The old dispensation

The Old Dispensation is the story of loyalty lost, the fading of the loyalty to organizations once so characteristic of American life. John J. Clancy asks the basic questions: Why? What has happened to the economy, the culture, to American management practices so that loyalty is waning or gone? How did loyalty emerge in the first place? Was there a time when corporate loyalty was waxing? In this work, Clancy essays a "natural history" of loyalty, the causes of its flowering, and its demise.

The story is told with a rich mixture of economics, management theory, historical accounts, public opinion poll data, Clancy's own survey data, and, particularly, the words of Clancy's subjects, employees of a rather typical high-technology company.

This is a cautionary tale. Although some observers - and some of Clancy's subjects - have celebrated the new social character and the new independence of American workers, Clancy argues that the erosion of mutual trust, the growing moral isolation of Americans, is a risk to them, to society, and to the corporation.