the goal book essay

The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement

Eliyahu m. goldratt and jeff cox, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Alex Rogo manages a failing manufacturing plant for the company UniCo in a small American town. One day, he arrives at work to find his corporate division manager, Bill Peach , waiting for him. Peach is angry about a customer order that is months overdue, as are most of the orders in Alex’s plant. He tells Alex that the outstanding order must be shipped by that evening, and that if Alex can’t turn the plant around within three months, Peach will shut it down. Alex and his production manager, Bob , manage to push everyone in the plant and fulfill the order by that night, but Alex knows that they can’t keep operating the plant in such a hectic fashion. Worse yet, Alex’s wife, Julie , wants to go out with him that evening, but Alex has to spend all evening at the plant, as he often does, which upsets her.

While at a division meeting, Alex has the sense that nobody in their division has any real idea how to successfully manage a manufacturing system. He remembers advice that an old mentor, Jonah , gave to him two weeks ago when he ran into Jonah at an airport: though they hadn’t seen each other in years, within minutes of Alex talking about the plant, Jonah intuited exactly what problems it has. Jonah advised Alex that he needs to determine the overall goal of the manufacturing plant. Now restless at the division meeting, Alex abruptly leaves to be alone and think. After several hours, he decides that the goal of any business must be to make money, and thus he can measure the productivity of any action by whether it helps the plant make money. Alex discusses this idea with Lou , his chief accountant. Lou agrees that it makes sense, but he thinks they would need particular metrics with which to measure that goal.

Alex calls Jonah and Jonah explains to determine whether the plant is making money, Alex only needs to measure three things: throughput , inventory , and operating expense . “Throughput” describes the money that a manufacturing system makes from sales. “Inventory” describes the money contained in that system as raw material or equipment. “Operating expense” describes the money required to turn inventory into throughput. The next day, Alex presents these new metrics to Bob, Lou, and Stacey , the plant’s inventory control manager. They discuss whether the plant’s newly-acquired robots, which are efficient in that they are always operating, actually generate more throughput or waste money by doing unnecessary work and creating unnecessary inventory. They still feel uncertain, so Alex decides to take an overnight flight to meet with Jonah and ask for advice. However, Julie is angry at Alex for his unannounced travel plans. In New York, Jonah warns Alex that a plant where everyone is always busy is a wasteful and inefficient plant at risk of going bankrupt, since, as a set of “ dependent events ,” the manufacturing process can be ruined by “ statistical fluctuations .” Alex doesn’t understand, but Jonah is late for a meeting and leaves.

When Alex gets home, he and Julie fight about how little time he spends with her. He promises to spend the entire weekend with her, but on Saturday he realizes that he promised to go with his son, Dave , on an overnight Boy Scout hike. During the hike, Alex realizes that the hikers are a set of dependent events like stages in a manufacturing system, and each of their fluctuations in hiking speed causes compounding delays for everyone behind them in line. However, he also realizes that by placing the slowest kids at the front if the line and the fastest kids at the back, he can mitigate the amount of delays and disorder that arises.

Alex is excited about what he has learned and believes he can put it into practice at the plant. However, when he and Dave get home from the hike, he discovers that Julie has left him. He asks his mother to move in and help him take care of the kids while he deals with work and figures out where Julie went. Meanwhile, Alex observes the same compounding delays due to statistical fluctuations in the plant, even when each machine and person is individually efficient. Alex and his staff realize that they need to optimize their entire manufacturing system rather than focus on individual efficiencies. When Alex reports this to Jonah, Jonah tells him his next step is to identify the “ bottlenecks ” in his plant, the machines and resources that are the slowest due to their limited capacities, since these slow down the entire manufacturing system. Alex and his staff realize that they have two bottleneck machines, neither of which can be sped up, and through which most of the parts they make must go. Jonah advises that since the bottlenecks are the slowest component of the manufacturing system, if they can increase their bottlenecks’ capacity, they can increase the capacity of the entire system, which will raise their throughput. Jonah gives them advice on how they can improve the way they operate their bottlenecks to increase their capacity, and Alex and Stacey develop a tagging system to organize which parts need to be processed by bottleneck machines.

Alex finds out that Julie is living with her parents and considering divorce. To prevent this, he starts going to see her several times a week, and they even start going on dates together. Meanwhile, the plant shows real improvement by lowering its stock of excess inventory and shipping orders on time. Within two months, the plant is profitable again. Jonah teaches Alex how to let the bottleneck machines regulate the pace of the entire system and maintain a steady flow of manufactured products. However, despite their good progress, Peach is unimpressed and tells Alex that he needs to see an astronomical 15-percent improvement in their third month, or he will still close the plant. Alex is disheartened, but Jonah feels confident they can deliver. As their next major step, Jonah advises that Alex cut the batch sizes in half, which halves the time that parts spend waiting to be processed and further increases their production rate. Alex and Julie spend more time together and continue mending their relationship—after a few weeks of dating, Julie moves back into their home. Meanwhile, Johnny Jons , in charge of UniCo’s division sales, praises Alex for helping him land and execute difficult orders.

By traditional accounting methods—which don’t conform to the way Alex’s plant now operates—Alex’s plant does not meet Peach’s 15-percent growth demand. However, at Alex’s monthly performance review, Peach reveals that he, Ethan Frost (Peach’s chief accountant), and Johnny Jons are being promoted to the next level of corporate administration. They are so impressed with Alex’s work that Peach promotes Alex to be the new division manager, recommending that Alex spend his remaining two months at the plant preparing for his new role. Alex asks Jonah for help preparing, and Jonah encourages Alex to determine what he wants to learn. Alex decides that he wants to learn how to manage organizations of any size or scale and how to better manage his personal life.

Alex and Julie make an effort to share their thoughts and feelings with each other on a daily basis. Meanwhile, with his staff’s help, Alex prepares for his role as division manager. He asks Lou and Bob to move up to the division level with him, but only Lou accepts the offer. Lou states that he wants to devise better cost accounting metrics that give a more accurate description of a business’s health. Bob wants to become the plant manager in Alex’s stead and master plant-level production processes. Alex spends the next two months learning and handling minor issues at the plant. With their new capacity, Alex and Lou help Johnny Jons land a contract with a large French client, helping their company make its first break into the European market. Alex and Lou continue to study and prepare, seeing that they have a hard task in front of them if they are to reform the entire manufacturing division.

Management Book “The Goal” by Eliyahu M. Goldratt Research Paper

Introduction, the notion of productivity, the notion of efficiency, the relationship between productivity and efficiency, sub-optimization, works cited.

The Goal , a 1984 book by Eliyahu M. Goldratt, is, no matter how strange this might sound, a novel on management. Utilizing the form of a literary work, the author exposes some common, but crucial mistakes made by the management of numerous companies of his time, that is, the attempts to increase productivity by maximizing efficiency of production in an incautious and thoughtless way.

In this paper, we will address the notions of productivity and efficiency and explain how they work in the theory offered by Goldratt, exposing the mistake of the classical management that leads to sub-optimization.

In The Goal , Goldratt exposes, among others, the concept of productivity. Jonah, while talking to Alex, suggests that he defines this notion for himself in order to be able to see how to improve the situation in his factory. Having given this issue some consideration, Alex arrives at the conclusion that productivity of an activity measures whether the goals of the activity were achieved. Therefore, to determine whether an activity is productive, it is necessary to define the goals of this activity.

As Alex thinks about this problem, he realizes that the goal of the UniCo’s plant he works in is not utilizing the newest technologies or capturing the largest share of the market; the ultimate goal is making money. The absence of profit is what is wrong with the factory on the whole 1 .

While considering this issue further, Alex understands that the amount of money made can be expressed in an explicit form by utilizing three metrics: net profit, return on investment, and cash flow. However, it still remains unclear how to apply even these three notions to measure the productivity of a particular activity that takes place in the factory’s walls. Jonah reveals this secret to Alex during one of their conversations; he explains that the notions to be used for this purpose are throughput, inventory, and operational expenses.

They are defined as “the rate at which the system generates money through sales”, “all the money that the system has invested in purchasing things which it intends to sell”, and “all the money the system spends in order to turn inventory into throughput”, respectively (Goldratt and Cox 66-67). Utilizing these three notions, it is possible to evaluate all the processes which take place in the factory. 2

In contrast to the concept of productivity, the term “efficiency” is not defined clearly in Goldratt’s book. However, it is frequently used in the text. Thus, it is possible to explain what is meant when the word is used. In our opinion, efficiency could be understood as the extent to which the present resources are utilized in order to produce the product.

Therefore, a common-sense understanding leads us to think that to enhance the efficiency always means to improve the amount of money made, because common sense says that the more you produce, the more money you can make.

Besides, if not all the present resources are employed in order to make the product, the notion of downtime is often used. It carries negative connotations; some resources, it appears, are simply wasted. For instance, a worker who stays idle seems to receive their salary for nothing; therefore, their idle time is a waste of money.

Goldratt, on the contrary, shows us that, although it is true in some cases, in a large number of situations idleness is not an adverse phenomenon. 3 According to the traditional business model, it is required to reduce the cost of products by all methods available while keeping the facilities constantly running at maximum efficiency; the conclusion that Goldratt reaches is counter-intuitive from this point of view (Winter par. 20).

Why can it not be productive to work at the full efficiency? That is, why employing all the present resources might not result in the maximum financial output? To solve this problem, Goldratt offers a theory, which he later calls the Theory of Constraints; it has achieved very positive reviews and was put to use in multiple areas (Berry and Smith 86-87; Seider 43). It explains this situation via the notion of a constraint, or a bottleneck.

A bottleneck is “any resource whose capacity is equal to or less than the demand placed upon it” (Goldratt and Cox 145); the product of the bottleneck is necessary for the final product’s creation or assembly. If such a unit exists (as it was the case with Alex’s factory), then there is no point in employing departments other than the bottleneck at their full capacity.

In fact, the efficiency of those departments can actually hinder the efficiency of the whole factory, for instance, by producing too many parts that cannot be utilized, but continuously require storage and maintenance costs (inventory). Therefore, it is productive to use the factory’s resources only to the extent at which the bottlenecks can operate, so that the inventory is used and produced in a balanced way; the excess usage will only decrease the productivity. 4

A simple example can help clarify this. A factory produces tables; a table consists of 4 legs and 1 desktop. These parts are produced in different facilities, and for a unit of time it is possible to create 8 legs and only 1 desktop. In this case, the department that produces desktops is a bottleneck.

Therefore, there is no point in running the leg-production facility at the full capacity; slightly more than 50% of its capacity would be optimal, because it would allow all the parts produced to be employed in the assembly of the final product, and allow for some spare parts.

To generalize it all in the terms of the given above concepts for measuring the productivity, for a business to gain money it is necessary to maximize the throughput, at the same time minimizing inventory and operational expenses. At least two of these metrics need to be changed at a time. Changing only one component can lead to an unwanted change in one or both of the others, which will result in a profit loss (Goldratt and Cox 66).

In the given example, producing extra legs means increasing the inventory, and possibly the operational expenses, while the throughput stays the same. On the other hand, instantly laying off ≈50% of the “leg department” workers might decrease motivation and worker loyalty (Hopp and Spearman 188). So, the problem requires a balanced, well-weighted decision that would allow for exploiting the constraint, reducing, and, finally, eliminating it (after which a search for other constraints should be started) (Goldratt 6-7).

An important notion in relation to this theory is that of sub-optimization. It is a situation in which a system that is being used produces less than the best possible result due to the absence of proper coordination between the system’s parts.

As we were able to see, this was exactly the case at the UniCo’s plant: the heat treat furnaces were working at very low efficiency due to the poor management and capacity limitations, as well as was the NCX-10 machine (Goldratt and Cox 152-153,158-160).

These constraints, the “bottlenecks”, did not allow for assembly of the complete product. On the contrary, other facilities of the factory were often working at the maximum efficiency, which caused an abundance of inventory that could not be utilized due to the lack of the components produced in the “bottlenecks”.

So, in terms of Goldratt, the notion of sub-optimization indicates the imbalanced regulation of throughput, inventory, and operational expenses.

