to be run collectively and democratically by their workers. Blakeley goes on from this example to examine experiments in participatory budgeting in local government, most famously Porto Alegre in Brazil (pp.252-4), and others from Kerala, to Argentina, to Wales. These are all each in their own way useful experiments with some successes to celebrate, however they are limited by their very localism. Blakeley answers this problem with a chapter on ‘Planning at Scale’, which inevitably discusses Salvador Allende’s government in Chile and its Cybersyn project for planning (pp.266-8). This project was, of course, cut short by the bloody Pinochet coup.

There are many very useful ideas and plans for democratising the economy suggested in this final section of Vulture Capitalism , but they all suffer from the same problem, which is the power of capital. When any of them start to gain traction, from the GLC’s innovative initiatives in the 1980s (p.240) to Allende’s Chile, capital has the political and terrorist power to snuff them out. There is a further weakness to plans like participatory budgeting, which is that they do nothing to challenge the ownership and control of production, and it will only be through taking control in that sphere that the power of capital can actually be broken.

There needs, therefore, to be a better strategy than to accept that in ‘majoritarian electoral systems … activists have little choice other than to work within existing social democratic parties. Doing so successfully will, however, require a strong focus on building power outside of these parties as well—in communities, in the labour movement and on the streets’ (p.282). The defeat of the Corbyn project is over four years ago now, so this won’t cut it as a strategy. Similarly, invoking left projects in ‘more pluralistic systems’, like ‘the “movement-party” championed by activists and politicians in countries like Spain’ (p.283), reads particularly weakly, given the failures of every reformist venture from Syriza to Podemos to Die Linke.

For long stretches of Vulture Capitalism , Blakeley seems to be arguing strongly that corporate-planned capitalism needs to be entirely replaced by a democratically planned economic system. If that is the right impression, then the only answer is to build a mass revolutionary movement to bring such a system about. Wasting time working in existing social-democratic parties is not going to get us anywhere.

Dominic Alexander is a member of Counterfire, for which he is the book review editor. He is a longstanding activist in north London. He is a historian whose work includes the book Saints and Animals in the Middle Ages (2008), a social history of medieval wonder tales, and articles on London’s first revolutionary, William Longbeard, and the revolt of 1196, in Viator 48:3 (2017), and Science and Society 84:3 (July 2020). He is also the author of the Counterfire books, The Limits of Keynesianism (2018) and Trotsky in the Bronze Age (2020) .

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The Book of Clarence is a bombastic biblical satire

Jeymes Samuel’s comedy is both a playful riff on the religious epic and a witty homage to sword-and-sandals films.

By Simran Hans

The year is AD 33 and in Jerusalem, LaKeith Stanfield’s Clarence can’t help but notice that people keep throwing money at a guy named Jesus. “You ever see Jesus buy a pair of sandals?” he asks with a raised eyebrow. Clarence decides he’d quite fancy being a messiah too, or at least one of his apostles, in Jeymes Samuel’s playful riff on the biblical epic.

The ancient city where Samuel stages the Bible-adjacent story is filled with cheerily anachronistic flourishes, including a shisha bar whose patrons get so high they float. It’s also amusing that the film shares a shooting location – Matera, Italy – with Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ , another Hollywood example of the genre. Rapper Jay-Z is a producer, and it features original songs composed by Samuel, the London-born musician-turned-director (and younger brother of Seal) who previously made music as the Bullitts. The Book of Clarence , however, is not a musical: it aspires towards something grander than Jesus Christ Superstar .

Samuel’s previous film, 2021’s The Harder They Fall , was a bombastic and cine-literate neo-Western with a predominantly black cast, released on Netflix. Here, he adopts a similar attitude on a more cinematic scale, opening with a fast and furious chariot race between Clarence and Mary Magdalene – a homage to the sword-and-sandals classic Ben-Hur .

Clarence, a seller of stolen goods and “ungodly herbs”, as one character puts it, was hoping to settle a debt to Jedediah the Terrible (Eric Kofi Abrefa). Instead, he manages to lose the race, and after being mugged, all his money. His dream is to get his mum a new place, and to win the affections of Jedediah’s sister Varinia (Anna Diop), and so he devises a get-rich-quick scheme with his bumbling best friend, Elijah (RJ Cyler, the Donkey to Stanfield’s Shrek). Never mind that Clarence is a staunch atheist who’s convinced that “knowledge is stronger than faith”. He decides to get baptised and become the 13th apostle, sweeping up Jesus’s loose change. David Oyelowo’s John the Baptist, however, is having none of it.

The casting is witty: Oyelowo also played Martin Luther King Jr in Ava DuVernay’s Selma , while Mary Magdalene, an infamous “fallen woman”, is portrayed by the former model and music-video “vixen” Teyana Taylor (who was wonderful in 2023’s A Thousand and One ). Elder stateswoman Marianne Jean-Baptiste has a small role as Clarence’s mother, and late on in the film Benedict Cumberbatch appears too, in a cameo too delicious to reveal the details of here.

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Stanfield, who also starred in The Harder They Fall , can do soulful as well as stoner, moving gracefully between the two as Clarence. A hooded robe that hangs off his lanky frame gives the actor a dishevelled, underdog look, while his smudgy, kohl-rimmed eyes hint at a deeper spiritual quest. Still, Stanfield seems to be having fun – especially as Clarence’s pious twin brother, Thomas, who hangs out with Jesus (Nicholas Pinnock) and affects a dry British accent.

