COVERSATIONS WITH READERS!

CONVERSATIONS WITH READERS

REFERENCE: THE DAJA VU ARTICLE -- A LOOK BACK TO SEE AHEAD!


James R. Fisher, Jr.
© December 10, 2008

“Our best conjectures as to the true spring of actions themselves are all we know from history. That Caesar was murdered by twenty-four conspirators, I doubt not, but I very much doubt whether their love of liberty was the sole cause.”

Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield (1694 – 1773), English orator and wit


A WRITER FROM GERMANY WRITES

These extreme examples you write about in your piece (Deja Vu: A LOOK BACK TO SEE AHEAD) make people here in Europe doubt that capitalism is a good economic system, which leads to bizarre socialistic approaches (however also not desirable).

Manfred


DR. FISHER RESPONDS:

Manfred,

First of all, I corrected one sentence in this missive, which I must confess was written in the early hours of the morning. It follows:

"The Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) with all its razzle-dazzle electronic sophistication and layers on layers of corpocracy couldn't get to the victims of Hurricane Katrina but reporters could. The hype of US superpower status was brought down as Katrina stuck a pin in FEMA’s ballooned hubris."

That one sentence indicates how tenuous power is of even a superpower. FEMA had all the horses but was pushing the wagon with them rather than pulling it with emergency aid to these tens of thousand helpless New Orleans citizens, who were without food, water or adequate shelter.

Regarding your point, in the twentieth century territory was the key to national power. The key today is the leveraging capital. Debtor and creditor nations are in a spinning merry go round going nowhere, as the holders of debt can’t let the debtor nations go under because they, too, will suffer the same fate.

That is the US’s trump card. Meanwhile, the real economy twirls away from the financial economy. It gives you the feeling no one is at the helm, and if they are they’re drunk in confusion.

Will the fear of a global depression bring some sanity to the table? Not likely. Third World Countries still fight for territory while being subjugated to debtor nations’ capital, sitting on some of the riches resources in the world, especially in Africa and South America. Sad.

I don't know where it will all end. I do wonder if we are in for an "L" shaped recession, which means a protracted bottom and not a “U”, or "V" shaped one, which is much shorter. The longest recession in the United States in recent times (since May 1937) was sixteen months (July 1981 to November 1982), and already the current recession is 12 months and counting.

No question the US economic meltdown and recession has created the domino effect of a world recession and meltdown. We shall see with the Barak Obama presidency if he can put his finger in the dike and stop it. The expectations are so surreal for his presidency they seem biblical. My wonder is if a dash of courage along with hope is in his construction. I voted for him and pray God blesses his presidency for all our sakes.

Be always well,

Jim


A CHICAGOAN WRITES:

Just got done reading this latest mini-missive and it's too bad this can't be published! You've got some great quotes in there and hit the nail right on the head!

I, as a peon individual, am so tired of the lack of moral leadership in both the corporate and political arena, that I have resigned to live my life out as I should and to hell with all of them. I will not stoop to their rationalism.

They will pay the ultimate price, maybe not in this life, but on their Judgment Day. If you can't count on the leadership, then the only thing you can do is watch out for yourself. But there is a danger there, too, of rationalizing your behavior and actions. So the individual must also be forewarned. I have learned lessons from these leaders and will not sacrifice my integrity.

After decades of indulgence and wanton disregard for values, we are paying the price. My father was right - life is not a bowl full of cherries; it can be hard, especially when it comes to doing the right thing when everything and everybody is doing the opposite. But the Good News is that with the right attitude you can make great cherry mash!

Hope you and Betty have a very Merry Christmas. And thanks for letting me expound. I know I'm not as eloquent as you, but at least this little bit allows me to vent!

Marlene


DR. FISHER RESPONDS:

Dear Marlene,

First of all, you’re not a peon. None of us are. Neither are any of us superior nor inferior to anyone else. We all have the power of the vote.

Someone told me the other day he is so disgusted he doesn’t vote. I come to find out he’s not in a registered voter. Now I find that stupid.

Imagine all the bloodshed African Americans have spilled over the last century to register to vote. Indeed, women didn’t acquire the vote until after WWI. So, I hope we agree you are an important person and your views are important.