As we could see, Goldratt exposes the notion of productivity and explains that the maximum productivity (i.e., maximum monetary income) is not guaranteed by all the company’s departments working at their full efficiency. The three important notions that permit us to understand the cause of this are throughput, inventory, and operational expenses; if not properly balanced, changes in these three factors (the situation of sub-optimization) often lead to the loss of profit.

Berry, Rik, and Lola Belle Smith. “Conceptual Foundations for the Theory of Constraints.” Human Systems Management 24 (2005): 83-94.

Goldratt, Eliyahu M., and Jeff Cox. The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement . 3rd ed. Great Barrington, MA: North River Press, 2004. Print.

Goldratt, Eliyahu M. What Is This Thing Called Theory of Constraints and How Should It Be Implemented? n.d. Web.

Hopp, Wallace J., and Mark L. Spearman. Factory Physics . 3rd ed. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2011. Print.

Seider, Ross. “Optimizing Project Portfolios: Engineering Productivity and Effectiveness Can Be Improved by Applying the Theory of Constraints.” Research Technology Management 49.5 (2006): 43-48. ProQuest .

Winter, Christian. According to the Goal: How Eliyahu Goldratt Helps Organizations Examine Their Processes to Achieve Maximum Results . 2005. Web.

• Chicago (A-D)
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Bibliography

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Goldratt’s The Goal: Chapter by Chapter Review

[Other Options – Major Concepts in The Goal , or  The Most Popular Guides to The Goal ]

Written in 1984, The Goal  lays out Eliyahu Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints (“ToC”) in the format of a novel.  ToC was first used into improve production plant manufacturing, but as Goldratt and his co-author Jeff Cox show in The Goal – it has broader applications.

Readers of The Goal experience a unique combination of styles:

• This is a first person novel told from the point of view of Alex Rogo, the narrator.
• The author explains complex topics about manufacturing through the characters’ dialog and activities.
• The manufacturing topics are introduced through the tutelage of Jonah, a consultant and former professor to the main character, Alex Rogo.
• As a novel, it includes family and parenting plot arcs that are also framed within ToC.
• If written in 2018 – nearly 25 years later – a shorter book would be expected.  Goldratt’s treatment of the components of ToC are very thorough and are demonstrated to the reader in many ways.

Books may pursue one of these styles, a few may pursue two of them, but even fewer pursue all of these methods at once.  The Goal stands out because it did all of them and was successful in the pursuit.  In my re-reading, what stood out was that Goldratt really put forward just a few limited topics, but showed all of the arguments around them in several ways.

The Goal’s persuasion around the usefulness of the Theory of Constraints is built on a thorough discussion of a limited number of topics, but each is debated in rich detail and in many scenarios.

First 10 Chapters

Chapter 01 ( Video Summary )

The book drops us in to the life of Alex Rogo, our narrator, who is over-whelmed with issues as he begins his day as a plant manager at UniCo’s Bearington Plant.  Rogo is flustered.  The plant is not performing well.  Three of his team members are looking for guidance, and at the same time Rogo’s boss, Bill Peach, is on site from corporate complaining about a late order for a big customer, Bucky Burnside. Rogo’s newest tool – the NCX-10 robot, should be having a more positive impact than it is.  Rogo expresses a desire to have a shot at being a CEO someday, but that is difficult to envision given his current position.

Goldratt’s tone is set right away – he focuses on the sensations of being in a plant and his writing devices, including character names can be transparent.  The story and cadence of the book are established.

Chapter 02 – Process ( Video Summary )

Rogo’s wife, Julie, is unhappy.  Rogo is nervous because other nearby plants have closed down.  Rogo visits home for a late dinner, returns to the plant where his team, led by Bob Donovan, has managed to get the Burnside order out, and then closes out the chapter pondering their daily chaos at a diner with Bob.  Rogo is reflecting on their daily struggle to get things done.

“Why can’t we consistently get a quality product out the door on time at the cost that can beat the competition?” Rogo, pg 18

Chapter 03 ( Video Summary )

Goldratt opens the third chapter with Rogo in a stereotypical corporate meeting – where Rogo learns that the clock is ticking on his plant.  We learn the backstory of his and Peach’s relationship – what was once good rapport has soured as Peach feels the stress of his role managing the division.  The whole of UniCo is in trouble, and the daily challenges that Rogo feels are part of poor overall corporate performance.  The chapter closes with Rogo finding a cigar that leads to a flashback introduction of his former professor and soon-to-be-mentor, Jonah.

Chapter 04 ( Video Summary )

Two weeks earlier, Rogo had bumped into Jonah at an airport.  Rogo provides Jonah with a career update – Jonah plays it straight and asks common sense questions to Alex which he finds awkward and difficult to respond to.

“Alex, I have come to the conclusion that productivity is the act of bringing a company closer to its goal. Every action that brings a company closer to its goal is productive. Every action that does not bring a company closer to its goal is not productive.” Jonah, pg 32

Jonah asks common sense questions about the NCX-10 robot – and Alex fumbles through the answers.  Jonah is established as the professor, the guide, the Yoda, the instructor very quickly.

“Alex, you cannot understand the meaning of productivity unless you know what the goal is. Until then, you’re just playing a lot of games with numbers and words.” Jonah, pg 33

Chapter 05 ( Video Summary )

Rogo begins this chapter enacting an employee’s fantasy – he excuses himself from a corporate meeting that he realizes is a waste of time.  Emerging out of his flashback with Jonah, Rogo knows that he must find a new way to evaluate his plant.  He ducks out, grabs food and beer, and returns to his hometown and a scenic overview that looks down on his plant.  Rogo literally takes a high level view of his plant.   Goldratt’s writing techniques are simple and effective.  Rogo debates himself – serving up strawmen to help the reader see that technology is not a goal into itself, endless production of inventory is wasteful, and that many of the actions suggested by corporate are fruitless.

“Our tribe is dying and we’re dancing in our ceremonial smoke to exorcise the devil that’s ailing us.” Rogo pg 34

Chapter 06 ( Video Summary )

Rogo debates plant accounting with his controller, Lou.  Rogo has been pencil-whipped and smothered in vanity metrics at his corporate meetings. He is internalizing Jonah’s insistence on pursuing a clear goal and realizes that his accounting and financial numbers must support that effort.

“Would you say the goal of the company is to make money?” Rogo to Lou, pg 45

Rogo can’t just optimize one metric – he has to optimize at least three – 1/ net profit (aka net income), 2/ ROI, and 3/ cash flow.  If you improve just net profit, you may be wasteful with money and have low ROI and cash flow.  If you harvest cash flow, you may damage your ROI by selling off assets and not generate net income.  All three measures must be considered together – it is not acceptable to optimize just one.

The chapter wraps up with Rogo calling home to a disappointed wife, and then taking his anger out on a second shift supervisor.  The anger at Eddie is a nice point – it is out of line with management best practices, but it shows the degree of frustration that Rogo is dealing with.

Chapter 07 ( Video Summary )

In this four page chapter, Rogo debates simply leaving UniCo or committing and staying.  Goldratt takes a job search off of the table and sets the stage that Rogo won’t create different results by following the same old methods.

Chapter 08 ( Video Summary )

Rogo takes flack from Peach for bailing out of the meeting in Chapter 4 and realizes that he must track down Jonah.  Rogo heads to his childhood home, upsetting his wife, Julie, once again, and finds a number for Jonah.  Finally, they speak late in the morning, and Jonah confirms Rogo’s musings with Lou about balancing at least three metrics to measure plant performance.

“Their names are throughput, inventory and operational expense.” Jonah, pg 60

Chapter 09 ( Video Summary )

Late is better than wrong, but both can be the bridge to a deal.  Rogo wakes up at his childhood home and returns to the plant.  He asks questions of his team to confirm that the NCX-10 robot hasn’t led to improved plant throughput, but instead has been a localized optimum.  The NCX-10 has had inventory build up in front of and behind it, making the plant metrics worse.  Rogo is beginning to understand theory of constraint thinking and is trying to help his team see the mistakes they have made.

Chapter 10 ( Video Summary )

We begin ten where nine ended; Rogo has explained the basic principals of throughput accounting:

• Local optimums don’t matter.
• Results should be measured against the goal.
• Throughput, inventory and opex should be reflected in the financial metrics – and all should be optimized.

The chapter continues with the team debating and classifying different types of expenses.  How should they classify education expenses?  Different kinds of inventory?  The list goes on.

Second Ten Chapters: 11 – 20

Chapter 11 – Dependent Events and Statistical Fluctuations ( Video Summary )

Rogo flies up to New York to meet Rogo in a hotel, where Goldratt has him explain two of the most important concepts in The Goal and in the Theory of Constraints.  GANTT charts don’t complete on time – a delay early causes delays later.  Later events are dependent on earlier events.

If an activity has a mean time to completion, then it will complete around that mean.  The time to complete experiences statistical fluctuations.  Those fluctuations are additive if the events are dependent – early finishes do not create negative time.

“Why do you think it is that nobody after all this time and effort has ever succeeded in running a balanced plant?” Jonah to Rogo, pg 86.

For the reader that has not worked in a plant or been involved with large project management, it can be easy to believe their smartsheet or .xls. It takes some further data work to show a mean time to completion with a standard deviation.  Re-running the data (I would have done it with Crystal Ball earlier in life) with this included would show that the time to completion for the whole project would continue to creep out.

Just as with the financial metrics – local optima – completion of a single step, is not what matters.  The goal is the completion of the whole project, not just one project.  The goal is not just one financial metric, but the optimization of all three.

Racing through one step at the expense of others does not create a finished good capable of creating revenue – the whole process must be complete.

Eleven explains two of the most important concepts in the book – thirteen provides more detail on the same subject, but with a real world example.

Chapter 12 – Singles Bar ( Video Summary )

Seven, at four pages, was our first throw away chapter.  Twelve has two pages.

Rogo recalls another UniCo colleague whose wife left with a lipstick message of, “Goodbye, you bastard.”  Julie foreshadows to him with her comments about going to a singles bar with her friend, Jane.  Jane is the tiny devil sitting on Julie’s shoulder asking for a divorce.

Chapter 13 – Herbie’s Hike ( Video Summary ) ( Watch 60s Video Short )

Herbie’s hike is the most known lesson taught by the goal.  Herbie is a, “fat” [Goldratt’s term] boy scout, and as a good father, Alex is leading his son Davey’s troop on an outing.  “Herbie the fat kid goal” is one of the most popular search terms for the goal – this is an iconic character.

Herbie walks slow.  He is the slowest walker.  The goal is for the whole troop to finish the hike.  But the troop does not finish until Herbie, the slowest walker, finishes.

“You’re doing great, Dad,” he says.  David (aka ‘Davey’) Rogo to his father Alex after the scout hike. Pg 98

The troop’s completion time is a Dependent Event on Herbie’s Completion time.  Each hiker’s completion time has statistical fluctuations.  Herbie’s completion time is the optimal finishing rate, but the troop’s completion time will never be better than Herbie’s.

Chapter 13 is a real world example of the concepts explained by Jonah in Chapter 11.

Chapter 14 – Boring Dice Game ( Video Summary )

If Eleven and Thirteen haven’t made the concepts of Dependent Events and Statistical Fluctuations clear enough – 14 gives the reader a stick and points you towards a dead horse to beat.

Rogo works with the scouts to show mathematically how statistical fluctuations cause delay by creating a boring dice game.  The dice game shows that statistical fluctuations around the value of a role of the dice stack up – and if you make their total values dependent, then the sum of a series will always be more than the sum of the expected means of a series.

Chapter 15 – Herbie and Teamwork ( Video Summary )

Herbie is the slowest hiker and he knows it.  Herbie feels bad that he slows down the whole troop. Herbie wants to go faster. The whole troop wants Herbie to go faster. How does the troop help Herbie go faster?

• Admit that Herbie is slowest.
• Discuss why Herbie is so slow.
• OODA loop – help Herbie go faster.
• Implement the solution and get it done.

Herbie has a bunch of stuff in his bag. Split his stuff up, share the load. Helping Herbie (the constraint) go faster helps the whole troop go faster.

The slowest operation is the constraint.

