A Moral Philosophy for Management

Abstract

Professor Selekman is eminently qualified to write this book. He has a vast experience in management relations with labor, individual and unions; he is a keen analyst, and he has a sense of looking below the surface to discover what really goes on. He has a sympathetic understanding of the problems that face both corporate managers and labor leaders in this new economic world which has emerged in the last thirty years. He is brilliantly qualified to undertake this analysis, and he has lived up to expectations. Professor Selekman begins with a description of the total lack of moral responsibility of the employer of two generations ago beyond the wage payments. Gradually, over the intervening years, one after another fringe-benefit was introduced. owner-manager was replaced by the professional manager who introduced what has become recognized as moral responsibility into his contracts. This includes retirement pensions, insurance against accidents, sickness, and unemployment. The behavior of Businessmen was consistent with the basic philosophy dominating the nation (prior to 1930): 1. Adam Smith's doctrine of self-interest, Wages constitute a price, just like that of any inanimate goods (p. 9). 2. Malthus' doctrine that the workingman was thus predoomed to live close to a subsistence level. 3. Ricardo's formulation of the iron law of wages, exploited by Karl Marx. 4. Darwin's discovery of the survival of the fittest, developed by Spencer into the social philosophy of dominance by the strong, and the submergence of the poor, as a law of nature. This philosophy, Professor Selekman says, prevailed until the 1930's. Out of all this, there have developed three dominant power institutionsmanagement, labor unions, and government-

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