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Ok, so this debate seems to be framed in terms of authoritarian bureaucracy vs. anarchy. But what about corporate governance that has formal structure and rule

by kyllo 12y ago

Ok, so this debate seems to be framed in terms of authoritarian bureaucracy vs. anarchy. But what about corporate governance that has formal structure and rules, but is governed in a democratic rather than authoritarian fashion? There are more than two dimensions to this. Structure does not necessitate top-down command, and vice versa.

potatolicious 12y ago
> "Ok, so this debate seems to be framed in terms of authoritarian bureaucracy vs. anarchy." It isn't really. The observations surrounding structurelessness suggest that true anarchy is impossible. In the absence of some type of hierarchy one will emerge anyways. The notion of a group of true equals with no authority over one another is a pipe dream. Not to mention the notion of defined hierarchies makes no statement on what the hierarchy looks like, nor the system that determines who goes where. Corporate structures are frequently democratic. The Board of a company is very explicitly such a structure. Not to mention that even without explicit democratic structures managers still answer to those they have authority over due to market forces (nothing says "you suck as a manager" like your team quitting). In this industry in particular, it's very, very hard to build an authoritarian bureaucracy. I'm not sure where you're getting the authoritarian/anarchy divide from, that wasn't in any way implied by my post, nor do I believe either extreme is possible in our industry.
j_baker 12y ago
You're talking about "participatory management". It was a fad in the 50s that comes up again from time to time. It sounds like a good idea, but it actually ends up increasing bureaucracy. There's a good article that discusses exactly what you're talking about here: http://www.maccoby.com/CHeckscher/Articles/LimitsPartMgmt.shtml http://www.maccoby.com/CHeckscher/Articles/LimitsPartMgmt.sh...
- kyllo 12y ago
  That essay is hilarious, it explains all these failures of companies doing participatory management half-assed, provides a few successful counterexamples of companies/divisions/plants that did it full-assed, and then concludes that the failures failed because they didn't take the changes far enough.

by kyllo 12y ago

potatolicious 12y ago

> "Ok, so this debate seems to be framed in terms of authoritarian bureaucracy vs. anarchy." It isn't really. The observations surrounding structurelessness suggest that true anarchy is impossible. In the absence of some type of hierarchy one will emerge anyways. The notion of a group of true equals with no authority over one another is a pipe dream. Not to mention the notion of defined hierarchies makes no statement on what the hierarchy looks like, nor the system that determines who goes where. Corporate structures are frequently democratic. The Board of a company is very explicitly such a structure. Not to mention that even without explicit democratic structures managers still answer to those they have authority over due to market forces (nothing says "you suck as a manager" like your team quitting). In this industry in particular, it's very, very hard to build an authoritarian bureaucracy. I'm not sure where you're getting the authoritarian/anarchy divide from, that wasn't in any way implied by my post, nor do I believe either extreme is possible in our industry.

j_baker 12y ago

You're talking about "participatory management". It was a fad in the 50s that comes up again from time to time. It sounds like a good idea, but it actually ends up increasing bureaucracy. There's a good article that discusses exactly what you're talking about here: http://www.maccoby.com/CHeckscher/Articles/LimitsPartMgmt.shtml http://www.maccoby.com/CHeckscher/Articles/LimitsPartMgmt.sh...

kyllo 12y ago
That essay is hilarious, it explains all these failures of companies doing participatory management half-assed, provides a few successful counterexamples of companies/divisions/plants that did it full-assed, and then concludes that the failures failed because they didn't take the changes far enough.