Goldratt teaches ‘dependent events’ and ‘statistical fluctuations’ because all events depend on the constraint.  Each event has an expected value, but all of those expected values fluctuate.  The constraint is the slowest, or max value for a time series, event.  All other events depend on the constraint to complete.  Each event has its own expected time to complete, but those expected value experience their own statistical fluctuations.

He says, “You know, Dad, I was really proud of you today.” David Rogo to his father, Alex. Pg 119

Chapter 16 – Why hate Julie? ( Video Summary )

Rogo returns from the scout hike to find his wife has moved out and his daughter was left at his parents home.  This chapter is two pages long, and other than his wife’s departure, it serves as a transition point like twelve and seven.

Chapter 17 – Back to the Robot ( Video Summary )

Rogo starts the chapter at home, a scurrying single father getting his kids out the door to school. The bulk of the chapter is spent at the plant, where he works through four big concepts with his team:

• Goals: The team’s goal is to ship intermediate parts to a sister plant run by Hilton Smyth – the closest thing to a protagonist we find in the book.  Every activity that doesn’t achieve the goal is a waste of time.  Only pursue activity that achieves the goal.
• Constraint: The parts must pass through the NCX-10 robot, which can only handle 25 parts per batch.  Not 26! If 24 are run, then one empty slot wasn’t run.
• Dependent events: The pre-robot step is human operator driven.  Parts arrive to the NCX-10 in an irregular fashion.  The NCX-10 depends on the upstream processing – so if that step is uneven, then so too will the loading be of the NCX-10.
• Statistical fluctuations: The NCX-10 has a tight performance window with little fluctuations – but the upstream processes are much more variable.

Rogo’s team has a clear goal, and they celebrate almost achieving it before realizing that ‘almost’ doesn’t matter for their customer.  They miss their target because they feel to;

• Recognize the constraint – the 25 unit cap at the NCX-10.
• Map the dependent events.  The NCX-10 is last in line, which makes it subject to…

Anticipate statistical fluctuations.  The upstream step ahead of the NCX-10 has high variability – and this causes delays at the NCX-10.

Chapter 18 ( Video Summary )

Rogo walks through the previous days’ results with his team and phones Jonah for advice.  Jonah coaches them that constraints aren’t bad – they are simply a reality that must be identified and dealt with. Every system has a constraint. The team is surprised to find two constraints – the foreshadowed NCX-10 robot and a newly discussed heat finishing step.

In the same way that Goldratt assumes a culture of teamwork and data use – he gifts Rogo with a talent for change management.  Rogo listens and prioritizes change based on customer need and team receptivity.

Chapter 19 – Change ( Video Summary )

Jonah flies in to help the team develop their approach to managing the constraints.  For the plant to increase its output, the constraint must increase output.  Any other activity is a waste of time in regards to total plant output.  Jonah reinforces the team’s understanding of; Goals, Constraints, Dependency, and Fluctuations.

Chapter 20  ( Video Summary of Chapter 20 )

“Why don’t we go ahead with the easier things right away and see what kind of effect they have while we’re developing the others.” Donovan to Rogo, pg 163.

Julie Rogo remains at her parents and Alex fights to get her back.  Donovan, his earnest help at the plant, coaches him on managing change.  Change starts with small wins that show everyone the benefit of changing.

Chapters 21 – 30

Chapter 21 ( Video Summary Chapter 21 )

The team continues to work their constraints.  Rogo finds the NCX-10 idle.  An idle constraint means the process is not working towards its goal.  Diving into the problem, they find that parts upstream of the NCX-10 are delayed.  A constraint should not be idle.

Chapters 21 – 23 identify the following methods to improve a constraint:

• A constraint should not be idle.
• A constraint should have enough feedstock to avoid being idle.
• Adding incremental capacity with different equipment, opens up the constraint.
• Data drives constraint improvement.
• Tee up work ahead of the constraint.
• Staff the constraint with the best people.
• Modify products to minimize use of the constraint.

Chapter 22 – Constraint Tactics ( Video Summary Chapter 22 )

Our heroes continue to focus on the constraints – they locate an old tool, a Zmegma, that will unburden the heat treatment step.  Even small additions of capacity, which might look silly to do, improve overall output if they are done at the constraining process step.

Chapter 23 – Goldratt on Data ( Video Summary, Chapter 23 )

Focus on the constraint continues.  Ralph Nakamura, the plant data manager, realizes he needs better data – and fights to get it. Rogo realizes that his 2nd shift manager, Mike Haley, has been aggressive in keeping the constraint moving.  Other changes in how the constraints are approached create more capacity – constraints should be staffed by the best team members, and modifying processes to shorten exposure at the constraint should be approved wherever possible.

Chapter 24 ( Video Summary, Chapter 24 )

The plant’s focus on constraints through Chapters 21 – 23 leads to record shipments.  This leads to a night of celebrating, wherein a drunken Rogo is driven home by Stacey.  A sleeping Julie – who has surprised him by returning home, jumps to conclusions.  Stacey calms down Julie.  The team then worries that their constraints are wandering.

Chapter 25 – Stop Futile Work ( Video Chapter 25 )

Jonah returns to help the team understand their wandering bottlenecks.  By focusing on the cadence and capacity of the constraints – the team has been mistakenly releasing too many inventory requests.  This other inventory buildup is choking up the plant with material.

With this chapter, Goldratt gives some items to avoid doing:

• Do not build inventory that doesn’t flow to the constraint.
• Do not overbuild inventory.
• Do not optimize vanity metrics.
• Do not pursue activity that does not lead to achieving the goal.

Chapter 26 – Results > Vanity Metrics ( Video Summary Chapter 26 )

Rogo and his kids debate ways to keep Herbie on pace with the troop during their hike.  They debate a ‘drum-and-rope’ system to keep the troop with Herbie by binding them together and helping call out Herbie’s cadence.

At the plant, Ralph worries that building inventory ahead of the constraint to ensure that it is not idle will ruin local metrics.  Reducing inventory away from the constraint will also hurt utilization.  Rogo shows leadership, saying;

“And I’m not about to stand by and let that happen just to maintain a standard that obviously has more impact on middle management politics than it does on the bottom line. I say we go ahead with this. And if efficiencies drop, let them.” Rogo to Nakamura pg 219

Chapter 27 ( Video Summary Chapter 27 )

Rogo delivers much improved results to Bill Peach at corporate. Still under threat of plant closure, he guarantees a 15% improvement – what does he have to lose, when his other option is a shutdown?  With Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints showing results, Rogo now knows that he has the tools to succeed.

The chapter resolves with Alex and Julie discussing relationships, marriage and goals.  Alex wants the same re-evaluation of ‘the rules’ in his personal life, while Julie remains cautious.

Chapter 28 – Cutting the Batch Size ( Video Summary Chapter 28 )

Rogo and his team understand constraints, dependencies, fluctuations and the importance of a goal.  Their new goal is to achieve 15% growth. Jonah advises to cut their batch size. If our plant is a system, and if our goal is throughput – then smaller batches flow through faster. Smaller batches get results faster, can get tested faster and can accelerate pacing – provided the three cost metrics (throughput, inventory and opex remain optimized).  The team cuts the batch size.

Chapter 29 – Nightmares and Sales ( Video Summary Chapter 29 )

Rogo’s batch size cutting works.  His WIP is now 100% focused on customer orders.  Now he reaches out to sales and says, “get me some business.”  Rogo negotiates with sales – rather than just taking orders, he negotiates what the plant can do.  The customer takes the negotiation and the order is won.

Only sign up for contracts where you know you can deliver.

Chapter 30 – Bucky Burnside’s Helicopter ( Video Summary Chapter 30 )

Corporate finagles a press event to showcase the NCX-10 robot, and in doing so realizes that the metrics they care about (the vanity metrics Rogo’s term has been taught by Jonah to ignore) are all off.  This is balanced out by a surprise helicopter visit from Bucky Burnside – our first customer exposure who is now giddy with the sales he has won thanks to the Bearington plant’s focus on the goal and persistent batch size cutting.

Rogo translates his plant learnings into commercial wins.  When plant and commercial combine, businesses are capable of phenomenal growth.

Chapters 31 – 40

Chapter 31 – Defending Performance and a Promotion ( Video Summary Chapter 31 )

Rogo is back at corporate, defending his metrics to a snippy Hilton Smyth.  Smyth cannot reconcile good financial performance with wasting efficiency metrics.  Rather than search for understanding, he pursues a blistering critique of Rogo.  Rogo sits with Peach as he exits – and instead of learning that he has more tongue lashings ahead, discovers that he will soon be given Peach’s job as a promotion.

In many ways, Chapter 31 ends a major portion of the book.  Goldratt’s major lessons have been taught – we understand the improtance of a goal, dependence, fluctuation and batch size cutting.  Goldratt’s chapters through Rogo’s promotion become more philosophical and internally focused.

Chapter 32 – Change Management ( Video Summary Chapter 32 )

Rogo reflects on his promotion, and Goldratt uses this to lay out a framework for change management.  Rogo faced urgency to turn his plant around. His team created consensus around the Theory of Constraints by experiencing the results and seeing that it explained their situation and prescribed how they should behave.

“If it weren’t for the conviction that we gained in the struggle—for the ownership that we developed in the process—I don’t think we’d actually have had the guts to put our solutions into practice.”

Chapter 33 – Sales & Growth ( Video Summary Chapter 33 )

Rogo continues to prepare for his next role, and as he does so he explores the relationship between sales and operations.  The capabilities of the Bearington plant are now known – by following the Theory of Constraints, UniCo now knows how much capacity it has available to sell.  Further, by understanding the benefits of the Throughput Accounting method (focusing on throughput, inventory and opex), as opposed to backwards looking cost accounting and vanity metrics – Rogo knows that he can bid mor eaggressively on business and still have it create cash flow.

Rogo works with Johnny Johns to negotiate for new business.  By starting with his capabilities, which he knows from his work with constraints, he is able to bid and come to terms with customers in new ways.

The team has managed the constraint to the point that it exists at the boundary between Bearington and its customers.  By documenting their internal processes, the constraint has been pushed outside.

Chapter 34 – Promotion and Reflection ( Video Summary Chapter 34 )

Rogo asks his team to think about the best ways for him to walk into his next position.  They talk through re-organizations, fact-finding and the faddish nature of management practice.  Goldratt positions these as activities that do not serve a goal – they are action for the sake of action and not necessarily effective.  There are echoes of modern data-mining, where teams look backwards at data and farm it for results – rather than beginning with a hypothesis and proving it.

Goldratt builds a lot of momentum with this chapter, but it isn’t neatly channeled into a resolution.

Chapter 35 – Prediction and Practice ( Video Summary Chapter 35 )

Rogo’s exposition and debate with his team about what to do with his next job continues.  As in the previous chapter, Goldratt brings out many interesting topics, but there isn’t a satisfying resolution.  The conversation focuses on the value of data and models of systems.  Having a model or framework for how a system works is very valuable – without that model it is hard to predict how change can occur.  Having an idealized model of how a system should work makes it possible to move towards that system.

Data, without an understanding of how it works within a system isn’t very valuable.  The combination of data and a model of the system that generates the data is extremely valuable.  (Goldratt built the whole book off the foundation of teamwork and data – without these two concepts Rogo could not have succeeded.)

Chapter 36 ( Video Summary Chapter 36 )

Rogo was promoted in Chapter 31 and we’ve read through four chapters of introspection and team preparation about how he should go about dealing with his new role. Goldratt is using this transition to help the reader take the Theory of Constraints and apply it to any new situation – not just a promotion.  As in past chapters, the plant team serves up strawmen, draws from their experiences focusing on the constraint and the tools they took to setting and achieving their goal.

Chapter 37 ( Video Summary Chapter 37 )

Chapter 36 ended with a rough draft of Goldratt’s guidance for new situations, which are finalized here as:

1. IDENTIFY the system’s constraint( s). 2. Decide how to EXPLOIT the system’s constraint( s). 3. SUBORDINATE everything else to the above decision. 4. ELEVATE the system’s constraint( s). 5. WARNING!!!! If in the previous steps a constraint has been broken, go back to step 1, but do not allow INERTIA to cause a system’s constraint.