Your father, too, was right. Struggle is important to life and learning as well as earning a living. I know he was a self-made man who came from Germany and made his way here, as did your mother. We are all leaders or no one is. Your parents knew the wisdom of this phrase, and practiced its truth.

In a strange way, your generation, the baby boomer generation, has exhausted its indulgence, and now the consequences of that waste is coming for collection. Ultimately, we pay for all our sins one way or another.

Many of us of the Great Depression generation didn’t have parents who come soften our movement into life. Nor could they provide the support should we fall on our face. They came of age during the Great War (WWI), and many, like my parents, were working class poor, who seldom made it financially from paycheck to paycheck.

It was the nature of the times. I’ve often thanked God that I was born when I was because I am a Taurus, and the Taurus has been known to seek pleasure to struggle, and comfort to conflict. The irony is that I was a gifted athlete but not a gifted student. Athletics came natural but I had to work for grades in school. Now, in my senior years, I benefit from the discipline of athletics and the cumulative affect of livelong learning.

I mention this for reason. The new generation born after 1990 and now moving towards adulthood is not enamored of what they see, hear or experience. Let’s call them the “skeptical generation.” They are more pessimistic than their baby boomer parents whom they see as bankrupt, morally, emotionally, psychologically and financially. They have seen what living the lie will do to people.

The "skeptical generation" may chase the buck but not as materialists like their parents, but in the recognition their security cannot be trusted to anyone else. They have had it with the hype, rhetoric and rosy picture that society paints for them. They're not buying it or buying into it. They believe they have no choice but to be on their own.

The “skeptical generation” is a throwback to the Great Depression generation, but in strikingly different ways: for one, there are many more of them; for another, they're not as gullible; and for yet another, they are more self-aware, sophisticated, and better educated.

This means they have to compete hard for everything: for a quality education, satisfying employment, and financial and emotional security. Also, worthy of note, they are as likely to be nonwhite as white and non-Christian as Christian.

When I went to college, I was the first in my family and one of the first in my extended family. Now, practically all my grandchildren (13) are grammar school or high school scholars, and some college graduates with stiller academic records. They face the future with the DNA of a warped Great Depression child, me.

I sense with the "skeptical generation" there will be a moral revival, and a new dedication to serving others rather than being self-serving. Additionally, I think there will be a religious revival in all its many forms. I am not only encouraged by this generation of the 1990s I think it will find winning through cooperation more appealing than wining through intimidation as did baby boomers.

I’ve told my grandchildren they are not to flaunt their gifts but to use them be they brains, athleticism, wealth, political or business clout, or religious devotion. I also told them nothing is more important than kindness. We all die and if we can show a little kindness to others along the way than we are wealthy beyond measure. I think the “skeptical generation” of the 1990s gets it!

Good hearing from you and thank you for your views.

Always be well,

Jim.


ANOTHER CHICAGOAN WRITES:

Hello Jim,

Your piece stirs some thoughts, as usual. Having been a bit more preoccupied in my pursuit of a livelihood, I read your recent blogs and resisted the urge to comment. This last one, though, inspired me.

First, in defense of my home state, I’ll offer additional facts. Since statehood in 1818, eight Illinois governors have had legal troubles with the last five of those being indicted.

We had a good stretch from 1921 to 1965 when none were caught in wrongdoing. (I choose my words carefully.)

Stratton was acquitted of income tax evasion. Kerner and Walker were both guilty of things (mis) done after leaving office. Ryan and Blagojevich are recent enough and do not need retelling. None has served more than a year and a half in jail - yet.

This is what public service has become. Can you make a good speech? Can you be sincere enough to blind people to the lies behind your promises? Are you easy on the eyes? You know, four years of your mug on TV has to be palatable. Will you feed me, educate my children, and keep me safe?

The low expectations we have for leaders to promise and not produce has given us the leadership we deserve.

Selfishness dominates our decisions over whom we choose and what we believe. And, as a result, the lower end of “leadership talent” gravitates to local and state government.

This stratification of managerial talent between industry and government is exacerbated by the gross differences in compensation. The public “servant” manages billion dollar budgets, yet is paid a fraction of a CEO with similar accountability.

