Main Arguements of The Tipping Point - Book Report/Review Example

May 30, The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell. The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell focuses on how epidemics start and spread. According to "The Tipping Point" everything can be explained as an epidemic, the spread of ideas so that the sudden success of a product of propaganda and change thought patterns and how crime can take over a city and then suddenly disappears. Malcolm Gladwell uses many examples to show how epidemics have one or more turning points, small and seemingly innocuous triggers that lead them to take off.

Along the way different people called Mavens, Connectors and girls can have an influence to an epidemic spreads more quickly, or they can act to stop an epidemic. The Tipping Point also shows how we as individuals can apply the concepts epidemics, Mavens, Connectors and maids start our own epidemic. The three “rules of epidemics” that Gladwell identifies are: the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context. He concludes the chapter with a preliminary discussion of the Law of the Few, noting that the origins of most major epidemics of sexually transmitted diseases can be traced back to the disproportionate influence of a few “super infectors” who are personally responsible for dozens, or in some cases, hundreds of transmissions.

This role is analogous to the category of people that Gladwell identifies as “Connectors,” who play an inordinate role in helping new trends begin to “tip,” or spread rapidly. Another crucial factor that plays a key role in determining whether a trend will attain exponential popularity is what Gladwell terms “the stickiness factor.” This refers to a unique quality that compels the phenomenon to “stick” in the minds of the public and influence their future behavior.  The Tipping Point that he talks about is exactly what Marx sees in the form of a proletariat revolt.

Such a revolt is an inevitable tipping point that will be caused by the abuse of workers due to the greed of capitalism. When the workers finally become fed up they will rebel in one solid movement that will sweep the world from end to end, establishing a new world order. According to Gladwell “starting epidemics requires concentrating resources on a few key areas” (Gladwell, 255). The proletariat revolt will result because capitalism will unintentionally concentrate its force on the lower classes until capitalism destroys itself by forcing the lower classes to destroy it.

Malcolm Gladwell has perfectly expressed Emile Durkheim’s ideas of a collective conscience and division of labor. It is only natural that people should be controlled by innovators at the top of the evolution of society. Below them are the early adopters, and below that the lowly people who follow after the more advanced subculture of the innovators. But Gladwell differed to Durkheim with his foolish rubbish about suicide in the Polynesian Islands. (Gladwell, 216) Everyone knows that suicide is a sign of an unstable society.

Those people just have a subpar culture that will probably destroy itself eventually. Herbert Spencer shares some ideas with Gladwell. Malcolm Gladwell’s idea of the tipping point will be a strong tool in the hands of the elite. The lower classes are much too boorish to be able to use such a tool properly. Rather the upper classes must study the principal of the tipping point in order to use it for their own benefit. Herbert‘s ideas would be related to the example of how New York City cleaned up their subways.

(Gladwell, 135) That is how things need to work. The government needs to crack down in the right areas to keep people under control. And the idea of the tipping point has great business applications, making it yet another example of how sociology is designed to be used for by policy makers. References Gladwell, Malcolm, Tipping the Point: How Little Things can make a Big Difference. Little Brown: 2000. Print