Rogo’s team identified that their constraint was not within the Bearington plant.  Customers had plenty of demand for their products, the team had to be more effective with their constraint.  Once the production process was understood, Rogo worked with marketing to pursue deals and opportunities that made use of their increase in throughput to increase their cash flow.

Chapter 38 ( Video Chapter 38 ) – $10,000,000

Two concepts drive this chapter; 1/ marginal revenue and marginal cost should drive business decisions, and 2/ systems are often best changed by outsiders.

Early in the chapter, Rogo leaps at a commercial opportunity:

“We’ll take it,” I say.  – Rogo to Johns, pg 312

This might seem pretty flip – and a reader who had picked up the book and started reading at this page would think any manager who was so cavalier with his business was being too commercially aggressive.  However, at this point we’ve been through Rogo’s journey from not being able to ship parts on time to knowing exactly what has to be done to increase his plant’s capacity.

Throughout these challenges Rogo has had great plant data from Ralph Nakamura.  He’s had a competent and commercially savvy controller who was willing to look at his performance numbers in a different way.  Rogo never deals with a bad actor – he’s had sufficient delegation of his plant and the closest to corporate politics he’s had to deal with is a suspicious Hilton Smyth.

Rogo knows he cannot win the business unless he goes for it – and he has confidence in his numbers.  He’s also developed a feel for change management that he is excited to employ in his promotion.  For his new division to grow, he doesn’t expect change to come from people within the system – if they need marketing growth, he expects that to come from ideas generated outside of his marketing team.

Chapter 39 ( Video Chapter 39 )

As the plant chews through the new business that Rogo’s aggressive bid brought in they encounter new challenges.  Systems that worked with less volume struggle to convert the orders into throughput – processes have to be updated.  Inventory wobbled through the plant – too much of things that weren’t needed, too little of items that were essential which resulted in starved constraints.

Rogo reflects on his pursuit of the business and realizes that the challenges they face now could have been anticipated.  Once a system is mapped and the constraints are known, then that same map can be used to model what is needed in the future!

“We’re reacting rather than planning.”  Rogo to Donovan, pg 326

Chapter 40  ( Video Chapter 40 )

Rogo and Lou discuss the division’s state of affairs in a drive back from corporate.  Goldratt has tough task in front of him with this final chapter – he’s brought us through Rogo’s journey to understand constraints and save his plant and expounded on the Theory of Constraints as Rogo prepares for his promotion.  The Goal must have been a hard book to finish.  Goldratt has promoted some complex ideas and succeeded in making them easy to digest – but it is easy to imagine that he found it difficult to bring everything to a close.

There are several big points brought up in the dialogue between Rogo and Lou:

• Causing change (the “How?”) is as important as what to change and what to change to.
• Leaders and their priorities are a constraint within the organization.
• Teams are a series of operations – and just like the plant floor – there is a constraining capability within any team.
• There are many organizational red flags (sloppy reporting, tolerance of late projects, under performing teams) that can be addressed with the Theory of Constraints.
• Prioritization determines output.  Goals must be prioritized – otherwise minutia can absorb all of the time.

Yes, many small actions are needed, but that doesn’t mean that we can afford to be satisfied with actions that improve the situation.

Goldratt’s point here makes an interesting contrast with how he prescribes change management.  Teams need small wins – but they need to not get wrapped up in small wins and not address an organization’s bigger challenges.

Small wins are necessary to create change – but small wins are not sufficient to create broader organizational growth.  Leaders must be constantly looking for a higher order change to promote in order to find bigger constraints to unlock greater throughput.

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Tyler DeVries

The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement

3 Sentence Summary

The Goal is a business novel that preaches a simple but insightful truth: productivity is the act of bringing a company closer towards its goal. If the company’s goal is to make money, then we should focus on increasing throughput, decreasing inventory, and decreasing operational expenses. By teaching us how to search for process bottlenecks and apply the Theory of Constraints, Eli Goldratt helps us achieve a fundamental understanding of how we should design productive systems.

5 Key Takeaways

• The goal is to make money by increasing throughput while simultaneously reducing inventory and operational expense.
• Fluctuations in a process do not average out, they accumulate.
• Optimize the whole system, not just an individual process.
• Do not balance capacity with demand. Make the flow through the bottleneck equal to the demand from the market.
• In order of importance: Throughput > Inventory > Operating Expense

The Goal Summary

Please Note

The following book summary is a collection of my notes and highlights taken straight from the book. Most of them are direct quotes. Some are paraphrases. Very few are my own words.

These notes are informal. I try to organize them by chapter. But I pick and choose ideas to include at my discretion.

• Productivity is the act of bringing a company closer to its goal. Every action that brings a company closer to its goal is productive. Every action that does not bring a company closer to its goal is not productive.
• The goal is to make money.
• Throughput is the rate at which the system generates money through sales .
• Inventory is all the money that the system has invested in purchasing things that it intends to sell.
• Operational expense is all the money the system spends in order to turn inventory into throughput.
• Fluctuations don’t average out. They accumulate. It’s an accumulation of slowness because dependencies limit opportunities for faster fluctuations.

Optimize The Whole System

• We should optimize the whole system. Some resources have to have more capacity than others. The ones at the end of the line should have more than the ones at the beginning, sometimes a lot more.
• A bottleneck is any resource whose capacity is equal to or less than the demand placed upon it.
• You should not balance capacity with demand. What do you need to do instead is balance the flow of products through the plant with demand from the market.
• Make the flow through the bottleneck equal to demand from the market.
• If you scrap a part before it reaches the bottleneck, all you have lost a scrapped part. But if you scrap the part after it’s past the bottleneck, you have lost time that cannot be recovered.
• Make sure the bottleneck’s time is not wasted.
• Take some of the load off the bottlenecks and give it to non-bottlenecks.
• Bottlenecks govern both throughput and inventory.
• Information is not data. Information is the answer to the question asked.
• Throughput is the most important, then inventory, due to its impact on throughput and only then, at the tail, comes operating expense.

The 5-Step Process

• Identify the system’s constraint.
• Decide how to exploit the system’s constraint.
• Subordinate everything else to the above decision.
• Elevate the system’s constraint.
• Warning!!! If in the previous steps a constraint has been broken, go back to step 1, but do not allow inertia to cause a system’s constraint.

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• Profits Aren’t Everything, They’re The Only Thing
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The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement by Eliyahu Goldratt

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Through an engaging fictional story about a manager who has 90 days to turnaround his plant, author Eliyahu Goldratt teaches you the first principles of operating and improving a system. Reading this book will show you how to implement an effective and efficient process of ongoing improvement. His system is applicable to life and business.

Buy this book on Amazon (Highly recommend)

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Key Takeaways

Productivity.

“…productivity is the act of bringing a company closer to its goal. Every action that brings a company closer to its goal is productive. Every action that does not bring a company closer to its goal is not productive.”

Productivity is not about getting more done in less time. It’s about getting the right things done. The right things are those actions that move you or your company closer to the goal.

The goal of a business

“To make money by increasing net profit, while simultaneously increasing return on investment, and simultaneously increasing cash flow.”

In business, you have three primary levers – net profit, return on investment, and cash flow. You want all three levers to move in the right direction. A common mistake is optimizing for one of these metrics, which may inadvertently make one or both of the other metrics go in the wrong direction. 

It’s important to view your business as a system, and the system improves when you move the three metrics the right way.

Throughput, inventory, and operating expense

In a warehouse setting, throughput, inventory, and operating expenses are proxy metrics that represent net profit, return on investment, and cash flow, the three levers of a business. They are the way in which you translate abstract financial terms into action parts of the system you’re working to improve.

Throughput : the rate at which the system generates money through sales.

Inventory : Inventory is all the money that the system has invested in purchasing things which it intends to sell.

Operating expense : Operational expense is all the money the system spends in order to turn inventory into throughput.

“Throughput is the money coming in. Inventory is the money currently inside the system. And operational expense is the money we have to pay out to make throughput happen. One measurement for the incoming money, one for the money still stuck inside, and one for the money going out.”

The goal is thus to increase throughput while simultaneously reducing both inventory and operating expense. If you do this, you will increase net profit, while simultaneously increasing cash flow and return on investment.

A plan is a system of dependent events

“Obviously we have dependent events in manufacturing. All it means is that one operation has to be done before a second operation can be performed. Parts are made in a sequence of steps. Machine A has to finish Step One before Worker B can proceed with Step Two. All the parts have to be finished before we can assemble the product. The product has to be assembled before we can ship it. And so on.”

At its core, manufacturing is a series of dependent events. Ensuring the right interaction between these dependent events is essential for the success of the manufacturing business.

To improve in manufacturing, you must optimize for the entire system, not just a local area. The reality is that some resources have more capacity than others, and this needs to be considered when creating efficiencies in the system.

Bottlenecks and non-bottlenecks

Bottleneck : a resource whose capacity is equal to or less than the demand placed upon it. 

Non-bottleneck : a resource whose capacity is greater than the demand placed on it.

Because bottlenecks are the constraint in the system, if you waste any time on a bottleneck resource, your entire system loses time. The capacity of the plant is equal to the capacity of the bottleneck. If you lose an hour on a bottleneck, you lose an hour in the entire plant.

Three ways a bottleneck’s time can be wasted

• If it’s sitting idle during a lunch break
• If it’s processing defective parts, or parts which will become defective through careless workers or poor process controls
• If it works on parts you don’t need

An important note on non-bottlenecks – Its level of utilization is determined by a constraint in the system, not by its own potential.

Activating vs. utilizing a resource

Utilizing a resource means using a resource in a way that moves the system toward its goal. Utilizing a resource is a productive action.

Activating resources means using a resource, whether or not there is benefit from the work its doing. This explains why activating a non-bottleneck resource is often inefficient – it does not move the system closer toward its goal. 

The difference between data and information

Information is the answer to the question asked. Data is information that may or may not answer the question being asked.

The role of a manager

A manager has the ability to answer three simple questions:

• What needs to be changed?
• What does it need to be changed to?
• How do you cause the change?

5 steps for improving a system

• Identify the system’s constraint.
• Decide how to exploit the system’s constraint.
• Subordinate everything else to the above decisions.
• Elevate the system’s constraint. 
• If in the previous steps a constraint has been broken, go back to step 1, but do not allow inertia to cause a system constraint.

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53 pages • 1 hour read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

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Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-7

Chapters 8-11

Chapters 12-15

Chapters 16-19

Chapters 20-24

Chapters 25-28

Chapters 29-32

Chapters 33-36

Chapters 37-40

Character Analysis

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Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Discussion Questions

Chapters 1-3 Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 summary.

Alex Rogo , the plant manager for a local branch of UniCo, a manufacturing company, arrives at work one morning to find that Bill Peach , a division vice-president who is not fond of making “subtle statements” (1), has parked in Alex’s spot. Upon entering the plant, Alex discovers a scene of chaos. Bill arrived earlier that morning and demanded to see a specific customer order (#4127), but “everything in this plant is late” (2) so none of Alex’s workers can produce information about the order. Bill has demanded that the shift supervisor drop everything for this order. This leads to a fight between the supervisor, Bill, and a machinist, who threatens to quit.

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The Goal, 30th Anniversary edition

Written in a fast-paced thriller style, The Goal , a gripping novel, is transforming management thinking throughout the world. It is a book to recommend to your friends in industry—even to your bosses—but not to your competitors.

Alex Rogo is a harried plant manager working ever more desperately to try improve performance. His factory is rapidly heading for disaster. So is his marriage. He has ninety days to save his plant—or it will be closed by corporate HQ, with hundreds of job losses. It takes a chance meeting with a professor from student days—Jonah—to help him break out of conventional ways of thinking to see what needs to be done. The story of Alex’s fight to save his plant is more than compulsive reading. It contains a serious message for all managers in industry and explains the ideas, which underline the Theory of Constraints (TOC), developed by Eli Goldratt.

One of Eli Goldratt’s convictions was that the goal of an individual or an organization should not be defined in absolute terms. A good definition of a goal is one that sets us on a path of ongoing improvement.

