The
functional managerial role in modern business is weak by Nietzsche’s standard.
That is to say, a manager is of the vulgar rather than of noble strength. After
highlighting Nietzsche's project more generally, I discuss his notions of
strength and weakness. I then delineate Nietzsche’s attitudes toward wealth,
trade and modern industrial culture—the immediate context for his concept of
the modern business manager. I argue that Nietzsche views this context as decadent.
Within this framework, Nietzsche’s rendering of the primordial commercial
relationship can be taken as his genealogy of the modern business manager.
Finally, I describe the modern business manager as akin to the ascetic priest
in being a herd animal desperately seeking to dominate the herd and,
presumptuously, even the strong.
The full essay has been incorporated into On the Arrogance of False Entitlement: A Nietzschean Critique of Business Ethics and Management, which is available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.