The rise to each top requires similar traits. And, the separation comes at the dues paying stage. City councilman, small town mayor, and state representative are a bit easier than the day-to-day grind it out climb in business. So, with less talent, the politician has to find other ways to game the system.

Campaign funds are lucrative, but still not CEO-level comp. In their climb to positions of power, they’ve convinced themselves that they deserve a bigger slice of pie. The mistake is in assuming that stealing taxpayers’ money is wrong, but selling taxpayers’ trust is okay.

Think of the animosity Congress shows corporate executives. The CEOs are not necessarily smarter. They did work harder to get where they are. And, during that climb they convinced themselves that multi-million dollar compensation has been earned and is deserved. Even when the pie is shrinking, they believe their slice should remain the same size. To ensure this, the number of laborers with whom the pie must be shared is reduced.

The UAW sought to prevent this with its job bank, which requires idled workers to be paid. And even the politicians, champions of the working class that they are, railed against this practice.

They’re all feeding at the same trough. It’s just that the politicians are kind of getting seconds. Retribution feels good.

I think of this in respect to what you have written on leadership and why it has much more meaning than anything Jack Welch and others have written. The guys who get to write those books are the ones who were lucky enough to be in charge during good economic times. (Who would read Wagoner’s book?)

They justify their approach to leadership by pointing to rising revenues and stock prices. One would be hard pressed to screw up a company in the 90s. So, firing the bottom ten percent becomes the mantra of management. And, creating a scarcity mentality to pit people against each other replaces teamwork and collaboration.

Larry Bossidy’s book title “Execution” becomes a double entendre. Your discourse has much more staying power, as it is not reliant on an up economy for justification. It is reliant on the human experience.

Michael


DR. FISHER RESPONDS

There is a common theme in all three of these responses. It is that the system doesn’t work. One sees capitalism is worn out but socialism is not a step up. Another feels moral authority is missing in leadership. And you, Michael, are fed up with it all especially leadership. As usual, you stimulate thought.

All three themes are implied or are consistent with my peripatetic philosophy. Let us look at this more closely.

Marx, Engel and Hegel launched an intellectual campaign against capitalism and the oligarchy of capitalists of the nineteenth century. Marx, especially, did not foresee people such as us – working intellectual capitalists -- rising from the labor class of producers to have a substantive role in capitalistic society.
Marx saw the manpower struggle clearly between producers (workers) and capitalists (owners) and in black and white terms.

It never dawned on him that one day there would be a well-educated working middleclass. He instead identified the bourgeoisie merchant class as “dirty capitalists” and painted them in the most pejorative terms.

Peter Gay wrote a five-volume study of this class, “The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud." The titles of these volumes give a clue to what they cover: Vol. I: Education of the Senses (1984); Vol. II: The Tender Passion (1986); Vol. III (1993): The Cultivation of Hatred: Vol. IV: The Naked Heart (1995); Vol. V: Pleasure Wars (1998).

Gay has also written many other books including “Savage Reprisals” (2002). He uses the work of novelists to identify the cultural shift of the 19th century with three savage novels: Bleak House, Madame Bovary, and Buddenbrooks.

Peter Gay is a rumpled historian of great erudition who attempts to make sense of “Empire” and its decline, coupled with the depths of hysteria that followed with the birth of modernity. With Mother Queen gone, people found themselves, alone, with the "self." Amazingly, or perhaps not so, society has yet to find a comfort level with being adult.

The books chart a curious course from the reign of Queen Victoria (1837 – 1901), and the movement from royalty to the property class (bourgeois or middleclass or capitalism), and with it the rise of hysteria and turmoil that became endemic to modern society. For this, he focuses on Sigmund Freud and his talking cures (1882 – 1939). It is a very human study.

Freud was born in 1856 and Queen Victoria 1819, both becoming bookends to the period between the zenith of British influence and its decline as the world grew beyond royalty and empire to fend for itself.

Why mention it here? Change is the constant including that of leadership. And according to one historian, Paul Kennedy (The Rise & Fall of the Great Powers: 1500 to 2000), the United States has a lot in common with good old Britannica in falling on its own petard.