Pursuing such a goal necessitates more than one breakthrough. In fact it requires many. To be in a position to identify these breakthroughs we should have a deep understanding of the underlying rules of our environment. Twenty-five years after writing The Goal , Dr. Goldratt wrote “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants.” In this article he provided the underlying rules of operations. This article appears at the end of this book.

The 30th Anniversary edition represents the first time the narrative in  The Goal  has been substantially updated. Goldratt’s Five Focusing Steps have been added, and his essay, “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants,” is included. The Fortune Small Business interviews (known by some as the “case studies”) that appeared in the 20th and 25th Anniversary editions have been removed from the book, but are  available on this website .

Endorsements:

“Now more than ever, The Goal is my first recommendation for CIOs, CTOs and DevOps to better see What to Change, What to Change to and just How to Cause the Change. Thank you, Eli!”  —Kevin Behr, co-author of The Phoenix Project 

“Like Mrs. Fields and her cookies, The Goal was too tasty to remain obscure. Companies began buying big batches and management schools included it in their curriculums. —Fortune Magazine

“A survey of the reading habits of managers found that… the one management book they have actually read from cover to cover is The Goal .” —The Economist

“ Goal readers are now doing the best work of their lives.” —Success Magazine

“A factory may be an unlikely setting for a novel, but the book has been wildly effective.” —Tom Peters

Required reading for Amazon’s management

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The Goal of My Writing

This essay was originally published in the October – November 1963 issues of The Objectivist Newsletter and later anthologized in The Romantic Manifesto (1969 and 1971).

The motive and purpose of my writing is the projection of an ideal man. The portrayal of a moral ideal, as my ultimate literary goal, as an end in itself — to which any didactic, intellectual or philosophical values contained in a novel are only the means.

Let me stress this: my purpose is not the philosophical enlightenment of my readers, it is not the beneficial influence which my novels may have on people, it is not the fact that my novels may help a reader’s intellectual development. All these matters are important, but they are secondary considerations, they are merely consequences and effects, not first causes or prime movers. My purpose, first cause and prime mover is the portrayal of Howard Roark or John Galt or Hank Rearden or Francisco d’Anconia as an end in himself — not as a means to any further end. Which, incidentally, is the greatest value I could ever offer a reader.

This is why I feel a very mixed emotion — part patience, part amusement and, at times, an empty kind of weariness — when I am asked whether I am primarily a novelist or a philosopher (as if these two were antonyms), whether my stories are propaganda vehicles for ideas, whether politics or the advocacy of capitalism is my chief purpose. All such questions are so enormously irrelevant, so far beside the point, so much not my way of coming at things.

My way is much simpler and, simultaneously, much more complex than that, speaking from two different aspects. The simple truth is that I approach literature as a child does: I write — and read — for the sake of the story. The complexity lies in the task of translating that attitude into adult terms.

The specific concretes, the forms of one’s values, change with one’s growth and development. The abstraction “ values ” does not. An adult’s values involve the entire sphere of human activity, including philosophy — most particularly philosophy. But the basic principle — the function and meaning of values in man’s life and in literature — remains the same.

My basic test for any story is: Would I want to meet these characters and observe these events in real life? Is this story an experience worth living through for its own sake? Is the pleasure of contemplating these characters an end in itself?

It’s as simple as that. But that simplicity involves the total of man’s existence.

It involves such questions as: What kind of men do I want to see in real life — and why? What kind of events, that is, human actions, do I want to see taking place — and why? What kind of experience do I want to live through, that is, what are my goals — and why?

It is obvious to what field of human knowledge all these questions belong: to the field of ethics. What is the good? What are the right actions for man to take? What are man’s proper values?

Since my purpose is the presentation of an ideal man, I had to define and present the conditions which make him possible and which his existence requires. Since man’s character is the product of his premises, I had to define and present the kind of premises and values that create the character of an ideal man and motivate his actions; which means that I had to define and present a rational code of ethics. Since man acts among and deals with other men, I had to present the kind of social system that makes it possible for ideal men to exist and to function — a free, productive, rational system, which demands and rewards the best in every man, great or average, and which is, obviously, laissez-faire capitalism.

But neither politics nor ethics nor philosophy are ends in themselves, neither in life nor in literature. Only Man is an end in himself.

Now observe that the practitioners of the literary school diametrically opposed to mine — the school of Naturalism — claim that a writer must reproduce what they call “real life,” allegedly “as it is,” exercising no selectivity and no value-judgments. By “reproduce,” they mean “photograph”; by “real life,” they mean whatever given concretes they happen to observe; by “as it is,” they mean “as it is lived by the people around them.” But observe that these Naturalists — or the good writers among them — are extremely selective in regard to two attributes of literature: style and characterization. Without selectivity, it would be impossible to achieve any sort of characterization whatever, neither of an unusual man nor of an average one who is to be offered as statistically typical of a large segment of the population. Therefore, the Naturalists’ opposition to selectivity applies to only one attribute of literature: the content or subject. It is in regard to his choice of subject that a novelist must exercise no choice, they claim.

The Naturalists have never given an answer to that question — not a rational, logical, noncontradictory answer. Why should a writer photograph his subjects indiscriminately and unselectively? Because they “really’’ happened? To record what really happened is the job of a reporter or of a historian, not of a novelist. To enlighten readers and educate them? That is the job of science, not of literature, of nonfiction writing, not of fiction. To improve men’s lot by exposing their misery? But that is a value-judgment and a moral purpose and a didactic “message” — all of which are forbidden by the Naturalist doctrine. Besides, to improve anything one must know what constitutes an improvement — and to know that, one must know what is the good and how to achieve it — and to know that, one must have a whole system of value-judgments, a system of ethics , which is anathema to the Naturalists.

Thus, the Naturalists’ position amounts to giving a novelist full esthetic freedom in regard to means , but not in regard to ends. He may exercise choice, creative imagination, value-judgments in regard to how he portrays things, but not in regard to what he portrays — in regard to style or characterization, but not in regard to subject. Man — the subject of literature — must not be viewed or portrayed selectively. Man must be accepted as the given, the unchangeable, the not-to-be-judged, the status quo. But since we observe that men do change, that they differ from one another, that they pursue different values, who, then, is to determine the human status quo? Naturalism’s implicit answer is: everybody except the novelist.

The novelist — according to the Naturalist doctrine — must neither judge nor value. He is not a creator, but only a recording secretary whose master is the rest of mankind. Let others pronounce judgments, make decisions, select goals, fight over values and determine the course, the fate and the soul of man. The novelist is the only outcast and deserter of that battle. His is not to reason why — his is only to trot behind his master, notebook in hand, taking down whatever the master dictates, picking up such pearls or such swinishness as the master may choose to drop.

As far as I am concerned, I have too much self-esteem for a job of that kind.

I see the novelist as a combination of prospector and jeweler. The novelist must discover the potential, the gold mine, of man’s soul, must extract the gold and then fashion as magnificent a crown as his ability and vision permit.

Just as men of ambition for material values do not rummage through city dumps, but venture out into lonely mountains in search of gold — so men of ambition for intellectual values do not sit in their backyards, but venture out in quest of the noblest, the purest, the costliest elements. I would not enjoy the spectacle of Benvenuto Cellini making mud-pies.

It is the selectivity in regard to subject — the most severely, rigorously, ruthlessly exercised selectivity — that I hold as the primary, the essential, the cardinal aspect of art. In literature, this means: the story — which means: the plot and the character — which means: the kind of men and events that a writer chooses to portray.

The subject is not the only attribute of art, but it is the fundamental one, it is the end to which all the others are the means. In most esthetic theories, however, the end — the subject — is omitted from consideration, and only the means are regarded as esthetically relevant. Such theories set up a false dichotomy and claim that a slob portrayed by the technical means of a genius is preferable to a goddess portrayed by the technique of an amateur. I hold that both are esthetically offensive; but while the second is merely esthetic incompetence, the first is an esthetic crime.

There is no dichotomy, no necessary conflict between ends and means. The end does not justify the means — neither in ethics nor in esthetics. And neither do the means justify the end: there is no esthetic justification for the spectacle of Rembrandt’s great artistic skill employed to portray a side of beef.

That particular painting may be taken as a symbol of everything I am opposed to in art and in literature. At the age of seven, I could not understand why anyone should wish to paint or to admire pictures of dead fish, garbage cans or fat peasant women with triple chins. Today, I understand the psychological causes of such esthetic phenomena — and the more I understand, the more I oppose them.

In art, and in literature, the end and the means, or the subject and the style, must be worthy of each other.

That which is not worth contemplating in life, is not worth re-creating in art.

Misery, disease, disaster, evil, all the negatives of human existence, are proper subjects of study in life, for the purpose of understanding and correcting them — but are not proper subjects of contemplation for contemplation’s sake. In art, and in literature, these negatives are worth re-creating only in relation to some positive, as a foil, as a contrast, as a means of stressing the positive — but not as an end in themselves.

The “compassionate” studies of depravity which pass for literature today are the dead end and the tombstone of Naturalism. If their perpetrators still claim the justification that these things are “true” (most of them aren’t) — the answer is that this sort of truth belongs in psychological case histories, not in literature. The picture of an infected ruptured appendix may be of great value in a medical textbook — but it does not belong in an art gallery. And an infected soul is a much more repulsive spectacle.

That one should wish to enjoy the contemplation of values, of the good — of man’s greatness, intelligence, ability, virtue, heroism — is self-explanatory. It is the contemplation of the evil that requires explanation and justification; and the same goes for the contemplation of the mediocre, the undistinguished, the commonplace, the meaningless, the mindless.

At the age of seven, I refused to read the children’s equivalent of Naturalistic literature — the stories about the children of the folks next door. They bored me to death. I was not interested in such people in real life; I saw no reason to find them interesting in fiction.

This is still my position today; the only difference is that today I know its full philosophical justification.

As far as literary schools are concerned, I would call myself a Romantic Realist.

Consider the significance of the fact that the Naturalists call Romantic art an “escape.” Ask yourself what sort of metaphysics — what view of life — that designation confesses. An escape — from what? If the projection of value-goals — the projection of an improvement on the given, the known, the immediately available — is an “escape,” then medicine is an “escape” from disease, agriculture is an “escape” from hunger, knowledge is an “escape” from ignorance, ambition is an “escape” from sloth, and life is an “escape” from death. If so, then a hard-core realist is a vermin-eaten brute who sits motionless in a mud puddle, contemplates a pigsty and whines that “such is life.” If that is realism, then I am an escapist. So was Aristotle. So was Christopher Columbus.

There is a passage in The Fountainhead that deals with this issue: the passage in which Howard Roark explains to Steven Mallory why he chose him to do a statue for the Stoddard Temple. In writing that passage, I was consciously and deliberately stating the essential goal of my own work — as a kind of small, personal manifesto: “I think you’re the best sculptor we’ve got. I think it, because your figures are not what men are, but what men could be — and should be. Because you’ve gone beyond the probable and made us see what is possible, but possible only through you. Because your figures are more devoid of contempt for humanity than any work I’ve ever seen. Because you have a magnificent respect for the human being. Because your figures are the heroic in man.”

Today, more than twenty years later, I would want to change — or, rather, to clarify — only two small points. First, the words “more devoid of contempt for humanity” are not too exact grammatically; what I wanted to convey was “ untouched ” by contempt for humanity, while the work of others was touched by it to some extent. Second, the words “possible only through you” should not be taken to mean that Mallory’s figures were impossible metaphysically, in reality; I meant that they were possible only because he had shown the way to make them possible.

“Your figures are not what men are, but what men could be — and should be.”

This line will make it clear whose great philosophical principle I had accepted and was following and had been groping for, long before I heard the name “Aristotle.” It was Aristotle who said that fiction is of greater philosophical importance than history, because history represents things only as they are, while fiction represents them “as they might be and ought to be.”

Why must fiction represent things “as they might be and ought to be”?

My answer is contained in one statement of Atlas Shrugged — and in the implications of that statement: “As man is a being of self-made wealth, so he is a being of self-made soul.”