When Clarence is tasked with defeating the invincible enslaved gladiator Barabbas (Omar Sy) in a fight, he ends up winning a new friend instead. Freed from his captor, Barabbas is Clarence’s new back-up, and along with Elijah, aids him in performing a series of “miracles”. The coins pile up. On their tail are the racist Romans who police Jerusalem and racially profile its people: one holds up a sketch of a pharaoh in a nemes headdress, insisting they’re looking for “the Messiah”. The film is definitely a comedy, and a lot of the jokes work. But the three chapters or “books” that Samuel divides the film into aren’t evenly weighted. While the first two acts zip by, buoyed by comic set pieces, the third, which centres on Clarence’s redemption, drags.

In a speech delivered by Jedediah, Samuel makes the case for belief as a form of resistance, and a source of legitimate joy, undercutting the religious satire he’s spent the past 90 minutes constructing.

“The Book of Clarence” is in cinemas now

[See also: Alex Garland’s Civil War is his sharpest, most brutal dystopia ]

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This article appears in the 17 Apr 2024 issue of the New Statesman, Israel vs Iran

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Them: the scare review - season 2 of prime video’s horror anthology delivers a lot, except the horror.

While THEM: The Scare can be praised for many things, the delivery of the titular “scare” is, unfortunately, not one of them.

• The acting shines, especially Deborah Ayorinde's performance as Dawn, but the season lacks overall engagement.
• Pam Grier is underused, and the visuals impress, but the story drags and lacks a strong central focus.
• Despite high production value, THEM: The Scare fails to deliver on the horror promised, leaving audiences wanting.

THEM , the divisive horror anthology series, has returned to Prime Video for season 2 with a new chapter entitled The Scare . Created by Little Marvin, the series features Deborah Ayorinde, who returns in a new role as Dawn Reeve, an LAPD detective tasked with solving the brutal murders committed by a mysterious and evil presence. While the show boasts several praiseworthy aspects, the story’s overall significance seems to be missing. THEM: The Scare appears to be caught between trying too hard and not trying hard enough, resulting in an experience that is not only lackluster, but not scary.

The new story centers on LAPD Homicide Detective Dawn Reeve, who is assigned to a new case: the gruesome murder of a foster home mother that has left even the most hardened detectives shaken. Navigating a tumultuous time in Los Angeles, with a city on the razor’s edge of chaos, Dawn is determined to stop the killer. But as she draws closer to the truth, something ominous and malevolent grips her and her family…

• The cast's performances uplift season 2's story
• The Scare's visuals really pop
• THEM: The Scare is severely lacking in the horror department
• Pam Grier is underutilized in her role
• The season lacks commitment to the story

Clearly influenced by horror powerhouses such as Jordan Peele and Ryan Murphy's American Horror Story , THEM: The Scare attempts to showcase innovative and artistic horror, but falls short of being as captivating as its inspirations. Although THEM ’s first season had many scary moments , it still lacks the unique qualities and meaningful contributions that would solidify its place in the underappreciated Black horror anthology genre. Despite its efforts to deliver scares, THEM: The Scare ultimately fails to provide the horror it promises, questioning the show's purpose in an increasingly competitive landscape, which has some of the best anthology TV shows .

The Acting & Production Are Masterfully Executed

But they aren’t strong enough to elevate the story as a whole.

THEM: The Scare's acting performances are a major highlight of the eight-episode season. Deborah Ayorinde shines as Dawn Reeves, presenting the traits of a passionate, intelligent LAPD detective with a soul. She is a compassionate woman who clearly cares about her job, a refreshing change from the usual jaded detective tropes often seen in television and film. Luke James, who plays Edmund Gaines, brings an intriguing and earnest intensity to his role, making his character's arc a mystery that’s enough to keep engagement high, albeit sometimes to the point of frustration.

While the season capitalizes on the talents of its cast, there is one notable exception: Pam Grier, who appears as Dawn's mother, Athena. While it's always a delight to see Grier on screen, her character is underutilized, and it's disappointing not to see more of what she could have contributed to the story. Despite this, her presence is enough to add some much appreciated charm to the story.

One of the most important aspects of any horror story is the visuals, and THEM: The Scare excels in this department. The lighting and camera work create several standout moments that resemble the top-notch cinematic visual elements often seen in Hollywood's best horror movies. This is no surprise, as acclaimed horror director Ti West , known for his work on the X Trilogy, returned to lend his expertise to the direction of some episodes, after having directed several episodes in THEM season 1. However, despite these stellar moments of acting and production, they weren't enough to bring the overall season together.

*Availability in US

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THEM: The Scare Moves Too Slowly To Be Terrifying

The underlying point of the narrative isn’t strong enough to hold the tension.

Despite its concise episodic format, THEM: The Scare is unnecessarily drawn out, struggling to connect its various narrative threads in a timely manner. While the visuals, nostalgic 1991 setting, and acting performances provide a level of entertainment, the central point of the story remains elusive for far too long. As the season progresses, it’s easy to question the purpose of the narrative. Unfortunately, the promising recipe that is THEM: The Scare seems to be missing a crucial ingredient — the titular "scare . " The overall story simply doesn't match the other commendable aspects of the show, leaving tension unsupported and expectations unfulfilled.

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