EW Wilder
The more we see of the world, the more
obvious it becomes: power protects itself.
This is evident from the smallest of
power differentials—those between teacher and student, doctor and
patient, worker and direct supervisor—all the way up to national
and international power relationships. Because of this, it becomes
the role of those in positions of power to protect that power first
and foremost: the actual services or activities institutions with
managerial power structures ostensibly exist to support are secondary
at best; often they are almost an afterthought.
Supervisory roles, with their
performance reviews and managerial expectations, are designed not to
serve those directly performing the work nor to help the processes of
production, service provision, or exchange. Rather, they exist to
hold the worker “accountable” not to the ostensible effort of the
organization, but to the managerial structure itself. This shifts
responsibility from becoming concentrated up the supervisory train,
as remuneration and role would suggest it should do, but away from it
and onto the least compensated, least powerful members of the
organization.
The protestations of those at the top
that they deserve extra pay because they take extra risks and have
greater responsibilities simply aren't true: those at the top are
more able to manage their own time, more likely to have close
relationships with those who supervise them (typically a board of
directors for publicly run companies and non-profits), and have the
clout to negotiate huge salaries and severance packages. This helps
create conditions for them to be irresponsible with impunity, which
would be impossible for low-level employees who are subject to many
levels of supervision, demeaning if not infantilizing policies and
procedures, and performance reviews designed to blame them when
anything goes wrong.
Note, also, that the supposedly “free”
market backs up existing power structures as well, demanding layoffs
first when a company loses money, not that the CEO be fired. This is
the opposite of what would be demanded of a college sports team, for
example, or even a politician.
Managerial structures that reinforce
power at the top create relationships with workers based on the
negative: they kick into gear when the worker does wrong; they are
punitive of her errors, not supportive of her efforts. Control over
her own work, much less initiative and innovation, are a threat to
power and therefore must be punished, no matter how useful they may
be. And so a worker's role is strictly defined by procedure and
policy. Further, the supporting structures that do exist are taken
out of the control of the restive worker and insourced to separate
“administrative” or “operations” departments, departments
subject to punitive power structures of their own.
This concentrates the power of those at
the top even more, pitting departments against each other for control
over the resources necessary to get the work done and making the
worker constantly under threat from that competition: if a department
that is also competing for the company's resources keeps those
resources from a worker, she will still be blamed for not getting the
job done and subsequently punished. The power structure wins by a
divide and conquer strategy. Departments, also, have no other
recourse than to rely on the managerial power structure to work out
the inevitable (and designed-in) problems between each other,
reinforcing its power yet again and preventing worker
collectivization.
If we see existing managerial power
structures for what they really are, ways to protect those in charge
and not ways to get work done, we may begin to address problems not
only of inequality but also of inefficiency. But because we believe
so deeply in these structures and replicate them everywhere from
schools to the executive branch of government, change is unlikely to
happen. And it's unlikely that those in power would let it happen:
already we see the incredible influence of those industrialists and
executives who would seek to impose this structure on our
representative bodies themselves by electing “free market”
politicians, whose stated goals are to bring these principles to the
public sphere. Again, the rhetoric is the opposite of the intention,
as we have seen how these politicians act when they get into office:
in Kansas, and Texas, Wisconsin and Ohio, they have acted like petty
dictators, bullying and dominating wherever they can, ignoring both
constitutionality and the financial stability, much less best
interests of, the states they serve.
The goal of these people is to usurp
what little democracy our republic allows and decimate our last, best
hope at retaining the popular rule we have so willingly given up in
the workplaces that, if we are lucky enough to be employed, already
dominate our lives.
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