Bully Nation: How the American Establishment Creates a Bullying Society

Charles Derber is outstanding in his abilities to articulate and disclose the fundamental values transformation occurring in our nation. Our country's values of individualism and competition carried to their logical its extreme at all costs is not sustainable. When does the common good take precedence over wickedly self-serving agendas?Derber's book is a must read for anyone caring about a just and ethical American society..

This is an important addition to the literature dealing with the sources of the destructive nature of the US at home and abroad. Derber draws on the work of C.Wright Mills and others.

A discerning book for the trump era! This book is must reading for intelligent human beings.

Yes, I have been bullied! And never have I seen or heard anything that gave me more insight into bullying than this book. I can testify, first hand, that bullying is one of the most severe traumas a child or adolescent can feel. It is not simply a “rite of passage” to “get over” but something that molds you and shapes you throughout adult life. As I remembered my youth, I knew just how deep and permanent were the scars it can leave, but I saw both children/adolescents and adults treat it as cute and funny. When I sought help from parents, teachers or other adult authorities, they would shrug it off or offer useless advice like “ignore it” or “stand up for yourself.”As I reflected back upon my childhood/adolescent bullying, I realized I did not have to power to solve it on our own. Perhaps, no victim does. After reading this book, I now see that bullying can only be addressed with the “sociological imagination.” Mid-twentieth century sociologist C. Wright Mills taught personal troubles are often public issues, whose cause rests with the larger society. The lesson: to change our lives, we must change society. We cannot resolve our bullying trauma without understanding how it is embedded in militaristic capitalism.Bullying actually replicates the capitalist hierarchy where the popular and powerful are supposed to overpower the outcastes, who are expected to know their place and not challenge it. The military needs people who are simultaneously violent and obedient and ready to kill. Combine the two; you get what the authors call “militaristic capitalism”- a doubly bullying society.In the generation since my youth, something had changed. Bullying is now publicly recognized, discussed and treated. However for all the attention it is now getting, it is still seen as something personal. It is believed bullies and their victims needed psychotherapy to help them adjust to society. However, the book brilliantly shows the anti-bullying cannot succeed if approaches the brutality as something primarily psychological. It is a political problem and can only be addressed as such. This paradigm shifting book is, by far, the best ever written about bullying.

Have you ever been bullied- and do you carry scars from it? Do you bully others – and wonder why you do? Are you trying to figure out why super-bully politicians like Donald Trump are popular?This is a book you’re going to want to read and read again. You’re also going to want to talk about it with friends, family, workmates, and neighbors. If you’re sick of being bullied by big corporations or Trumpesque people in your life, this book will give new insights and some hope about what to do about it. Bully Nation will upend your idea of bullying. It makes crystal clear that bullying is hardly just a “kid” thing. Or even just an act of individuals. There is “structural bullying” – carried out by powerful institutions such as the Pentagon, Wall Street banks, fossil fuel and other giant corporations, the government, the media, churches, and political parties. The book shows that bullying is a problem in all relationships, organizations and societies. In certain societies –especially the US - bullying defines the way of life and the national character. To succeed is to bully. If you don’t, you will find it hard to survive.The authors argue that psychiatrists and school counselors have distorted the American conversation by treating bullying as a psychological problem. Bullying is far more. Using the famous sociologist C. Wright Mills’ idea that personal problems are public issues, the authors show that bullying in the US arises from a national bullying culture built around a system of vast power inequality.Our system of militarized capitalism requires that our biggest institutions, our leaders, and most of us as individuals are required to bully – and to submit to bullying – to succeed and just survive.Competition, ruthless self-interest and brutal toughness are the enshrined way of doing business while use of violent power is the military code of honor and victory. Capitalism and militarism make bullying the path to success. If you are not a personal bully, your company or organization may require you to do so. A manager may not want to bully his or her workers but the authors tell stories of how managers are bullied to bully workers (eg by threatening to lay them off if they don’t work harder). And there are other stories about teachers who do not like grading but are bullied by the school system to do what they hate.