My German friend is correct. Capitalism created an oligarchy of haves but a middleclass of property owners as well, but unhappily, a larger class of have-nots. No matter what the ideology, 20 percent or less of the constituency of any society control 80 percent or more of the wealth.

Socialism, mainly in the form of communism, has attempted to redistribute wealth, but it has failed. It, too, created an oligarchy of the wealthy, unhappily, no middleclass, but a most dependent working class of have-nots.

China now is attempting to bridge the two ideologies (communism and capitalism) into a working system, but it has no room for human rights, and uses draconian methods to create a middleclass and control its people, while tens of millions of Chinese live as if still in the 18th century.

It was no less than Plato who saw democracy a bad idea and that a philosopher king was the answer. I would suggest we give philosophers everything but power.
So, where does that leave us?

Well, we no longer have the Victorian Empire of unashamed colonialism as practiced in 19th and 20th century Africa, where even the smallest of European nations (Belgium, Holland, and Denmark) took large chunks of the African continent as their own booty.

Small wonder that African nations today refuse the demands of the United States to oust Robert Mugabe from Zimbabwe. African nations have never lost the bad taste of colonialism, and so as terrible a tyrant as Mugabe and disastrous as the Zimbabwe economy, they understand his hatred of the West.


HOW DID WE GET FROM THERE TO HERE?

I hope you will indulge me a bit as I would like to put this discussion in the perspective of the cumulative patterns identified as ideal types through the centuries.

You may recall I wrote a series of 33 articles (COLD SHOWERS) in a Q&A format in the 1990s. In one of those pieces, I traced the dominant discipline from the 15th through the 20th century. Surprisingly, but yet seemingly true, one discipline has historical stood out in each of these centuries.


THE EXPLORER – 15TH Century

It was the EXPLORER in the 15th century led by Vasco de Gama, Hernando Cortez, Ponce de Leon, Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan. These explorers expanded the horizons of Europeans to embrace the globe. These adventures introduced trade, and cultural exchange along with giving rise to exploitation and indoctrination of natives of these lands to European ways.

THE THEOLOGIANS – 16TH Century

It was THEOLOGIANS in the 16th century emerging from the “Dark Ages” that proceeded after the Fall of Rome in the 10th century to preserve culture on the one hand and to spread it on the other.

The Roman Catholic Church, which emerged most powerfully from Rome’s demise with its monks keeping language, the arts, and science alive by copying works of scholars past, including sacred scripture (See “How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization" – 2005 –Thomas E. Wood, Jr.).

By the 16th century, the Reformation led by Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Knox among others challenged Catholicism. A Counter Reformation was led by Thomas More and Desiderius Erasmus. The Catholic Church survived but not as the power it once was.

The explorers of the earlier century introduced Christianity to the natives. This now became a wholesale business with missionaries duping natives into becoming Christian, while destroying their indigenous cultures indiscriminately.

In Europe, Protestantism was flourishing. A property class was rising as well with the Protestant work ethic. Property now, not royal titles, separated the haves from the have-nots. The haves in Calvinism were called “the Elected.” Capitalism was secure.


THE PILGRIMS OF THE NEW WORLD – 17TH Century

It was the PILGRIMS who led the way in the 17th century venturing into the “New World” to enjoy “freedom and equality of religious expression.”

They brought their independent spirit, vigor, self-reliance, ingenuity and capitalism verve with them.

While Plymouth Rock in North America was being settled by these pilgrims, the Cape of Good Hope in Southern Africa was being established by first, the Dutch (from the Dutch East India Trading Company) and later by the British.

A European white society was being established on the American continent, and a similar society on the continent of Africa. These two pilgrimages would change the history of both continents, all because of the stamina, determination and will of a handful of deeply religious European Christians.


THE LAWYERS – 18TH Century

LAWYERS proved dominant, as the social order became a society of laws rather than of men in the 18th century.

The “Divine Right of Kings” and monarchy was challenged first by the American Revolution followed closely by the French Revolution. “Empire” was losing its hold.

Americans revolted against King George III of Great Britain (1776) and the French against King Louis XVI in France (1789). Constitutional law in these rebellions put no man above the law while giving permanent rights to the people.

