Managerial Capitalism: Being and Becoming

At first glance, Friedrich Nietzsche’s pro-capitalist stance on private property and the process of accumulating profit (or wealth) may seem to extend a vote of confidence to the business manager as a type. After all, managers manage the private property of stockholders (which can include themselves) with a fiduciary duty to do so to increase shareholder value by maximizing profit. The notion of profit-seeking by maximizing revenue and minimizing cost is arguably too simplistic. Squeezing a workforce too much, for example, can backfire in the long term. Nietzsche was concerned about such a thing happening even though he claims that the vast majority of laborers must be kept to subsistence wages for culture to be possible. He castigates petty, short-sighted managers who do not look out for the spiritual and economic welfare of workers, and yet holds that those workers must be slavish in the sense of being exploited by employers so culture can emerge and be sustained by the rich. To be for such exploitation and yet against petty cost-cutting managers renders Nietzsche’s socioeconomic philosophy interesting as well as useful in terms of keeping a capitalist economy from being reduced to the mentality of its bottom-feeder producers. I first discuss the matter of exploitation and then turn to how Nietzsche addresses his wider socio-economic philosophy more specifically to human-resource management. Within the wider subject-heading of exploitation, very different approaches, or mentalities, to human resource management can be discerned. In dichotomous terms, there can be said to be a pathos of distance between enlightened self-interest and selfish, short-sighted greed.

The full essay is at "Managerial Capitalism."

Corporate Ethics Codes: A Waste of Time?

Ethics codes are not enough; that is to say, making applications of ethical principles explicit is not sufficient, even where they are grilled into employees in recurrent training sessions. Indeed, individuals or a dominant coalition can use a code’s existence as window-dressing. For example, in his letter on July 1, 2000 announcing Enron’s new and improved 65 page Code of Ethics, Ken Lay wrote, “Relations with the Company’s many publics . . . will be conducted in honesty, candor, and fairness.” If Ken Lay could get away with trumpeting a code of ethics, who’s to say who is out there now acting unethically in business under the cover of an effervescent code?

The full essay is at "Corporate Ethics Codes: Oxymorons?"

Balancing Company Rights and Worker Security through Public Policy

It would be a cruel joke were an airline to keep the extendable corridor back as the plane’s front door is opened and passengers are pushed out. Not even having a safety net below would neither be sufficient nor fair. When a government gives companies the flexibility to fire workers without yet having in place vocational safety nets, said government acts negligently and perhaps even with partiality to one side of the labor-management duality. At the very least, the flexibility to fire should be held off until the matter of economic security is finalized. 

The full essay is at "Balancing Company Rights and Worker Security."

Pressuring Employees to Act as Lobbyists on the U.S. Debt: Ethical?

How far a boss can ethically become involved in an employee’s political role as a citizen is a question perhaps more important than whether a business should make demands regarding what an employee does in the privacy of his or her own home (e.g., smoking or drinking products that are legal). It would obviously be objected, for example, were a supervisor to insist on accompanying a subordinate into the voting booth to verify the vote. What about pressuring an employee to lobby as a private citizen in the company’s interest without being paid for that work? Is it even work when it is “voluntarily” done on “off-time”? Finally, would it make a difference if the issue held systemic importance—meaning if it were vital to the country itself or at least the economic system—and the particular stance being advocated by the boss had value in solving the systemic problem (i.e., not just in the company’s interest)?

                 Federal U.S. deficits as a percentage of GDP from 1792 (2012-2016 projected). Notice that the projections take the deficits down from 2008-2010 levels. Notice also 1960-2010 as differing significantly from the "episodic" pattern in the 1792-1930 period. Why?

The full essay is at "Pressuring Employees."

Sources:

Damian Paletta and Kristina Peterson, “CEOs Flock to Capital to Avert ‘Cliff,” The Wall Street Journal, November 28, 2012.

Christina Wilkie, “’Fix The Debt’ CEOs Underfund Employee Retirement, Demand Cuts For Elderly,” The Huffington Post, November 27, 2012.

