STROKING THE BOSS?

Much of this blog has been dedicated to promoting and explaining ideals. The message has been, in a few words, that we need to encourage our students in civics and government classes to consider an ideal polity – one based on federalist principles of communal governance. But how about the real; shouldn't our students be exposed to the realities of politics? This concern was brought to the fore for me with the recent action in the Senate where background checks for gun sales at gun shows was voted down. This action took place despite the fact that polling indicates over eighty percent of the electorate support this change in our nation's law. Therefore, there seems to be a political reality that simply does not become evident when one focuses on ideals, even if those ideals are of the democratic-republican variety.

I have pointed out and extensively described and explained what I see as the prominent view of governance among our people today. To that view I have given the name, the natural rights construct. In philosophical writings, it is known as classical liberalism – a name that might confuse someone who is not familiar with that literature.¹ Its central principles are that the individual should be allowed to determine the values, aims, and goals for him or herself, should be reasonably allowed to pursue those values, aims, and goals, and that that person should not stand in the way of anyone else doing likewise. The prominence of this view has resulted in a general reality of how we go about our governance and politics. It is a general mode of behavior noted for its individualism. I have, in the past, cited ample expert reporting and opining that supports this conclusion.²

With this posting, I want to introduce a series of postings that will appear from time to time in the future; the series will report on relatively specific beliefs of how to best manage one's interests given the prevalence of the natural rights perspective. That is, if one were to seek out advice on how to succeed in our real, natural rights, world, what would that advice be? I don't present this advice as wisdom or as anything I believe a good citizen should heed. Instead, I present these bits of advice as legitimate topics for classroom discussion in a civics or government class. One advantage of introducing these messages in class is to point out that politics and governance do not refer only to formal government activities and structures. There are politics and governance in any organized effort and much of what will be presented as wisdom is intended, by those who offer it, to “teach” people who work in the private sector how to advance within a business hierarchy.

As of now, I will be relying on the writings of Robert Greene and his book, The 48 Laws of Power. I must commend Mr. Greene on his honesty. Most writers who write in this vein are usually somewhat circumspect. Mr. Greene is unabashedly promoting a very self-centered view of how one should proceed within the real arenas of competition among workers of an organization. I believe this first posting will give you a good sense of Greene's view of reality.

Law number one is: don't go too far in demonstrating your talents to your superior less you instill in him or her a sense of inferiority, insecurity, and/or fear. It is better to make your superior seem to be more talented and brilliant than he or she is. In class, a teacher can present this law as a “springboard” (jargon for a discussion starter) and then have a series of questions that are generated by federalist thinking.

I'm sure a teacher can think of a variety of questions by which to analyze the implications of this “law.” I will present two types of questions.

The first set of questions would be about the evidence that exists to either support or negate this law – in other words, the “law” should be presented as a hypothesis. Greene, in his book, of course, cites several historical cases that support the “law.” Let me share the first one. He tells the story of Nicolas Fouquet of France, King Louis XIV's initial finance minister. In order to solidify his position in the King's government, he threw an extravagant party – and by extravagant you will have to take my word for it since there is not enough space here to describe how otherworldly this affair was – to honor the young king. The party had the opposite effect and before long the now insecure king had Fouquet imprisoned to spend the rest of his days (twenty years worth) behind bars. This is only the first case Greene offers and he goes on to provide several others.

In addition to these cases, students can do an Internet search on how successful business leaders treat talented employees. My limited review of that literature seems to indicate that instead of punishing talent, business leaders seem to be in competition to find and retain talent. But this is a good area of reality that students would benefit from researching.

My second concern or set of questions regarding this “law” has to do with what would happen if one were to follow it; how would an organization be affected if this view were widely held by the employees of a particular business? Would this strategy help or hurt a business if its employees are as focused on their own individual fates as this law assumes employees to be? Should employees be about presenting false messages to stroke egos and to calm insecurities? If not, what would be a better frame of mind and mode of behavior for a business leader to promote and reward? If yes, is the real world so cynical? So two-faced? In other words, if reality within a particular business is counterproductive to accomplishing organizational goals, what can businesses do to offset these real challenges?

In general, organizational theory has shifted from a purely systemic approach to a more communal one. That is not to say that there has been a complete abandonment of a concern for the real needs and ambitions of individuals within organizations. As for students, civics instruction can serve as a platform by which to introduce and analyze the conditions that characterize organizational realities. Are federalist ideas and ideals, as explained in this blog, useful in such a study? Are they useful in promoting the disposition among the younger generation that would be helpful to organizations of the future in setting their cultures toward productive ends? The use of federalism theory in guiding the content of such a lesson strategy is based on the belief that the answer to this last question is yes.