Just as man’s physical survival depends on his own effort, so does his psychological survival. Man faces two corollary, interdependent fields of action in which a constant exercise of choice and a constant creative process are demanded of him: the world around him and his own soul (by “soul,” I mean his consciousness). Just as he has to produce the material values he needs to sustain his life, so he has to acquire the values of character that enable him to sustain it and that make his life worth living. He is born without the knowledge of either. He has to discover both — and translate them into reality — and survive by shaping the world and himself in the image of his values.

Growing from a common root, which is philosophy, man’s knowledge branches out in two directions. One branch studies the physical world or the phenomena pertaining to man’s physical existence; the other studies man or the phenomena pertaining to his consciousness. The first leads to abstract science, which leads to applied science or engineering, which leads to technology — to the actual production of material values. The second leads to art.

Art is the technology of the soul.

Art is the product of three philosophical disciplines: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics. Metaphysics and epistemology are the abstract base of ethics. Ethics is the applied science that defines a code of values to guide man’s choices and actions — the choices and actions which determine the course of his life; ethics is the engineering that provides the principles and blueprints. Art creates the final product. It builds the model.

Let me stress this analogy: art does not teach — it shows, it displays the full, concretized reality of the final goal. Teaching is the task of ethics. Teaching is not the purpose of an art work, any more than it is the purpose of an airplane. Just as one can learn a great deal from an airplane by studying it or taking it apart, so one can learn a great deal from an art work — about the nature of man, of his soul, of his existence. But these are merely fringe benefits. The primary purpose of an airplane is not to teach man how to fly, but to give him the actual experience of flying. So is the primary purpose of an art work.

Although the representation of things “as they might be and ought to be” helps man to achieve these things in real life, this is only a secondary value. The primary value is that it gives him the experience of living in a world where things are as they ought to be. This experience is of crucial importance to him: it is his psychological life line.

Since man’s ambition is unlimited, since his pursuit and achievement of values is a lifelong process — and the higher the values, the harder the struggle — man needs a moment, an hour or some period of time in which he can experience the sense of his completed task, the sense of living in a universe where his values have been successfully achieved. It is like a moment of rest, a moment to gain fuel to move farther. Art gives him that fuel. Art gives him the experience of seeing the full, immediate, concrete reality of his distant goals.

The importance of that experience is not in what he learns from it, but in that he experiences it. The fuel is not a theoretical principle, not a didactic “message,” but the life-giving fact of experiencing a moment of metaphysical joy — a moment of love for existence.

A given individual may choose to move forward, to translate the meaning of that experience into the actual course of his own life; or he may fail to live up to it and spend the rest of his life betraying it. But whatever the case may be, the art work remains intact, an entity complete in itself, an achieved, realized, immovable fact of reality — like a beacon raised over the dark crossroads of the world, saying: “ This is possible.”

No matter what its consequences, that experience is not a way station one passes, but a stop, a value in itself. It is an experience about which one can say: “I am glad to have reached this in my life.” There are not many experiences of that kind to be found in the modern world.

I have read a great many novels of which nothing remains in my mind but the dry rustle of scraps long since swept away. But the novels of Victor Hugo, and a very few others, were an unrepeatable experience to me, a beacon whose every brilliant spark is as alive as ever.

This aspect of art is difficult to communicate — it demands a great deal of the viewer or reader — but I believe that many of you will understand me introspectively.

There is a scene in The Fountainhead which is a direct expression of this issue. I was, in a sense, both characters in that scene, but it was written primarily from the aspect of myself as the consumer, rather than the producer, of art; it was based on my own desperate longing for the sight of human achievement. I regarded the emotional meaning of that scene as entirely personal, almost subjective — and I did not expect it to be shared by anyone. But that scene proved to be the one most widely understood and most frequently mentioned by the readers of The Fountainhead .

It is the opening scene of Part IV, between Howard Roark and the boy on the bicycle.

The boy thought that “man’s work should be a higher step, an improvement on nature, not a degradation. He did not want to despise men; he wanted to love and admire them. But he dreaded the sight of the first house, poolroom and movie poster he would encounter on his way. . . . He had always wanted to write music, and he could give no other identity to the thing he sought. . . . Let me see that in one single act of man on earth. Let me see it made real. Let me see the answer to the promise of that music. . . . Don’t work for my happiness, my brothers — show me yours — show me that it is possible — show me your achievement — and the knowledge will give me courage for mine.”

This is the meaning of art in man’s life.

It is from this perspective that I will now ask you to consider the meaning of Naturalism — the doctrine which proposes to confine men to the sight of slums, poolrooms, movie posters and on down, much farther down.

It is the Romantic or value-oriented vision of life that the Naturalists regard as “superficial” — and it is the vision which extends as far as the bottom of a garbage can that they regard as “profound.”

It is rationality, purpose and values that they regard as naive — while sophistication, they claim, consists of discarding one’s mind, rejecting goals, renouncing values and writing four-letter words on fences and sidewalks.

Scaling a mountain, they claim, is easy — but rolling in the gutter is a noteworthy achievement.

Those who seek the sight of beauty and greatness are motivated by fear, they claim — they who are the embodiments of chronic terror — while it takes courage to fish in cesspools.

Man’s soul — they proclaim with self-righteous pride — is a sewer.

Well, they ought to know.

It is a significant commentary on the present state of our culture that I have become the object of hatred, smears, denunciations, because I am famous as virtually the only novelist who has declared that her soul is not a sewer, and neither are the souls of her characters, and neither is the soul of man.

The motive and purpose of my writing can best be summed up by saying that if a dedication page were to precede the total of my work, it would read: To the glory of Man.

And if anyone should ask me what it is that I have said to the glory of Man, I will answer only by paraphrasing Howard Roark. I will hold up a copy of Atlas Shrugged and say: “The explanation rests.”

(October-November 1963)

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Buy The Book: The Romantic Manifesto

Objectivism’s View of Art and Its Role in Man’s Life

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• Writing an essay on a book

Dec 4, 2019 | Writing , Essay Writing , Writing guide

It is common knowledge that not every student likes writing. There is a lot that is involved in this task such that the student feels too overwhelmed at times. These students have no other choice but to tow the line and write assignments that will help them to get good grades. One such assignment involves writing an essay about a book. The idea is to give the audience a good opinion of the work such that they can decide to reads it or not. Even though literature is not among the most favorite subjects even in high school, the student is still expected to bring his A-game.

If the assignment requires you to write an essay on book, be ready to go through everything necessary for its success. Think of all the aspects that make the book interesting or not. Follow the author has discussed the various aspects in that piece of literature. It is your prerogative to know how to write an essay on a book, whether you like it or not.

Writing essays on books is a common assignment that you will have to face. As such, you are supposed to take a stand on a given work. You have to analyze it in the bigger context as well as analyze the themes therein. You also have to pay attention to the literary merit of the author. This means you have to read the book severally to understand everything about it. You have to capture what the authority intended to be the primary message of the work. Remember, after reading, it is the only time you can take up a stance on the work. This will help you to formulate an excellent thesis statement to make your writing more focused. This is one of the best techniques you can apply when you want to know how to write an essay for a book.

What you gain from this essay

One of the important things that you can gain from writing essays on a book is that you enhance your understanding of the work. It is also a chance for you to work hard for those good grades that you want. This is an assignment you need to take seriously, as it not only leaves with good grades but also with excellent skills of analyzing a given piece of literature in a better way that you would have before. Henceforth, you will be writing better assignments, whether or not you are reviewing a book or not.

Quick pointers to write a better essay on a book

Before proceeding further, you can take these quick tips that can help you in the first instances. They include the following.

Select a book

If you have not been issued with a book, you can select one and decide to write an essay on it. This should be a book that is interesting to you and by extension, to the audience. However, remember that the audience may or may not have read the book. As such, you should be careful about the details that you divulge here.

Determine the goal for the length

This essay is likely to have a predetermined number of words. As such, you should read the book bearing in mind that you have a limitation on the number of words you can write. As such, be ready with a good strategy that will enable you to write a very competent essay about a book.

Decide the format and the style

If you are lucky enough to choose the format for yourself, choose something that you are familiar with. This will make your work easy because you will have control over everything. On the other hand, if you have been given a format to follow, ensure that you familiarize yourself with it before you even start writing the essays on book.

Need help in writing an essay? Essaymin has expert writers to help you

Read the assigned book.

The best way to capture the essence of a book as you seek to know how to write an essay on a book is to read the work. You cannot capture the message of the book with the first reading; hove well you are at it. You have to read the work severally, identifying different aspects that make the work stand out or fail in one way or the other. Reading is important, and you should invest time in it. This is the only way you get to write an excellent piece of essay on a book.

Formulate an excellent thesis statement

Remember that this is an academic assignment. As such, you have to follow all the rules. One of the best ways you will make your essays on book focused is to formulate a very strong thesis statement. This thesis statement is based on the content of the book. It is your stance on the work that you are going to defend through the points you discuss. Your thesis statement ought to be a single sentence or two at most. Use it to pitch your idea to the audience and use as much evidence as possible. The best way to defend your thesis statement is to choose memorable direct quotes from the book to back up your stance on the work.

Your thesis must be insightful enough and must have a very clear counter-argument. For instance, if in the book you believe that the protagonist left his lover because of the tragic upbringing and not because of infidelity and are sure that this argument can sustain your essay, you should sate your stance about hat idea. In most cases, thesis statements are written as the last sentences of the introduction paragraph.

With your thesis statement intact, you already have your thoughts organized. You also have a very good approach that you are going to apply when writing essays on a book.

Formulate a good introduction

This is where you start throwing a spanner into the works. One of the best tricks to know how to write an essay for a book is to grab the attention of the audience from the start; your opening sentence should be striking enough to have the audience drooling for more. This is where you give the background of the book as we as its author. Close your introduction with your thesis statement. This will serve as a reminder to the audience of what the work is all about. It is also a transitional way of introducing the audience to the first topic sentence you are going to talk about in the first paragraph of the body.

The body paragraphs

To write excellent body paragraphs for your essays on a book, you have to present all your arguments. These arguments can never be discussed in a single paragraph. You should divide them into points; then make them topic sentences, each of which takes a single paragraph. The work is to ensure that the topic sentence that you formulate relates to your thesis statement. Remember that everything you are writing here must relate to the book that you are analyzing. The evidence that you use per paragraph must come from the book. This can be direct quotes or paraphrases that are duly cited.

The relevance of the points you make relies on how they connect to the central argument. As such, one of the ways to know how to write an essay on a book It ensures that he pieces of evidence and information you use are strong enough to prove your claims about the book, since you are trying to tell the audience if the book is worth it or not, you should be very convincing enough. Analyze, interpret, and present specific themes within the book. It can be themes, character motivations, rising actions, and all other elements of the book that you think will adequately support the central theme of your essay.

This should happen for every paragraph you write. If you have three body paragraphs, ensure they have distinct evidence from the book as support, and by far, they should help you prove what you want the audience to know. Remember that you are trying to give an honest opinion that is based on facts, albeit from your point of view. As such, work hard to defend it.

Using transitions in our work

Another tip of knowing how to write an essay on a book is that you have to use transition. This enhances the flow of your ideas. The audience can follow how you organize your thoughts easily. This not only adds to the readability of your paper but also positions you to get a good grade in the end. The smooth transition from claim to claim makes it easier for the audience to piece all your positions together. They will see the value of your argument. The idea o using transitions is no only used when writing essays on a book, but also in other academic writing tasks. Transitions make your essay more cohesive, thereby achieving its goal easily.

Write your conclusion

This is the last chance you have of making a lasting impression on your audience. It is a time tom wrap the work and ensures that the audience is left with something to think about. The conclusion of your essays on a book allows you to restate your thesis statement. When doing so, you are not necessarily writing it verbatim as it is I the introduction. Some other words that do not negate its meaning in the first place. More so, you can also summarize the points that you have discussed in the body of your essays on book. Emphasize more on the significance of the work. Let the audience know if you are going to recommend it for them. However, the concludes is no to place where you can introduce new evidence or facts or anything else that you ave not discussed on the body of your paper. That would be too much and rightly so because it would go through the readers into confusion.