The American Revolution produced Founding Fathers with a deep appreciation of constitutional law, writing a Declaration of Independence and a Bill of Rights that holds firmly to this day. France, however, punished the monarchy with its French Revolution and “Reign of Terror.” This nullified somewhat its ability to establish a stable constitutional government, which reverberates to this day.


THE ENGINEER – 19TH Century

ENGINEERS led the way in the 19th century with the Industrial Revolution.

The American Civil War became a war of industrial power, and the first fully mechanized war with armored ships and repeat rifles produced in factories.

ENGINEERS also cut a swath through the Americas to construct the Panama Canal joining the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, while across the globe; ENGINEERS cut a course from the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea at the lip of Egypt.

There were also such feats of construction as the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Empire State Building in New York City, Transcontinental Railroad across the United States and the Orient Express across Europe, among other feats of engineering.

ENGINEERS also were responsible for an explosion of inventions including the steamboat, the internal combustion engine, the electric light bulb, the radio, the telegraph, the telephone, the airplanes and automobiles, none of which would reach true commercial level products for another century.


THE MANAGER – 20TH Century

Nineteenth century guilds, or small groups of skilled craftsmen working together with workers and owners as one, gave way in the 20th century to large complexes called “factories.”

The creative energy of the 19th century was now being put to practical use. To do so, work, the workplace and workers were organized into factories. It was a terrible shock to the social fabric of an agrarian society.

Farmers and farm workers were forced to leave the countryside to seek employment in cities for better paying jobs. At the beginning of the 20th century, nearly four in five workers derived their livelihood from farming or farm support. At the end of the 20th century, it was two in one hundred.

Cities swelled as these factories were organized into assembly lines. Small tool and die operations consolidated into such companies as Ford and General Motors. These factories with constant conveyors humming took product pieces along an assembly line adding piece to piece until the final product was assembled, which was often an automobile or some appliance.

Workers on farms often had little formal education. Now, a requirement of factory employment was to have the ability to read and write and do simple arithmetic calculations. That gave birth to compulsory public education.

Besides teaching the “three R’s,” these public schools taught discipline, obedience, punctuality, conduct, politeness and submission to authority. Alvin Toffler does a good job in explaining this transition in “Future Shock” (1970).

As throughout history, war accelerated this mechanization as armies always looked for a military advantage in weaponry. “Machine Age Thinking” became a dominant factor of the 20th century, a warring century, and a direct influence on all aspects of the infrastructure of society.

Universities became quasi factories producing hordes of college graduates. The arts, family life, and even religion took on bland, pragmatic, factory functionality, as did education from primary school on.

By the end of the two World Wars, society had established itself as the personification of the factory mentality and morality, which was essentially amoral. You didn’t live life you packaged life like a product. Spontaneity and gaiety went out of the system after WWI.

To compensate for this loss of spirituality after WWII, sexuality became a factory replacement for love with the reproductive act the complete focus of attention. Love was locked out, leaving the natural to be regimented, measured, probed, timed and quantified as to the pleasure derived. Virility became a factory product according to the Playboy philosopher.

Rising out of this mechanization were MANAGERS. They are totally a product of the 20th century, and rose out of industrialization, war, logistics, and the need for some control of work, the workplace and workers.

Workers were no longer identified by their given name, but by a number. Society became "a number" society, a statistical society, and a society that reduced people, places and things to algorithms, something that could be reduced to mathematics without necessarily involving direct contact with persons.

Likewise, MANAGERS dominated the “Machine of State,” and became the critical factor in two victorious World Wars. It was the planning, training, producing, controlling, disseminating, and logistical supporting that made MANAGERS prominent in those wars, especially WWII.

The United States was totally unprepared for WWII, but a year into that war the US was producing more planes, tanks, ships and guns than all the Allies or the Axis Powers combined. MANAGERS got the credit for that, and they took that momentum with them into the post-WWII period with gusto (see David Halberstam's "The Next Century," 1991).

War became the measure of peace and societal stability. No nation did this better than the United States with its abundant natural resources and supported by its vibrant middleclass of workers who were all the things a system of factory education could hope for. MANAGERS’ won these two World Wars and the Cold War, and they have never let us forget it.


