05-19-2016, 03:04 PM
(05-19-2016, 01:41 PM)TnT Wrote: My next observation about Donald Trump.
It is often said by my brethren from the right that we should “run government like a business,” and thereby it would be a vast improvement on how it currently runs.
It happens that during part of my career I WAS a business man. I was general manager and vice president of our enterprise.
So what? Well, I can tell you from personal experience that being “the man” makes things potentially very efficient. Businesses are, in general, NOT democracies. While it often benefits the business to have relatively happy, productive, highly-motivated employees, and while it often benefits the business to take the employees’ opinions into account, the final decisions are up to “the man.” (Or “the woman, of course!)
Business is run for a profit. Government cannot be. Does anyone want the government collecting maximal taxes? That would be extremely business-like. I doubt that Big Business would like that.
Quote:I can tell you from personal experience that this is a heady environment. It’s easy to get used to. One quickly becomes an authoritarian. You yell “Jump!” Everyone within earshot replies, “How High?!” If corrective action is needed within the enterprise, “the man” decides what it will be, whose head gets to roll, which consultant needs to be brought in, what of their recommendations will be implemented.
The Donald has spent his whole life in such an environment. And an extreme example of that! It is said that everyone has a boss. Well, The Donald has never had a boss, except possibly his father. It has always and only been HIS vision, goals, processes that have taken place within his enterprises.
...and when some Congressional representative from from a very urban district or a Senator from a Blue state decidesw not to take orders from the President.... that is democracy at work. Democracy isn't efficient in doing the will of the President, and that is a good thing.
Quote:So how does government differ? In a thousand ways. If one studies organization management, one discovers that there are many types. Not “right” or “wrong” types, just different types. Some are better than others, depending on the needs and goals of the stakeholders. My experience tells me that what works in an autocratic (business model) workplace, may well not work in one that demands collaboration, mutual cooperation and compromise.
Take the office of the POTUS. His/her “employees” are for the most part already in place. The many thousands of military folks, bureaucrats, analysts, etc. are experienced and intelligent. And, likely, they will still be there when this new POTUS is long gone. And they know that. They’ve been through many changeovers. This actually gives some stability to government which is not all bad.
Sure, the POTUS gets to name some of the heads of the various departments. However, these folks also will each have their own personal agendas and ambitions.
...and when some Army colonel tells the President that he will disobey an order from the President because the order (like torture or summary execution) violates the Geneva Convention, President Trump will be unable to fire the Army colonel.
Quote:The bottom line is that if one cannot adapt to this highly collaborative organization culture, one will be unable to accomplish the simplest task. Bellowing, firing people, demanding action, insisting on performance – all those things that the CEO can do with impunity will simply pull him under in a high-level government post.
Donald doesn’t have a clue. If he were elected, the people of the governments of the world would eat him alive. He would be as clueless as Wilson was, when he went by his solitary self to “help” negotiate the consequences ladled out the German at the end of WW-I. How did that work out?
Parts of government can operate like a business. The most important parts can't.[/quote]
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.