The Cult of Managment

Although the cornucopian idea, that technology can solve all the world's problems, seems to be on the wane, a related belief, that management can solve all our problems seems to go largely unquestioned. There are many books and internets sites discussing the down side of technology but few devoted to criticising the excessive claims of modern management (John Ralston Saul's 1992 book 'Voltaires Bastards' being a notable exception) . American economist Thorstein Veblen was one of the first to point out the coming problem with modern management. Veblen argued that as productivity in industrial increases too many people become engaged in unproductive activity- the old problem of too many chiefs and not enough indians.

In the area of environmental conservation fundamentals such as the rate of economic growth, human nature and population levels are treated as secondary to good management. In New Zealand our elites seem to believe that with sufficient managers, lawyers and legislation like the Resource Management Act, problems like supplying enough energy to a rapidly expanding population can be painlessly resolved. Tough choices like forgoing current consumption for future development, spending tax dollars on energy conservation or cutting immigration aren't necessary if we have sufficiently enlightened bureaucracy.

As organisations become more and more management focused they start to erode the 'espirit de corps' that helped make them successful organisations in the first place. Over the past decade the wages of upper management in English speaking countries have increased considerably more than those of workers. Although managers say this is the logical result of a limited supply of good managers in a global market place, they fail to appreciate the effect it is having on worker morale. Productivity levels in most English speaking countries have shown little increase in recent decades and union militancy is beginning to resurface. In contrast wage differentials are much lower in Continental Europe and Japan where productivity levels in corporations are generally quite a lot higher.

The Obssesion with management in English speaking countries is having a bad influence on the developing world. Developing countries need to get the basics right before striving for sophisticated systems of management. This means concentrating on developing law and order, basic education for both sexes, passable roads, reasonable agricultural practices and lower rates of population growth. The fact that many poor countries have very high levels of graduate unemployment yet provide little support for their peasant farmers indicates that the West is still providing the wrong kind of advice and funding through organisations like the World Bank.

According to John Ralston Saul the word 'manager' comes from a French term for someone that does domestic housework. Although management is certainly more demanding than getting out a vacuum cleaner he does have a point- managers maintain existing systems they don't produce or develop anything per se. Actual development requires not so much managers, as 'entreprenuerial technocrats' (for want of a better term) that can generate plans and ideas and get different parties together to produce something new. In New Zealand, such people are conspiciously absent from our current crop of politicans and civil servants. Probably the only conspicious example is Jim Anderton , founder of kiwibank. Not suprisingly, the think tank, The New Zealand Institute describes the frustrating state of the New Zealand economy as the 'tidy management of the status quo'.

The cult of management is in many respects a new version of the old socialist idea, now descredited, of trying to develop a perfect world through politics.