Concerning the Boss; J.L. McCaffrey

The truth is that the president's job violates the first principle of effective organization, that principle being that a man should have one, and only one, boss. The corporation president has a whole series of bosses, some obvious and visible; others not visible but nevertheless powerful. For example. As an immediate group of bosses the president has the company's board of directors, the men who hired him in the first place and who have the power to fire him at will. Beyond them, the president has among his bosses the whole group of share owners who can not only fire him but can also fire the board of directors if they choose. And sometimes they do choose. Most powerful, perhaps, among the president's unoffi cial and invisible bosses are the customers. He has to please the directors and share owners or he won't be president, but the power of the customer is still greater. [240 ] The president has to please the customers or there won't be any business to get fired from.

Then there is the management group of the company. Theoretically, they are only agents of the president, to whom he delegates some of his powers and who function at his pleasure. Practically, he can no more act success fully without their consent than he could sweep the dust out of Kansas with a broom. If he is to be effective, they must believe in what he is trying to do-and that is not a matter of giving orders, that is a matter of persuasion, of securing consent. I will not do more than mention such other groups as dealers and suppliers and government officials, whose powers and interests the president must recognize and heed. And finally, it is perfectly clear to you-as it is to me that there remains an extremely powerful group, the rank and file employees of the company, without whose loyalty and interest neither the president nor any of the other management people can function effectively or success fully. And that is not just a piece of polite or sentimental rhetoric. That is a fact of corporation life: The president is not an all-powerful ruler.

EDITOR'S NOTE: No, the corporation president is not an all-powerful ruler. And, in a sense, the concept of a "one and only" boss does not apply at all to the economic relationships of the business world. Whether a man be buyer or seller, self-employed or for hire, salesman or customer, owner or tenant, borrower or lender-whatever his chosen position in the free market-he is as much "bossed" by the others with [241 ] wholn he bargains and competes as they are "bossed" by him. That's why any free man ought to smile when he refers to another as "the Boss." There are no all-powerful human rulers over the voluntary economic relationships between self-re specting, self-responsible men. It is when men lose their self-respect and their respect for the lives and properties of one another and turn instead to coercive practices and compulsory political organization, that the boss appears as an all-powerful ruler. The boss to be feared by any man who loves freedom is the government official who holds the power to command the life and tax away the livelihood of others. An all-powerful boss is a fact of political life.

Men who resort to political means to acquire something for nothing, attempting to short-circuit the economic facts of life, fully deserve the kind of bossing they will get. Instead of the many "bosses" with whom free men deal, they will have one, and only one, boss-alI-powerful! [242 ] DOES GOVERNMENT SPENDING BRING PROSPERITY? MANY leaders in high places now promise us that our government will never again permit poverty and depres sion to devastate our land. They propose more govern ment spending as a cure for every economic evil. And millions of people believe that such a program will work. The underlying philosophy behind political spending is not new. Similar ideas have appeared throughout all history. They came to full Hower shortly after the eco nomic collapse of 1929 when unbalanced budgets were generally accepted as necessary economic measures for relieving those in distress. You could not let innocent people starve, could you?