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[casi] Managerial Imperialism



Oh yeah -- this describes the Iraq situation to a tee.

--------- Begin forwarded message ----------

Excerpt from The Daily Kos found at
http://www.dailykos.com/MT/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=2886

  "Max, it isn't just the PNAC. The ideology that makes their project
possible is "managerial imperialism," like what Chainsaw Al Dunlap, Ken
Lay, Jack Welch, and you can name the others, used to do. It's what W
learned at
B-school.

  The basic idea is that the imperial CEO can do no wrong. He/she/it
packs the board of directors and all the important line offices, thereby
co-opting and suppressing all potential rival power centers. He/she/it
demands
unquestioning obedience of all subordinates and directs the PR
departments to turn all corporate publicity into breathless adulation of
the fearless leader.

  Then comes the most important step. The fearless leader strikes hard to
change as much as possible at the same time. Leaving no functioning
element of the organization untouched, he/she/it orders new procedures,
new
missions, wholesale reorganizations. It doesn't matter that many aspects
of the organization are functioning perfectly well; "if it ain't broke,
break it." In other words, organizations have to be shaken apart.

  The theory says that organizations work better when they've settled
down again. But a cynic like me says that disruption is the goal. This
approach makes people work so hard picking up the pieces and trying to
hold things
together that they don't know what the big picture is anymore, and don't
have time or energy to compare notes. It also tends to break up
established personal and professional arrangements inside an
organization, much to the benefit of the imperial CEO.

  And the most important idea of all is that the imperial CEO must never,
ever, ever explain any reasons for what's done, or answer to anyone. See
initial steps for the way that's rigged. Along the way, the imperial CEO
must loot the organization for what can be gotten.

  This administration is the imperial CEO in action. They can't be
questioned, they can't explain, they work in secret, they have no
consistent policy, they've upset every existing institution and
relationship they can.
(People in Washington have expected politics, and they're still rocked
back on their heels-- you can't horsetrade with an imperial CEO, nor can
you understand what they do using only political terms.)

  The PNAC project is not much more than imperial management. It aims to
enact at the world level what the administration has done here in the US.
That's why it was such an easy sell to W and Rumsfeld and the other
corporate types. They recognize CEO glorification when they see it. And
that's precisely why other governments really can't tolerate it.

  Europeans in particular are personally horrified at W's idiocy and lack
of couth, and if that's all he was he'd be nothing but a figure of fun.
But they really can't stand that he's also a lout, a soccer hooligan--
that's what an imperial CEO looks like from their point of view. They
think he's really dangerous. It remains to be seen what they'll do to
stop him. They do have lots of weapons.

  Posted by Altoid at June 1, 2003 04:26 PM"
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--------- End forwarded message ----------


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