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Handmaidens to Capitalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2017

Nathan Gerard*
Affiliation:
Department of Health Care Administration, California State University, Long Beach
*
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Nathan Gerard, Department of Health Care Administration, California State University, Long Beach, 1250 Bellflower Boulevard, Long Beach, CA 90840-4903. E-mail: nathan.gerard@csulb.edu

Extract

Although I wholeheartedly agree with Gloss, Carr, Reichman, Abdul-Nasiru, and Oestereich (2017) that a focus on those living in the deepest forms of poverty is sorely needed in industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology, the real issue is not so much who we serve but how we serve, and specifically how we continue to neglect the systemic failures of capitalism at the root of poverty. Ultimately, it is this global market system that determines not only the distribution of wealth but also how wealth is often achieved at the expense of another's poverty. Moreover, it is this system that constrains and undermines capabilities. For these reasons, I am skeptical of the authors’ proposal for mitigating the pervasive POSH bias in our field, especially because this bias seems premised on a pervasive neglect of capitalism the authors fail to fully address.

Type
Commentaries
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology 2017 

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