Management and Machiavelli

Abstract

Today, there is something else the industrialist has to master, and it is called the science of management. The simple days of just the boss and the labour force are over: between the two has come the ‘hierarchy’, the ‘management structure’, the ‘chain of command’. The new science of management is in fact only a continuation of the old art of government, and when people study management case-histories side by side with political history, they realise that they are only studying two very similar branches of the same subject. Machiavelli is not at the moment required reading in business colleges or on management training courses. And yet Machiavelli, however marginal his relevance to academic historians, is in fact bursting with urgent advice and acute observations for top management of the great private and public corporations all over the world.

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