True. I’ve been trying to frame the problem. My concern is that we could be trivialising the challenges that lie ahead. Please see below…

In terms of hope, I think there is some. My feel is that folk generally want to be nice to each other, and I agree with you that the arrow of history has generally pointed in that direction.

For humane relationships to exists, I think there needs to be a human connection. History has shown what can happen when people objectify others and no longer see them as people the same as them….

Unfortunately our financial system is designed to maintain distance between people with capital (investors), and those they rely upon to earn a return on that capital (workers). With this distance, abuse is inevitable I feel, as born out in the recent financial crisis….

I was involved in the periphery of the Occupy movement, and whilst on the wain now it gave me a good deal of hope… People are beginning to connect the dots… and in doing so narrow the distance… What my pension fund manager choses to do with my pension contributions (101K) has a direct relationship to the wellbeing of others… and my impact on the world.

All those people whose homes were repossessed are real people, and for most their only crime was trusting a financial services industry which was morally bankrupt..

With this awareness there is hope that ordinary people will start to employ their savings in more meaningful and humane ways…. Investing may no longer become something we leave to others, whilst only taking an interest in the bottom line on our annual portfolio statement…

Things like crowd sourcing…. micro lending etc, are ways of building a human connection between investors and workers and this in time may perhaps create the basis for the humane relationships in the workplace that you advocate…

So there is hope. I guess what I’ve been trying to say is that the problem is much bigger then we may first think, and there will be resistance, that goes beyond mere ignorance. The 1% that are doing pretty well as things are now, may not welcome change …

Even so, listening to someone like Warren Buffet advocate tax reform is a reminder that most of us have a sense of social connectedness,… irrespective of our wealth, and in the long run this humane trait may finally win through 🙂

Paul.

I think you’re answering a normative observation “management is bad” with a descriptive statement “management exists and has done for ages”. One does not negate the other.

“How many years will it take before society comes to regard “management” – power-over relationships, hierarchies, violence, and so on – as being a social taboo on a par with the status of drink driving, today?”

You ask a good question. I don’t think the analogy holds though. Drunk drivers never really had a legitimate argument 🙂 It was always just a matter of time before society made it taboo.

Whilst management is very different, it does serve a legitimate purpose. Karl Marx explains the relationship between owners (capital) and workers (labour) very well. Management is the jam in the sandwich. How the two halves meet.

Click to access value-price-profit.pdf

You mention hierarchy:

People who don’t work and invest capital -> People who are paid to make others work -> People who work

This hierarchy has existed for a very long time. As I’ve mentioned before, you can trace its history back through industrialisation, and slavery, right back to feudal serfdom. The “idle rich” have always needed Managers, to oversee their workers, otherwise they couldn’t be idle 🙂

Is this hierarchy about to become taboo any time soon? I suspect not. I definitely won’t be holding my breath 🙂

Paul.