1One might see it as a form of what we currently call liberalism or left of center politics. 

 

2See for example Lipset, S. M. (1996). American exceptionalism: A double-edged sword. New York: W. W. Norton and Company.

EXPRESSED INTEREST BY ALL PROVIDES BALANCE

In past postings – somewhat early in the history of this blog – I shared with you Gordon S. Wood's historical account of a prevailing political view at the time of the founding of our republic. What I highlighted was the support for an approach to governance that its backers called the commonwealth view. They were known as commonwealthmen and I associated federalist ideas and ideals with their beliefs.¹ While prevalent among the politically opinionated populous, it was not the only outlook and surely did not hold sway among the elite political actors of the day. I still hold that federalist principles provided the backdrop to the overall political discourse of that time. But Richard Hofstadter² points out that among the founding fathers who attended the Constitutional Convention, the more prominent view took on a suspicious attitude toward the common man and I would suggest that a lot of what was believed by the commonwealthmen was seen by these leaders as naive and unrealistic. He describes the general sense these founders held was that the human being is a selfish being who pursues his/her interests with insatiable passion. They also saw the developments between the Revolution and 1787, the year of the Constitutional Convention, as proof positive of their biases.

The state governments that were set up during the time of the Revolution and afterwards gave the common people too much power and they proceeded to abuse that power. At least, that's how many in the elite class saw what was going on within the states. These developments encouraged them to pursue a new constitutional arrangement. Hofstadter writes:

As the Revolution took away the restraining hand of the British government, old colonial grievances of farmers, debtors, and squatters against merchants, investors, and large landholders had flared up anew; the lower order took advantage of new democratic constitutions in several states, and the possessing class were frightened.³

And the founding fathers belonged to the “possessing class.” As such, they were very conscious of the issues that reflected the opposing class interests of the time.

Yet they wrote a constitution that reflected an understanding that they could not dismiss the “lower order.” They appreciated that, one, humans are going to be passionate about their interests no matter at what point in the economic spectrum they find themselves; two, whichever class is given the advantage – be they the rich, the poor, or those in between – they will use their power to advance their interests; and three, the only hope there is of avoiding oppression is to make sure that each class is included in the power structure that results from their efforts of devising a workable constitution. This they did, in the constitution they wrote, with a bias favoring the elites. What they didn't foresee was the cultural bent among the populous that would develop the political institutions which would in the future overcome this bias and shift the system toward a more democratic one.

Some of the institutional practices and processes that characterized this shift have included expanding the franchise, the election of senators, explosion of communication facilities, maintenance of state prerogatives over local concerns, home rule within the political distribution of state power, one man – one vote, constitutionally guaranteed rights to free speech and free press, and the general cultural bias that supports individual citizens in pursuing their interests. This latter development sometimes gets subdued. Actually, it's subdued most of the time. But the recent actions, the response to the tragic events at Sandy Hook elementary school, demonstrate that popular involvement can and does have an impact on how political issues are determined. While the final determination concerning gun safety is still an open question, one cannot deny that the level of popular involvement has drawn the attention of policy makers on either side of the issues involved. Civics instruction needs to generate or at least encourage a more active role among the citizenry as an on-going factor in the determination of our public policy.

Of course, an active role reflects a self-interested strategy by those who take part. But there is a more patriotic function. What happens most of the time is that only those with concentrated interest become involved. The parents and others in Connecticut who have involved themselves with this gun issue understandably have done so after the tragic events of December, 2012. They feel a concentrated interest. The National Rifle Association has had and will continue to have a concentrated interest in this area. Unfortunately, most of us have a diffused interest. Gun safety, if we think about it at all, is one of a multitude of concerns of more or less equal intensity. The question remains whether the level of tragedy Sandy Hook created is strong enough to center this concern for enough of us so as to lead toward action. Does the tragedy motivate those who were not directly affected by the shooting to contact policy makers – members of Congress – to make the desired changes? More generally, when average citizens choose to ignore any involvement, the result is that a political vacuum is created and is filled by the vested interests of the various issue areas. Financial interest groups are highly involved in financial politics, industrial interest groups in industrial politics, medical interest groups in medical politics, and so on and so on. And given the concern expressed by the founding fathers, one cannot be surprised by the recurring nature of our public policy being skewed in favor of those interests and too often at the expense of the commonwealth.

1Wood, G. S. (1998). The creation of the American republic 1776-1787. New York: W. W. Norton and Company. This seminal work was originally published in 1969.

2Hofstadter, R. (1948). The American political tradition. New York, NY: Vintage Books.

3Ibid., p. 4.