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> American management always reminds me of the historical British army, where the gentry directly was recruited into the higher ranks American management and w

by dls2016 6y ago

> American management always reminds me of the historical British army, where the gentry directly was recruited into the higher ranks American management and workers seem equally stratified. As a veteran, American management seemed to take straight from the American military management. I always assumed it was an artifact of WW-II management theories and the subsequent post-war academic funding boom.

hogFeast 6y ago
Nope. American management was created in the late 19th century with railroads. In fact, management didn't exist before the US invented it. Most large companies in the UK were run by people who had no interest in management. They bought a factory then promised a piece rate to a labour gangmaster (this is an abtruse point but wage labour wasn't really a thing until the 20th century, the model was proto-industrial "business" structures which paid by output...wages shift risk to employers, and so that took time to develop). In Germany and much of Northern Europe, there was a very well-defined capitalist and worker class who negotiated through govt (because the capitalists mostly owned the govt and got their money to build stuff from state-owned banks, most unions ended up being allied to those capitalists/govt because revolution was taken quite seriously...left-wing unions didn't really exist). Again, there was no real concept of professional management...you negotiated with workers en masse, there was total seperation (and there is still is in Northern Europe, to a large extent...most billionaires in Germany got rich in the 30s, for reasons best forgotten, and have just passed it down unchanged which is why wealth inequality is so high). So it was with the railroads that actual professional managers started appearing (railroads were undoubtedly a new kind of complexity but US ones were run far more professionally), and shortly after this that you see management training and the like. The US was, and still is to a large extent, one of the only places where you see universities actually relate to the real world i.e. you have universities teaching practical tasks like management (I am in the UK, management is still thought of as a "joke" subject by most academics...stuff like Classics and Politics is far more respectable than business, people who need to work for money are looked down upon as hopelessly gauche...it is kind of funny that people believe the opposite is true, but that isn't self-evident if you come from a society where practical knowledge is valued). Btw, the defining book on this is Alfred Chandler's Visible Hand. He is probably the greatest historian of business (yep, he is from the US which is the only place where historians actually study this kind of thing en masse).
- kfarr 6y ago
  Thanks for the insightful and well written comment, however I wonder if (and propose that) both can be true: your statements regarding the initial seed of business management from western railroads and also post WWII military influence on mid 1900s business management practices.
  - hogFeast 6y ago
    No, the influence was actually the reverse. Very briefly: railroads, oil/telecom companies, car/retail companies then WW2 then govt begins to try and pull management from companies into the military. This is the military-industrial complex of Eisenhower. Companies were integrated into the military during WW2, and their influence was maintained after: management practices from companies into the military. Kennedy's govt was full of people from business making foreign policy/military decisions (with unfortunate consequences). Again, it is difficult to understate how far ahead the US was with management training so it is natural that this innovation spread into the military.
    - dls2016 6y ago
      This makes sense and my original comment reflects my ignorance of pre-WWII history.
- markdown 6y ago
  > In fact, management didn't exist before the US invented it. Wow. Just wow.
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  >most billionaires in Germany got rich in the 30s, for reasons best forgotten, and have just passed it down unchanged which is why wealth inequality is so high). This is the truth so I don't get why you're bering downvoted.
  - wsc981 6y ago
    I remember seeing some study that showed much less social mobility in Europe compared to the USA. Many families in Europe that were wealthy hundreds of years ago are still wealthy to this day, whereas in the USA one (used to?) see much more transition of wealth. Perhaps in this sense, Europe is much more unequal than the USA. Bloomberg wrote about this issue: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-23/how-to-stay-rich-in-europe-inherit-money-for-700-years https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-23/how-to-st... As did Famcap: https://www.famcap.com/2016/05/2016-5-17-wealthspike-europe-where-its-all-about-inherited-wealth-family-businesses/ https://www.famcap.com/2016/05/2016-5-17-wealthspike-europe-...

hogFeast 6y ago

Nope. American management was created in the late 19th century with railroads. In fact, management didn't exist before the US invented it. Most large companies in the UK were run by people who had no interest in management. They bought a factory then promised a piece rate to a labour gangmaster (this is an abtruse point but wage labour wasn't really a thing until the 20th century, the model was proto-industrial "business" structures which paid by output...wages shift risk to employers, and so that took time to develop). In Germany and much of Northern Europe, there was a very well-defined capitalist and worker class who negotiated through govt (because the capitalists mostly owned the govt and got their money to build stuff from state-owned banks, most unions ended up being allied to those capitalists/govt because revolution was taken quite seriously...left-wing unions didn't really exist). Again, there was no real concept of professional management...you negotiated with workers en masse, there was total seperation (and there is still is in Northern Europe, to a large extent...most billionaires in Germany got rich in the 30s, for reasons best forgotten, and have just passed it down unchanged which is why wealth inequality is so high). So it was with the railroads that actual professional managers started appearing (railroads were undoubtedly a new kind of complexity but US ones were run far more professionally), and shortly after this that you see management training and the like. The US was, and still is to a large extent, one of the only places where you see universities actually relate to the real world i.e. you have universities teaching practical tasks like management (I am in the UK, management is still thought of as a "joke" subject by most academics...stuff like Classics and Politics is far more respectable than business, people who need to work for money are looked down upon as hopelessly gauche...it is kind of funny that people believe the opposite is true, but that isn't self-evident if you come from a society where practical knowledge is valued). Btw, the defining book on this is Alfred Chandler's Visible Hand. He is probably the greatest historian of business (yep, he is from the US which is the only place where historians actually study this kind of thing en masse).

kfarr 6y ago
Thanks for the insightful and well written comment, however I wonder if (and propose that) both can be true: your statements regarding the initial seed of business management from western railroads and also post WWII military influence on mid 1900s business management practices.
- hogFeast 6y ago
  No, the influence was actually the reverse. Very briefly: railroads, oil/telecom companies, car/retail companies then WW2 then govt begins to try and pull management from companies into the military. This is the military-industrial complex of Eisenhower. Companies were integrated into the military during WW2, and their influence was maintained after: management practices from companies into the military. Kennedy's govt was full of people from business making foreign policy/military decisions (with unfortunate consequences). Again, it is difficult to understate how far ahead the US was with management training so it is natural that this innovation spread into the military.
  - dls2016 6y ago
    This makes sense and my original comment reflects my ignorance of pre-WWII history.
markdown 6y ago
> In fact, management didn't exist before the US invented it. Wow. Just wow.
ChuckNorris89 6y ago
>most billionaires in Germany got rich in the 30s, for reasons best forgotten, and have just passed it down unchanged which is why wealth inequality is so high). This is the truth so I don't get why you're bering downvoted.
- wsc981 6y ago
  I remember seeing some study that showed much less social mobility in Europe compared to the USA. Many families in Europe that were wealthy hundreds of years ago are still wealthy to this day, whereas in the USA one (used to?) see much more transition of wealth. Perhaps in this sense, Europe is much more unequal than the USA. Bloomberg wrote about this issue: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-23/how-to-stay-rich-in-europe-inherit-money-for-700-years https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-23/how-to-st... As did Famcap: https://www.famcap.com/2016/05/2016-5-17-wealthspike-europe-where-its-all-about-inherited-wealth-family-businesses/ https://www.famcap.com/2016/05/2016-5-17-wealthspike-europe-...