Ethan Rome, “Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein Wants Seniors to Get Less,” The Huffington Post, November 27, 2012.

A Managerial Society of Carrots and Sticks

In a society of managerialism, a particular value-set is salient; it can be characterized overtly or tacitly by technique as a functional means of manipulating resources (human or material). This orientation issues in an instrumentalism wherein even other human beings are viewed as means rather than as ends in themselves. Furthermore, an assumption of incrementalism rather than real change tends to accompany the orientation because the status quo is the default where the focus is on instruments. The managerial orientation can be so engrained in generally accepted “organization speak” that the modern herd hardly recognizes the penetration in modern society itself.

The full essay is at "A Managerial Society."

See also a related book, available at Amazon: On the Arrogance of False Entitlement

Starbucks Takes a Hit for Supporting Gay Marriage

In January 2012, Starbucks joined Microsoft and Nike in publicly supporting the same-sex marriage bill in the U.S. state of Washington. Two months later, the National Organization for Marriage began a “Dump Starbucks” boycott as a result of Starbucks' support of gay marriage. David Barton, whose sermon on May 19, 2013 on “pious caffeine consumption” was posted on the internet, said, “The question is, ‘Can a Christian give money to a group he knows will use it to attack what God supports?’ . . . You can’t drink Starbucks and be Biblically correct on this thing. It’s just a real simple principle.”[1] Barton had earlier likened being gay to smoking and gay marriage to dogs marrying horses. In spite of these rather extreme claims, the boycott gained some traction. At the next Starbucks’ stockholder meeting in March 2013, Tom Stauber, a stockholder, suggested that the company’s sales and earnings were a “bit disappointing” in the quarter after the boycott had begun precisely because of the issue. Whereas the stock and dividends had risen 38% from October 2011 to September 2012, the rise was only 7.6% from March 2012 to March 2013.[2]  If indeed the causal attribution is correct, then it can be asked whether the management (and/or board) of a company taking a political stand on a controversial societal issue that is not expected to save the company money and in fact could result in lost revenue breaches the fiduciary duty to the stockholders unless a majority of shares are voted in support of the position.

Starbucks typically relies on young adults to both work in and manage the stores. Even an excellent vetting process in hiring does not mean that effort is not needed to fortify the mechanism of accountability.  Source: wikimedia.  

The full essay is at "Starbucks: A Shaky Management Wades into Social Issues."

See also, Bucking Starbucks' Star, available at Amazon.

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[1] Meredith Bennett-Smith, “Christians Can’t Drink Starbucks Because Company Supports Gay Marriage, Evangelical Says,” The Huffington Post, June 3, 2013.

[2]Aaron Smith, “Starbucks CEO Holds His Ground on Gay Marriage,” CNN Money, March 28, 2013.

Using Corporate Position to Torture Whistle-Blowers

Jack B. Palmer made a quiet complaint through internal channels at Infosys, an outsourcing company based in India. He suspected some managers were committing visa fraud. His complaint leaked. As a result, investigators from the U.S. Government looked into “whether the company used workers from India for certain kinds of jobs here that were not allowed under their temporary visas, known as B-1.”[1]

The full essay is in Cases of Unethical Business: A Malignant Mentality of Mendacity, available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.

1. Julia Preston, “Whistle-BlowerClaiming Visa Fraud Keeps His Job, but Not His Work,” The New York Times, April 13, 2012. 

Transocean Executive Compensation Bonuses Ignored the Rig Explosion of 2010

Transocean, the world’s largest off-shore oil rig company, owned the Deep Water Horizon rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in April of 2010. Astonishingly, the company awarded its managers healthy bonuses. Even more astonishing, safety was a major component in the calculation of the bonuses. Even without intending to, the compensation sets up managers in a conflict of interest—their compensation motivating them to keep up the good work rather than to correct for what went wrong in the management of the Horizon rig. In other words, the bonuses give all the wrong incentives, and there has been no principled leadership to point in the other direction.

The full essay is in Cases of Unethical Business, which is available at Amazon.