THE PROFESSIONAL? – 21st Century

Each preceding dominant discipline left the center stage of its century reluctantly but inevitably, but not the management class.

It holds on desperately today when it is anachronistic as a class and atavistic as a function.

This is the computer age and everything managers did before computers can do better now, plus they give workers a sense of freedom and creativity even if it is contrived.

The management class from mid-20th century on has become avarice to the extreme: (1) cavalier style of indiscriminately increasing levels of management for no good reason; (2) treating information with workers “on a need to know basis”; (3) running companies as if owners and as if with its own money; (4) treating PROFESSIONALS as second class contributors by subjugating them to Managing by Objectives (MBOs) which have never worked, and Performance Appraisals (PA) which insults their intelligence with subjective evaluations for puny merit increases, while SENIOR MANAGERS award themselves lavish bonuses even while tanking the company, no performance appraisal for them.

This was a 20th century phenomenon still widely practiced in the 21st.

Moreover, from three levels of management typical during the late 1930s to the conclusion of WWII in 1945, the management class set out to justify its pay and perks by the increasing the number of people reporting to it irrespective of what was produced. By the 1980s, these three-levels of management had ballooned to twelve.

With World Competition, mainly, from Japan and South East Asia, management started to be paired down these levels after 1980. Paradoxically, while corporate levels were shrinking, executive pay was soaring.

Executive compensation in the 1940s was 10 to 50 times production workers. By the year 2000, this had escalated to as high as 1,000 – 1,500 times production workers, as Boards of Directors literally wrote blank checks to MANAGERS.

Justification for this compensation was based on the rationale when a company went from millions to billions in sales and profits; they assumed it was their leadership and management acumen that caused it.

Conveniently forgotten were the economic climate, supply and demand status, and other vicissitudes of the marketplace. However, when these positive factors turned into negatives, they didn’t cut their pay or benefits because they wrote the checks.

This was all possible as long as the Dow Jones Industrials masked reality.

But as recent events have proven they were playing at leadership and being executives as if it were a film script written by Hollywood where they could appear on television or before a Congressional Committee and make like executives and all would understand. It was right out of the book of “The Divine Right of Kings.”

Meanwhile, wages of workers who produce the products of such profitability have stagnated or declined over recent decades, while the pay of CEOs and senior management have soared.

Millions of jobs are being lost forever. The rhetoric is “in a global economy jobs go where workers work cheap.” That is not entirely true if at all. The drag of obsolete factories and equipment, and product lines not consistent with the times are a bigger factor, and that is MANAGERS’ responsibility. Show me in the world where workers are more productive than Americans. It is MANAGERS of other countries who are superior to American management. American workers suffer for this shortfall.

Outdated product lines and poorly skilled workers are a MANAGER issue. Long ago this was taken out of the hands of workers when they lost control of what they did.

Another cliché: “if it isn’t broken don’t fix it!” This thinking is one of the biggest reasons jobs have gone elsewhere. It is when it isn't broken that you have the luxury to find ways of making it better, more relevant, or even scrapping it before not after it is obsolete.

MANAGERS are good at planning but it is always an exercise "planning for planning sake." Future relevance never comes up.

MANAGERS have been reactive. They have not anticipated change and American workers and work have suffered for this inclination. It is when something isn’t broken that you study its relevance, relative entropy, and possible replacement.

There is an obvious reason for the behavior of MANAGERS. They play to the stockholders and their "return on investment," instead to the stakeholders and "return on the individual."

MANAGERS pride themselves on thinking beyond the horizon. Actually, they have never been known to think beyond what is under their feet, as in the case of the glory days of WWI and WWII and the Cold War.

It was my view those many years ago that the 21st century would bring PROFESSIONALS to the fore. I am not so sure at this point. They have been timid, risk weary, passive, self-indulgence, narcissistic, materialistic, superfluous, and no threat even to feeble leadership.

