This article was originally published in The Abolitionist: A Journal of Libertarian Opinion Volume II, Number 4, July 1971, p. 5. It was early in my IBM career and I was afraid to associate my name with this attack on corporate life. So I used the pseudonym "Disgruntled Grunt." In spite of my negative attitude, I managed to work 30 years for IBM.
by A Disgruntled Grunt
As a person rises in a corporate hierarchy he is given more control over others. The kind of person best for a corporation as a manager is the kind who will use his authority always to advance the interest of the corporation. A company man places the financial interest of his company above the moral principle of treating every person as an end.
Once someone accepts a management position he represents the corporation and is responsible for enforcing company policy on his subordinates. If he wants to continue rising in the hierarchy, a manager must satisfy those above him, but not necessary those below. Managers with ambition must regard those below themselves as resources, as personnel not people, as means not ends. This attitude is immoral.
To be a manager a person must have an authoritarian mentality. That is, he must believe that he has the right to exercise authority over others, that those above him in the chain of command have the right to delegate authority to him, and that he, in turn, has an obligation to respect and enforce their policies.
In a large corporation the policy makers and the policy enforcers are different people. It is the job of the local managers to be the enforcers of the company policy. They are the police of the organization. They have some room for personal judgment, but when an edict is issued, they must enforce it, even if they disagree with it. This would make them hypocrites, except for their remarkable ability to adapt. People don't like to think their own hypocrisy, so whenever it is not expedient to change their actions, what usually happens is, they change their opinions to suit their action. Like good Communists, middle management follows the party line. A new corporate edict causes them to see things in a new light. What was right before is suddenly revealed to be wrong, and what was wrong becomes right when corporate headquarters, for some reason, so decides. The real reasons for corporations changing the way things are done are often not revealed to lower management. Lower management must blindly obey and trust the wisdom of the higher-ups. This devotion is motivated by desire for money and status, encouraged by our consumeristic culture and rationalized by a corruption of the work ethic which glorifies financial success and reveres authority, regardless of how such status is achieved.
The Horatio Alger myth still supports the corporate state. The myth states that through useful diligence, hard work, productivity, creativity, and astuteness at satisfying consumer demands, a person will rise to the top; anyone with these virtues can hope to become chairman of the board of General Motors or IBM. This myth fosters undue respect for those who make it to the top, by ascribing their success to possession of virtues.
In a free market economy there might be some validity to this myth, but it is inapplicable to success in the modern corporate state. In an economy like this one, where the coercive mechanisms of government exert commanding influence, and where bureaucratic organizations are encouraged by the legal structure, it is more important to know the right people, to be in good with those who wield power, and to obey orders, than to be productive.
In a small business, the employer is more directly accountable for his actions than is a manager in a large company. The small businessman does not have the excuse that he is only enforcing the policy of the company. He may have to divulge the real reasons for his actions in face-to-face confrontations with the affected employees. Having to be both policy maker and policy enforcer, an independent businessman might retain more human attributes than the robot management of big bureaucracies.
Unfortunately, small businesses are not as competitive in the present legal environment which is geared for corporate domination. The small businessmen are being driven out of the market. As government has gotten more centralized, bigger, and more powerful, small businessmen can no longer afford to pay the lawyers, bribe the legislators, and lobby for their economic interest. The small businessmen are less competitive in the political sphere and, consequently, less competitive in the economic sphere. The corporations have taken over.
The decision makers in the modern corporate state are so far removed from the flesh and blood consequences of their decisions, and they have been so desensitized over the years that they can't understand, or even imagine, the depth of their own depravity. Only the most ruthless and despicable kind of person can do the things necessary to obtain big government contracts for his company. Only the most thoroughly corrupt, simplemindedly ambitious can lobby, bribe, and propagandize for subsidies, franchises, tax advantages, tariffs, monopolies, patents, regulations etc. favorable to his company and harmful to competitors. Yet, this is the kind of person best suited for upper-management of corporations in the corporate state of the United States today, and this is the kind of person who makes it to the top. This is the kind of person the majority of people are taught to respect and emulate.
It is bad to be well-adjusted to a sick society. To be a success in the corporate state is evidence of corruption no virtue. Those who retain elements of their humanity can't keep pace.
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