Revise and edit your work

For you to ensure you have covered everything well in that paper, revise everything. You can go through it to ensure you have covered everything you wanted in it. The idea is to ensure that the paper represents your points well. It is also a way to check whether you have covered all the aspects outlined by your instructor. Rest assured that you would have achieved a very crucial goal of writing a review about a literary work.

As you proofread, look at the grammatical mistakes, punctuation’s as well as the spelling of words, the idea is to ensure that you present a paper that is free of mistakes. Once you are satisfied with your revision and proofreading , you can prepare the final copy of your wok.

Those are the simple points you need to know on how to write an essay for a book. If there are problems with the assignment, you can always trust our online writing services . We shall help you with his assignment and many more. Trust our services and enjoy good grades henceforth.

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Guest Essay

How Iran and Israel Are Unnatural Adversaries

By Karim Sadjadpour

Mr. Sadjadpour is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“History is littered,” the British writer and politician Enoch Powell said, “with the wars which everybody knew would never happen.”

A full-blown conflict between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Israel once seemed implausible. But last month, the long-running shadow war between the two nations burst into the open in a series of unprecedented drone and missile strikes, raising the specter of a fight that would contain enough advanced technology, paramilitary forces and mutual acrimony to incinerate large parts of the Middle East, collapse the global economy and entangle the United States and other major powers.

Now the two sides appear to have hit pause, but for how long? As long as Iran is ruled by an Islamist government that puts its revolutionary ideology before the national interest, the two countries will never know peace, and the Middle East will never know meaningful stability.

Iran and Israel are not natural adversaries. In contrast to other modern conflicts — between Israel and Palestine, Russia and Ukraine, China and Taiwan — Iran and Israel have no bilateral land or resource disputes. Their national strengths — Iran is an energy titan and Israel is a tech innovator — are more complementary than competitive. The nations also have a historical affinity dating back over 2,500 years, when the Persian King Cyrus the Great freed the Jews from the Babylonian Captivity. Iran was the second Muslim nation, after Turkey, to recognize Israel after its founding in 1948.

Their modern animosity is best understood through the lens of ideology, not geopolitics. It began with the rise of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the dogmatic Shiite cleric who led the 1979 revolution that transformed Iran from a U.S.-allied monarchy into an anti-American theocracy. Khomeini’s 1970 treatise “ Islamic Government ,” which became the basis of the constitution that governs the Islamic Republic, is laced with tirades and threats against “wretched” and “satanic” Jews. Then, as now, antisemitism often lurked below the surface of anti-imperialism.

“We must protest and make the people aware that the Jews and their foreign backers are opposed to the very foundations of Islam and wish to establish Jewish domination throughout the world,” Khomeini wrote. “Since they are a cunning and resourceful group of people, I fear that — God forbid — they may one day achieve their goal and that the apathy shown by some of us may allow a Jew to rule over us one day.”

In the same manifesto, Khomeini casually advocates what in modern parlance is best understood as ethnic cleansing. “Islam,” he wrote, “has rooted out numerous groups that were a source of corruption and harm to human society.” He went on to cite the case of a “troublesome” Jewish tribe in Medina that he said was “eliminated” by the Prophet Muhammad.

Very few of the Iranian revolutionaries and Western progressives who backed Khomeini in 1979 — some of whom compared him with Mohandas K. Gandhi — had bothered to scrutinize his vision for Iran. Once in power, he built his newfound theocracy on three ideological pillars: death to America, death to Israel and the subjugation of women.

Over four decades later, the worldview of Iran’s current rulers has evolved little. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Khomeini’s 85-year-old successor and now one of the world’s longest-serving dictators, denounces Zionism in virtually every speech and was one of the few world leaders to publicly praise Hamas’s “epic” Oct. 7 attack on Israel. “We will support and assist any nation or any group anywhere,” Ayatollah Khamenei said in 2020, “who opposes and fights the Zionist regime.”

As Ayatollah Khamenei’s words make plain, the Islamic Republic of Iran is one of the few governments in the world more dedicated to abolishing another nation than advancing its own. “Death to Israel” is the regime’s rallying cry — not “Long live Iran.”

Ayatollah Khamenei’s regime has backed this language with action. Iran has spent tens of billions of dollars arming, training and financing proxy militias in five failing nations: Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, Iraq and Yemen. Together these groups constitute its so-called Axis of Resistance against America and Israel. These groups are elbow-deep in corruption and repression in their own societies, including illicit drug dealing and piracy , while pledging that they seek justice for Palestinians.

Hostility toward Israel is a useful tool for predominantly Shiite, Persian Iran to vie for leadership in the predominantly Sunni, Arab Middle East. But it should not be confused with concern for the well-being of Palestinians. In contrast to American, European and Arab governments that fund Palestinian human welfare initiatives, Iran has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into arming and financing Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Iran’s goal is not to build a Palestine but to demolish Israel.

And yet as much as the Islamic Republic is committed to its ideology, it is even more committed to staying in power. As the German American philosopher Hannah Arendt once put it, “The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative on the day after the revolution.” As its careful response to Israel’s recent military strikes on Iran showed, when faced with the possibility of full-blown war or existential economic pressure, Tehran tactically retreats.

After decades of living under an economically failing, socially repressive police state, Iran’s people long ago recognized that the greatest obstacle between themselves and a normal life is their own leadership, not America or Israel. In a 2021 public opinion poll conducted from Europe, only around one-fifth of Iranians approved of their government’s support of Hamas and “Death to Israel” slogan. Few nations have Iran’s combination of natural resource wealth, human capital, geographic size and ancient history. This enormous gap between Iran’s potential and its citizens’ reality is one reason the country has experienced numerous mass uprisings over the past two decades.

Iran’s Axis of Resistance has empowered right-wing Israeli politicians far more than Palestinians over the past two decades. The threat of a Holocaust-denying Iranian regime with regional and nuclear ambitions has stoked Israeli anxieties, diverted attention from Palestinian suffering and facilitated normalization agreements between Israel and Arab governments equally fearful of Iran. Indeed, Iran and its proxies were such a useful adversary that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu helped prop up Hamas’s rule in Gaza until the deadly attacks of Oct. 7.

“The dream of Israeli leaders,” a retired Israeli general, Amos Yadlin, told me recently, “is to one day restore normal relations with an Iranian government.”

The dream of Iran’s Islamist leaders, on the other hand, is to end Israel’s existence. Israel’s conflict with Iran has been a war of necessity, but Iran’s conflict with Israel has been a war of choice. It won’t be over until Iran has leaders who put Iranians’ interests over Israel’s destruction.

Karim Sadjadpour is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

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Like Love by Maggie Nelson review – music, passion and friendship

Vibrant essays from the author of The Argonauts touch on art, inspiration, and many of the central dilemmas of our times

“A s a child I had so much energy I’d lie awake and feel my organs smolder,” Maggie Nelson wrote in 2005’s Jane: A Murder . She was a dancer before she was a writer and you can feel the commitment to the fire of bodily motion in her masterpieces: the shimmeringly brutal excavation of girlhood and violence in Jane , the story of her aunt’s killing at the hands of a rapist; the clear-headed yet ecstatic celebration of the transformations of pregnancy and top surgery, and the new kind of family she and her trans partner brought into being in The Argonauts (2015). Her dedication to the material finds the forms it needs; I don’t think she sets out to bend genres. Instead, her high-stakes eviscerations of body settle into radically new forms.

Is this the energy of the rebel or the valedictorian? For decades, Nelson has parted her hair, fastened her top button, won the right grades and grants while throwing herself voluptuously into the counterculture, dreaming of being an “ electric ribbon of horniness and divine grace ” like one of her inspirations, Prince . It’s an American energy – expansive, new, full of power, pleasure, change and motion; a frontier energy, even when she’s writing about New York. We can hear Whitman behind her, and Emerson. “Power ceases in the instant of repose,” Emerson pronounces in Self-Reliance ; “it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of a gulf, in the darting to an aim.”

A decade after The Argonauts became the bible of English graduates everywhere, the essays in Like Love arrive to help us understand Nelson’s place in a culture where, to her half-delight, she has become such a powerful voice. Spanning two decades, they range from appreciations of influences including Prince and Judith Butler , to wild, freefalling conversations with figures such as Björk, Wayne Koestenbaum and Jacqueline Rose. There is a passionate, wondering account of her formative half-erotic friendship with the singer Lhasa de Sela . The writing isn’t consistent, any more than her books are. But I like to take my thinkers and writers whole, as she does. The essays offer a kind of composite self-portrait, and illustrate how she thinks, sometimes painstakingly, sometimes with casual jubilance, about some of the central dilemmas of our time.

In the face of the climate crisis, how to avoid “giving in to the narcissistic spectacle of the slo-mo Titanic going down”? In the face of the crisis in feminism, how and whether to move beyond sexual difference? The written exchanges show her interlocutors thinking it through, too. “ You dare to step into the future like no one else atm ,” Björk says. It’s true. This is where all that restless energy is leading. This is why she’s an Emersonian, shying away from nihilism. “There are new lands, new men, new thoughts,” Emerson wrote in Nature , discarding the “dry bones” of his ancestors; “Let us demand our own works and laws and worship.”

In her powerful piece on the artist Carolee Schneemann , Nelson posits her as a female incarnation of Emerson’s self-reliant man. But it’s Nelson herself who proffers new laws and worship – whose project amounts to a practical philosophy of contemporary American culture. In The Argonauts she offers the gift of a future we can somehow share; one that acknowledges the miseries of the present, that has space for dreams, but is obstinately material and in our world. Here, in dialogue with Jacqueline Rose, she proposes that “ Everybody deserves the kind of non-stultifying internal breathing space of fluidity or instability that is attributed to queers, or to women, or whatever.”

Like Love’s title comes from writer and theatre critic Hilton Als ’s vision of a group on the subway not as white women or black men but as mouths that need filling “with something wet or dry, like love, or unfamiliar and savory, like love”. Nelson, too, is drawn to mouths – to orifices in general – as organs of pleasure and pain, and as portals enabling a radical openness.

Because Nelson likes writing about her friends, there’s a kind of homogeneity to much of the book that cumulatively left me feeling a little claustrophobic, longing especially for the roominess of time travel. With the exception of 2009’s Bluets , Nelson’s writing is so located in the postwar world that the past can feel entirely absent. This is her affinity with Emerson and Whitman again – her song to the future – but I wonder if I’m alone in wishing that, alongside those two often acknowledged ancestors, her future could have artists, activists and libertines from earlier centuries informing it, too.

Which is not to say that she’s wrong to write about the people in her circle. The brutality of the present moment may require us precisely to batten down the hatches and commit to extreme solidarity. At a time when institutional life is collapsing, when the pandemic privileged family over friends, when work expands in ways that leave many too exhausted to socialise, Nelson demonstrates what it means to dedicate yourself to a cohort with seriousness and strenuousness. “You, to me, quickly became an inspiration,” she tells the poet Brian Blanchfield , “a brother, a support in times of seriously dark waters, an editor, a lender of excellent and pivotal books, a cheerleader, a colleague, a couch sleeper (and couch mover), a fellow swimmer … a corrupting gambler, (queer) family.” Like Love may be one of the most movingly specific, the most lovingly unruly celebrations of the ethics of friendship we have.

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Indonesia vs Guinea 1-0: Paris 2024 Olympic football – as it happened

All our updates as Guinea beat Indonesia to seal the final men’s football spot at the Summer Games.

This page is now closed. Thanks for joining us. These were the updates as Guinea beat Indonesia 1-0 in the playoff for the final men’s football place at the Paris 2024 Olympics on Thursday, May 9:

• Guinea beat Indonesia 1-0 in the intercontinental playoff to book the last remaining men’s football spot at the Paris Olympics this year.
• Ilaix Moriba scored the only goal of the match, which was played at the Centre National du Football de Clairefontaine in France.
• Indonesia finished fourth in the men’s Under 23 AFC Asian Cup 2024 in Qatar.
• Guinea had a similar result in the CAF Africa Under 23 Cup of Nations 2023 in Morocco.
• Guinea now line up in an Olympic group alongside the United States, France and New Zealand.

It’s a wrap!

Thank you for joining us for the coverage of the Olympic qualifiers for the men’s football tournament.

