The strongest argument for private enterprise is the function of loss.
Reprivatization is a systematic policy of using the other, nongovernmental institutions of the society of organizations for the actual “doing,” that is, the performance, operation, execution of tasks that flowed to government because the original private institution of society, the family, could not discharge them. What makes business especially appropriate for reprivatization is that, of all social institutions, it is predominately an organ of innovation. All other institutions were originally created to prevent, or at least to slow down, change. They become innovators only by necessity and most reluctantly.
Business has two advantages where government has a major weakness. Business can abandon an activity. Indeed, it is forced to do so if it operates in a market. What’s more: of all institutions, business is the only one society will let disappear. The second strength of business: alone among all institutions, it has the test of performance. The consumer always asks: “And what will the product do for me tomorrow?” If the answer is “nothing,” he will see its manufacturer disappear without the slightest regret. And so will the investor. The strongest argument for “private enterprise” is not the function of profit. The strongest argument is the function of loss. Because of it business is the most adaptable and the most flexible of the institutions around.
Government has to regain a modicum of performance capacity.
Governments have become powerless against the onslaught of special-interest groups, have, indeed, become powerless to govern—to make decisions and to enforce them. The new tasks—protection of the environment, stamping out private armies and international terrorism, making arms control effective—all will require more rather than less government. But they will require a different form of government.
Government has to regain a modicum of performance capacity. It has to be turned around. To turn around any institution—whether a business, a labor union, a university, a hospital, or a government—always requires the same three steps:
Abandonment of the things that do not work, the things that have never worked, the things that have outlived their usefulness and their capacity to contribute.
Concentration on the things that do work, the things that produce results, the things that improve the organization’s ability to perform.
Analysis of the half-successes, the half-failures.
A turnaround requires abandoning whatever does not perform and doing more of what does perform.
The absence of a basic social purpose for industrial society constitutes the core of our problem.
We already have given up the belief that economic progress is always and by necessity the highest goal. And once we have given up economic achievement as the highest value and have come to regard it as no more than one goal among many, we have, in effect, given up economic activity as the basis for social life. The abandonment of the economic as the socially constructive sphere has gone further. Western society has given up the belief that man is fundamentally Economic Man, that his motives are economic motives, and that his fulfillment lies in economic success and economic rewards.
We have to develop a free and functioning society on the basis of a new concept of man’s nature and of the purpose and fulfillment of society. A basic ethical concept of social life must be developed. It lies in the philosophical or metaphysical field.
The demand for harmony does not mean that society should abandon its right to limit the exercise of economic power on the part of the corporation.
Economic purpose does not mean that the corporation should be free from social obligations. On the contrary it should be so organized as to fulfill, automatically, its social obligations in the very act of seeking its own self-interest. An individual society based on the corporation can function only if the corporation contributes to social stability and to the achievement of social aims independent of the goodwill or the social consciousness of individual corporation managements.
At the same time, the demand for harmony does not mean that society should abandon its needs and aims and its right to limit the exercise of economic power on the part of the corporation. On the contrary, it is a vital function of rulership to set the frame within which institutions and individuals act. But, society must be organized so that there is no temptation to enact, in the name of social stability or social beliefs, measures that are inimical to the survival and stability of its representative institutions.
The end of the belief in salvation by society may even lead to a return to individual responsibility.
Surely the collapse of Marxism as a creed signifies the end of the belief in salvation by society. What will emerge next, we cannot know; we can only hope and pray. Perhaps nothing beyond stoic resignation? Perhaps a rebirth of traditional religion, addressing itself to the needs and challenges of the person in the knowledge society? The explosive growth of what I call “pastoral” Christian churches in America—Protestant, Catholic, nondenominational—might be a portent. But so might the resurgence of fundamentalist Islam. For the young people in the Muslim world who now so fervently embrace Islamic fundamentalism would, forty years ago, have been equally fervent Marxists. Or will there be new religions? Still, redemption, self-renewal, spiritual growth, goodness, and virtue—the “New Man,” to use the traditional term—are likely to be seen again as existential rather than social goals or political prescriptions. The end of the belief in salvation by society surely marks an inward turning. It makes possible renewed emphasis on the individual, the person. It may even lead—at least we can so hope—to a return to individual responsibility.
Charisma is “hot” today. There is an enormous amount of talk about it, and an enormous number of books are written on the charismatic leader. But, the desire for charisma is a political death wish. No century has seen more leaders with more charisma than the twentieth century, and never have political leaders done greater damage than the four giant leaders of the twentieth century: Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, and Mao. What matters is not charisma. What matters is whether the leader leads in the right direction or misleads. The constructive achievements of the twentieth century were the work of completely uncharismatic people. The two military men who guided the Allies to victory in World War II were Dwight Eisenhower and George Marshall. Both were highly disciplined, highly competent, and deadly dull.
Perhaps the greatest cause for hope, for optimism is that to the new majority, the knowledge workers, the old politics make no sense at all. But proven competence does.
Freedom is never a release and always a responsibility.
Freedom is not fun. It is not the same as individual happiness, nor is it security or peace or progress. It is a responsible choice. Freedom is not so much a right as a duty. Real freedom is not freedom from something; that would be license. It is freedom to choose between doing or not doing something, to act one way or another, to hold one belief or the opposite. It is not “fun” but the heaviest burden laid on man: to decide his own individual conduct as well as the conduct of society and to be responsible for both decisions.
… the bystander sees things neither actor nor audience notices.
Bystanders have no history of their own. They are on the stage but are not part of the action. They are not even audience. The fortunes of the play and every actor in it depend on the audience, whereas the reaction of the bystander has no effect except on himself. But standing in the wings—much like the fireman in the theater—the bystander sees things neither actor nor audience notices. Above all, he sees differently from the way actors or audience see. Bystanders reflect, and reflection is a prism rather than a mirror; it refracts.
To watch and think for yourself is highly commendable. But “to shock people by shouting strange views from the rooftops is not.” The admonition is well taken. But I have rarely heeded it.