PROFESSIONALS can give the good talk; write the provocative book, but they are not willing to put their money where their mouth is. They have anywhere from four to eight years of higher education with more product knowledge and general knowledge than their bosses, or their bosses’ bosses, yet they allow themselves to lose their jobs to reengineering, redundancy exercises, reorganization, realignment, or to mergers, buyouts, or hostile takeovers. Whatever the shock, they retreat like willing lambs.

Management can be incompetent, misinformed and misdirected, and they sit pat, carrying out instructions they know are going nowhere because position power as corrupt and anachronistic as it might be, is still the power.

Management pays the mortgage, they talk themselves into believing, so they can’t allow themselves to think of confronting management for fear they may lose that merit increase, that promised promotion, or that perk of a private parking space. They prostitute themselves and don’t know it or don't want to know it. Sorry, but that is the way it is today.

Throughout it all, they go meekly to the unemployment line when made redundant like obedient passive soldiers. They are salaried employees and think they are part of management, which is a lark. They would not think of the embarrassment of a picket line like the hourly workers. Truth be told, they look down on these workers when they should be looking up to them. Hourly workers have courage; they stand their ground.

The other day 300 employees of a plant here in Florida were given their walking papers with three days notice to clear out. The company had no plans to pay them their rightful severance pay or pay that they were due, or to give them the six-weeks notice that is the law of Florida.

What did these workers do?

They camped out, and refused to leave the building for days! That’s right, they camped out, got on television, and now management is trying to finds someway out of this public relations snafu. How many PROFESSIONALS would do that?

PROFESSIONALS lick their wounds by killing their minds, bodies and spirits with drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, gambling or promiscuity, or they retreat into nervous breakdowns, take it out on their mates and children, or just give up and give out and die, and as Kafka would say, “they have done nothing wrong!”

PROFESSIONALS have become their own worst enemy. They won’t allow themselves to see the real enemy before their eyes: “the system” they won’t change is destroying them.

I wrote in “The Worker, Alone! Going Against the Grain” (1995):

“Professional have no choice but to go against the grain, for nothing changes until they do. The game of charades with empowerment continues because it is safe. It changes nothing and cost those in power even less. Workers absorb the costs. Not until the worker, alone realizes it is up to him to put his house in order, will change occur. Ventilation won’t do it nor will pointing fingers. The worker must get off the dime and take charge of work, which is the only way to take charge of life. The call is to workers everywhere. They have invested heavily in their education, only to find a disappointing ‘return on investment.’ Angry and confused, they suffer downsizing, redundancy exercises, and conglomerate takeovers like fatalists. Those employed wonder ‘when the other shoe will fall.’ Never have workers been more distrustful of the ‘the system.’ Ironically, they are the system.”

A lesson can be learned from the past.

In the late 1920s and 1930s, workers fought to form unions to get a fair days pay for a fair days work. They wanted to work only eight hour days, five days a week, and not ten or twelve hours a day for the same pay, and six or seven days. They wanted health insurance, retirement benefits, safe and healthy working conditions, and respect on the job.

Workers died for these basic desires; many others were blackballed; still others were beat up, but they stayed the course, and workers across the world have benefited for their courage, especially PROFESSIONALS.

What went wrong with this scenario is that management was willing to give workers everything, but control of their work, something workers had always enjoyed.
Management thus duped unions, and so it has been ever sense. Management has given elaborate pay concessions, including being paid when lines are shut down, or simply laid off. If workers had retained control of work, management could never have played so fancy free with their lives and livelihood.

Unions, organizationally, are mirror images of the management with which they bargain. They have given workers in a sense the golden goose, but killed worker identity with what they do. This is where dignity lies, where work is love made visible, where you don’t work for a paycheck, alone, but for serving others by what you do. I had a bricklayer point to a building one-day, and say, “That’s my building. I built it,” and he did.

This explanation is not helpful in your current situation, but I know you understand what I am attempting to say. I suspect management, which cannot lead, doesn’t know how to follow, will continue, “as is” as long as it can.

Leadership has become totally a reactive function rather than an anticipatory one; managing the crises it creates. I have tried to read some of the management books currently on the bestseller list, and those by academics that aren’t. They are all written as if management and leadership are one, and that we shall be locked in to this functional hybrid forever. I hope not.

Be always well,

Jim