Chapter overview
Chapter 5 is titled “The Three Lessons of Joe Flom.” The chapter mainly discusses how the Jewish immigrants came to America in the late 1800’s with no money and made a living for themselves and it also discusses how the offspring of these Jewish immigrants became either lawyers or doctors because of the demographic luck they were blessed with. This chapter focuses 3 lessons. The first lesson is called The Importance of Being Jewish, the second is Demographic Luck, and the third is called The Garment Industry and Meaningful Work.
The first section explains the importance of being Jewish. It talks about how in the early 1900’s the larger law firms wouldn’t hire the offspring of Jewish immigrants regardless of how successful they were because they didn’t fit the description of the “perfect lawyer”. Consequently these Jewish lawyers that didn’t get hired by the bigger law firms joined the smaller ones or started their own and ended up being very successful. The second lesson explains how the decade that you are born in effects how successful you will be in a certain profession. For example it talks about how if you were born shortly after 1912, you got out of college after the worst of the depression is over, and the success rate of these law school students was much higher than that of the lawyers born before 1912. The third section is about the garment industry in America during the early 1900’s. This section focuses on one immigrant man and his wife who moved to America with twelve dollars to their name. With this twelve dollars he started a garment business and made himself a living, and thousands of other immigrants did the same thing. The chapter is concluded by explaining how most of the children of these hardworking immigrants became successful doctors and lawyers with the help of demographic luck.
The first section explains the importance of being Jewish. It talks about how in the early 1900’s the larger law firms wouldn’t hire the offspring of Jewish immigrants regardless of how successful they were because they didn’t fit the description of the “perfect lawyer”. Consequently these Jewish lawyers that didn’t get hired by the bigger law firms joined the smaller ones or started their own and ended up being very successful. The second lesson explains how the decade that you are born in effects how successful you will be in a certain profession. For example it talks about how if you were born shortly after 1912, you got out of college after the worst of the depression is over, and the success rate of these law school students was much higher than that of the lawyers born before 1912. The third section is about the garment industry in America during the early 1900’s. This section focuses on one immigrant man and his wife who moved to America with twelve dollars to their name. With this twelve dollars he started a garment business and made himself a living, and thousands of other immigrants did the same thing. The chapter is concluded by explaining how most of the children of these hardworking immigrants became successful doctors and lawyers with the help of demographic luck.