It’s a goodbye from me, Manasi Pathak, on behalf of the Al Jazeera Sport team.

More to come from Al Jazeera Sport

The Olympic qualifiers for the Paris 2024 Games are done but there is still a lot of live football waiting for you.

We will be back with the coverage of the Premier League at the weekend, where reigning champions Manchester City visit Fulham on Saturday, while contenders Arsenal play away to Manchester United on Sunday. Liverpool, who are also in the title race, travel to Aston Villa on Monday night.

Full lineup for Paris Olympics

Here’s what the groups will look like at the Summer Games:

Group A: France, USA, Guinea, New Zealand Group B: Argentina, Morocco, Iraq, Ukraine Group C: Uzbekistan, Spain, Egypt, Dominican Republic Group D: Japan, Paraguay, Mali, Israel

Moriba’s penalty seals Guinea’s Olympic dream

Moriba’s first-half penalty has proven enough for Guinea to secure their spot at the Olympics after 56 years! They last played at the 1968 Games in Mexico City.

The team players are dancing on the pitch as they thank the fans in the stands for their support and celebrate their achievement.

Full-time: Indonesia 0-1 Guinea

Off goes the whistle. Guinea have beaten Indonesia, and the West Africans are off to the Paris Olympics!

The contingent for the men’s football tournament at the Summer Games is complete.

Indonesia’s long throw-in blocked

Arhan delivers a powerful and long throw-in into the penalty box, but the Guinea keeper Sylla comes off his line to punch it away.

Three more minutes remaining!

90+5 mins: Indonesia 0-1 Guinea

Guinea pushing forward

The West Africans are trying for a second goal here, trying to create a chance from the right side. No success so far as their winger is stopped inside the Indonesian box.

90+4 mins: Indonesia 0-1 Guinea

Soumah misses a sitter

Toure turns and passes the ball to fellow substitute Soumah in front of goal, but the latter wastes the opportunity to double their lead as he shoots over.

90+2 mins: Indonesia 0-1 Guinea

8 minutes added

Not long before Guinea can fulfil their Olympic dream.

90 mins: Indonesia 0-1 Guinea

Guinea sitting back

With the clock ticking, Guinea’s players are happy to defend deep until the referee blows the full-time whistle. That is inviting pressure from the Indonesians, who are desperate to attack.

87 mins: Indonesia 0-1 Guinea

Indonesia pick up the pace

The clock is ticking, and Indonesia are committing more bodies forward.

They can’t breach the Guinea box as the defence stand firm for the Africans.

83 mins: Indonesia 0-1 Guinea

Costly miss by Algassime

The spot kick was not the first chance Algassime has squandered in the game. He missed a few attempts earlier in the second as well.

He would be hoping Guinea do not suffer because of his error.

80 mins: Indonesia 0-1 Guinea

Algassime misses from the spot!

The forward’s low shot towards the bottom left corner hits the post! He can’t believe it!

78 mins: Indonesia 0-1 Guinea

Red card for Indonesia coach

Indonesia’s coach has been given a red card and will have to leave the technical area after appealing against the penalty decision.

75 mins: Indonesia 0-1 Guinea

Penalty for Guinea!

Algassime is clipped inside the penalty area by Indonesia’s substitute Dewangga. The referee signals to the spot.

73 mins: Indonesia 0-1 Guinea

Aguibou injured

The Guinean is down after a challenge from an Indonesian player. A lot of players have picked up knocks in this game, which might be concerning as the Olympic Games are not far away.

70 mins: Indonesia 0-1 Guinea

Ferdinan’s attempt

The Indonesian enters the Guinea box from the left wing and and tries to shoot from the centre of the box, only to send his shot into the Guinean defence in the centre.

Indonesia still trailing here in this Olympic qualifier.

67 mins: Indonesia 0-1 Guinea

Sulaeman tumbles

Indonesia have a chance to break on the counter after Guinea give away the ball, but Sulaeman can’t keep the ball with him on the left wing as he tumbles after a little shove-in by Aguibou.

64 mins: Indonesia 0-1 Guinea

Missed opportunity for Indonesia

Substitute Dewangga squanders a chance to net the equaliser for Indonesia as he sends his header wide of the far post from a free kick.

61 mins: Indonesia 0-1 Guinea

Another chance for Guinea

Soumah, from the middle of the park, picks out Aglassime with a clean pass, but Aglassime’s shot inside the box is blocked by the Indonesian central defender.

60 mins: Indonesia 0-1 Guinea

Goal-line save!

Guinea scuff a chance to extend their lead as Soumah’s shot from close range is blocked by the Indonesian defenders on the goal line!

Soumah was picked up in front of the goal by Algassime from the left with an inch-perfect cross after Keita started the move from deep midfield.

55 mins: Indonesia 0-1 Guinea

Algassime offside

The Guinea forward tries to run forward to get on the end of an aerial ball played deep from defence, but he fails. He was offside in the build-up anyway, so his attempt would not have counted.

50 mins: Indonesia 0-1 Guinea

Teguh injured near halfway line

Teguh seems to have hurt his leg upon an awkward landing after an aerial challenge with a Guinea player. He receives some medical treatment and will be replaced immediately.

47 mins: Indonesia 0-1 Guinea

Second half begins

Can Guinea extend their lead or will Indonesia bounce back in the second half? Let’s see!

46 mins: Indonesia 0-1 Guinea

It went from bad to worse at the AFC U17 Women’s Asian Cup for Indonesia

Indonesia’s Women suffered a 12-0 defeat at the hands of South Korea’s Women in their Group A meeting at the AFC U17 Asian Cup.

Can the Men’s U23 team put a smile back on Indonesian faces and qualify for the Olympics?

FT | 🇰🇷 Korea Republic 1️⃣2️⃣-0️⃣ Indonesia 🇮🇩 Korea Republic reignite their campaign with a masterful performance! #U17WAC | #KORvIDN pic.twitter.com/0Hetw4pJiR — #AsianCup2023 (@afcasiancup) May 9, 2024

Trump-affiliated group releases new national security book outlining possible second-term approach

A research group that’s trying to lay the groundwork for a second Trump administration if the former president wins in November is out with a new policy book that aims to articulate an “America First” national security agenda

WASHINGTON — Making future military aid to Ukraine contingent on the country participating in peace talks with Russia . Banning Chinese nationals from buying property within a 50-mile radius of U.S. government buildings. Filling the national security sector with acolytes of Donald Trump .

One of several groups trying to lay the groundwork for a second Trump administration if the former Republican president wins in November is out with a new policy book that aims to articulate an “America First” national security agenda.

The book, shared with The Associated Press before its release Thursday, is the latest effort from the America First Policy Institute. Like the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025,” the group is seeking to help Trump avoid the mistakes of 2016, when he entered the White House largely unprepared.

Beyond its policy efforts, the institute’s transition project has been working to draft dozens of executive orders and developing a training program for future political appointees. Heritage has been building an extensive personnel database and offering its own policy manuals.

Both groups stress they are independent from Trump’s campaign, which has repeatedly tried to distance itself from such efforts, insisting that the only Trump-backed policies are those the candidate articulates himself.

Still Fred Fleitz, the book’s editor, noted that he and retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who served for a time as Trump’s acting national security adviser and wrote several of the chapters, have been in frequent touch with the former president, soliciting feedback and discussing topics such as Ukraine at length.

“We hope this is where he is. We’re not speaking for him, but I think he will approve,” said Fleitz, who formerly served as the National Security Council’s chief of staff.

He said he hopes the book will serve as “a guidebook that will be an intellectual foundation for the America First approach” to national security “that’s easy to use.”

“It’s a grand strategy,” added Kellogg. “You don’t start with the policies first. You start with the strategies first. And that’s what we’ve done.”

The group casts the current trajectory of U.S. national security as a failure, thanks to a foreign policy establishment it accuses of having embraced an interventionist and “globalist” approach at the expense of America’s national interests.

While short on specifics, the book offers some guideposts to how a future Trump administration could approach foreign policy issues such as Russia's war against Ukraine . Trump has said, that if elected, he would solve the conflict before Inauguration Day in January, but has declined to say how.

The book’s chapter on the war spends more time discussing how the conflict unfolded than how to end it. But it says the U.S. should make future military aid contingent on Ukraine participating in peace talks with Russia.

It predicts the Ukrainian army will likely lose ground over time and advises against the U.S. continuing “to send arms to a stalemate that Ukraine will eventually find difficult to win.” But once there is a peace agreement, it says the U.S. would continue to arm Ukraine as a deterrent to Russia.

The authors seem to endorse a framework in which Ukraine “would not be asked to relinquish the goal of regaining all its territory” but would agree to diplomacy “with the understanding that this would require a future diplomatic breakthrough which probably will not occur before (Russian President Vladimir) Putin leaves office.”

It acknowledges that Ukrainians “will have trouble accepting a negotiated peace that does not give back all of their territory or, at least for now, hold Russia responsible for the carnage it inflicted on Ukraine. Their supporters will also. But as Donald Trump said at the CNN town hall in 2023, ‘I want everyone to stop dying.’ That’s our view, too. It is a good first step.”

The book blames Democratic President Joe Biden for the war and repeats Trump’s claim that Putin never would have invaded if Trump had been in office . Its main argument in defense of that claim is that Putin saw Trump as strong and decisive. In fact, Trump cozied up to the Russian leader and was reluctant to challenge him.

The bulk of the chapter is spent laying out an at times erroneous timeline of Biden’s handling of the war.

Going forward, it suggests Putin could be persuaded to join peace talks if Biden and other NATO leaders offer to put off NATO membership for Ukraine for an extended period. It suggests that the U.S. instead establish a “long-term security architecture for Ukraine’s defense that focuses on bilateral security defense.” It provides no explanation of what this would entail. It also calls for placing levies on Russian energy sales to pay for reconstruction in Ukraine.

The book is critical of Trump’s transition efforts in 2016, bemoaning a broad lack of preparation before Trump took office.

“The tumultuous transition of 2016/2017 did not serve President Trump and the nation well and slowed the advancement and implementation of his agenda,” the authors wrote. For instance, they note that before the election, Democrat Hillary Clinton’s transition team had submitted more than 1,000 names for future security clearance. Trump’s team submitted just 25.

The group says it has identified roughly 1,200 national security-related positions that the next administration will need to fill and urges it to be ready on Day 1 with Trump loyalists who adhere to the “America First” approach.

“It’s not about retaliating against people or trying to politicize government positions. It’s about making sure government workers do their job and keep politics out of their work,” Fleitz said.

The book describes China as the nation’s most pressing national security threat, eager to displace the U.S. as the world’s premier power. It proposes a hawkish policy that builds on approaches from both the Trump years and the Biden administration with the goal of making Beijing’s policies “largely irrelevant to American life.”

It elevates economic concerns with China to those of national security and proposes a reciprocal approach that would deny Beijing access to U.S. markets in the same way American companies have been denied in China.

The book also recommends more rigorous screening of cyber and tech companies owned by U.S. adversaries, especially China, to make sure they are not collecting sensitive information. It also recommends that Chinese nationals be banned from buying property within a 50-mile radius of any U.S. government property.

It calls for visa restrictions on Chinese students wishing to study in the United States and for the banning of TikTok and other Chinese apps out of concerns for data privacy. Trump, however, has spoken out against a law that would force TikTok’s sale or block U.S. access.

The analysts’ views of what an “America First” policy looks like often reflect the writers’ personal focuses.

For Ellie Cohanim, a former Trump deputy State Department envoy charged with monitoring and combating antisemitism, “America First” looks a lot like a shopping list for the Israeli military.

The U.S. should rush Israel a squadron of “25 Lockheed Martin F-35s, one squadron of Boeing’s F-15 EX, and a squadron of Apache E attack helicopters,” Cohanim wrote.

The U.S. should give some of its billions of dollars in military funding to Israel in Israeli currency so Israel can spend it at home, and Washington should push Arab states to foot the bill for the rebuilding of Gaza and accept Israel’s shelving any political talks with the Palestinians pending an indefinite period of compulsory deradicalization for the Palestinian people, she wrote.

Colvin reported from New York. Associated Press writer Rebecca Santana contributed to this report.