Another amazing passage in Thorstein Veblens 1918 book: Quote: It is doubtless within the mark to say that the training given by the American schools of commerce is detrimental to the communitys material interests. In America, even in a more pronounced degree than elsewhere, business management centres on financiering and salesmanship; and American commercial schools, even in a more pronounced degree than those of other countries, centre their attention on proficiency in these matters, because these are the matters which the common sense of the American business community knows how to value, and on which it insists as indispensable qualifications in its young men. The besetting infirmity of the American business community, as witness the many and circumstantial disclosures of the efficiency engineers, and of others who have had occasion to speak of the matter, is a notable indifference to the economical and mechanically efficient use, exploitation and conservation of equipment and resources, coupled with an equally notable want of insight into the technological needs and possibilities of the industries which they control. The typical American businessman watches the industrial process from ambush, with a view to the seizure of any item of value that may be left at loose ends. Business strategy is a strategy of watchful waiting, at the centre of a web; very alert and adroit, but remarkably incompetent in the way of anything that can properly be called industrial enterprise. Unquote ditext/veblen/veb7.html
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 23:28:09 +0000