The Intent of Business

Organizing for a More Sustainable Future

G. Gull

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781137352071
• eBook ISBN: 9781137352088
• Topic: Betriebswirtschaft
• Subtopic: Unternehmensstrategie

Insights from varied disciplines such as: physics, mythology, psychology, philosophy, statistics, and systems theory to re-think the very intent of business and its corresponding organizing and management principles.

1

A Historical Perspective

Adam Smith’s theory of political economy, which is the foundation of our current system of economics, was influenced by those who preceded him and by the spirit of the times within which he lived. In fact, in formulating his economic system, Smith essentially synthesized the theories of such people as Sir Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes, Sir Isaac Newton, and John Locke. Toward developing an understanding of the assumptions upon which Smith’s theory rests, we will begin our discussion with the ideas and theories of Sir Francis Bacon.

In the mid-17th century the emergence of quantitative experimental methods caused scholars to change their focus of inquiry from the philosophical why to the practical what for, to the utility of it all. What had been followed for centuries was essentially tossed aside in favor of a new paradigm for learning, one that sought material causes. This paradigm shift represented a preference for the scientific method, for gaining knowledge by way of experimentation for its practical benefits. Accordingly, as the scientific method gained strength, the dominant method of knowing changed from the logic of philosophical argument to empirical experience. Correspondingly we see distaste for, and a corresponding movement away from, philosophical inquiry. The movement of the pendulum toward the importance of the quantities or objects in life, over the qualities or subjects of life, had begun.

The Baconian Mindset

An impassioned advocate of scientific research, Sir Francis Bacon was influential not so much for changing how research was carried out – his methods lacked mathematical rigor – but for altering the reason why we engage in scientific research. Leiss states, ‘Bacon’s great achievement was to formulate the concept of human mastery over Nature much more clearly than had been done previously…’ (1994, p. 48). Having disdain for knowledge for knowledge’s sake, Bacon advocated for the utility of knowledge, for interest in the how of things, and saw Nature as something to be controlled; something to master toward tangible and practical ends. Thus believing the acquisition of knowledge was for practical purposes, Bacon claimed that people should engage in the study of the physical, and not the study of the metaphysical. To Bacon, usefulness mattered, for he believed that knowledge should afford greater power for material gain. He thus gave science a new goal – expanding or enhancing humankind’s power over Nature. According to Bacon, the utility of scientifically-derived knowledge meant that it had utility, it would serve the material interests of people, and was not for exploring philosophical meanings – results realized matters. So it was Bacon who provided the seed of the modern saying that ‘the ends justify the means’. He was the ultimate, if not the first, pragmatist.

In preferring the practical to the philosophical, Bacon relegated humankind’s capacity of reflectively asking why to an inconsequential status. As a result, ‘how became increasingly important, and why increasingly irrelevant’ (Berman, 1984, p. 15). In so doing, he set the stage for a single-minded and narrow development of humankind’s intelligence for the purpose of conquering Nature. Bacon not only contributed to the belief that the acquisition of knowledge is to serve practical ends but also to the acceptance of the notion that utility is unrelated to value. This is the basis of the belief in the domination over and control of Nature (which was part of the Judaeo–Christian heritage) for the advance of commerce and industry (Leiss, 1994, p. 48).

Taking on this mindset, and solely utilizing their intelligence, people developed the capability for acquiring knowledge and developing technology never before seen; they became technocrats in pursuit of more and more control over the machinery of Nature. Moreover, in making and solidifying the either/or distinction between fact and value, people took the first step toward creating a divided self, and a world that people inevitably could not joyfully live or survive in. Without developing a corresponding capacity for reason (questioning why, which inevitably connects us to values), people became incapable of understanding and foreseeing how their use of technology and exploitation of Nature could create an environment that would place in doubt the continued existence of humankind.

Consistent with this ‘fact–value’ distinction, Bacon forcefully advanced the use of an objective and inductive scientific method. In speaking of the benefits of experimentation he argued that more could be learned from Nature under duress – what he called ‘Nature annoyed’ – than could be learned from watching it naturally unfold (Berman, 1984, p. 17). Thus Bacon proclaimed that this objective method of scientific learning would enable people to manipulate, control and exploit all things, to have ‘command over things natural – over bodies, medicine, mechanical powers and infinite other of this kind’ (Rifkin, 1989, p. 34). Though he himself wasn’t a scientist (as Berman relates, Bacon never performed an experiment), he called upon everyone to engage in real and objective learning through observational and experimental investigation – to the exclusion of what reason might provide.

Thus with the help of Bacon, the mindset was forged for science to be the tool that would enable humankind to control Nature, to re-gain dominion over Nature and return to paradise through the material advantages it affords (Leiss, 1994, p. 49). Bacon contended that for people to hold command over Nature, and to raise the kingdom of humankind, required knowledge; knowledge not from the anticipation of Nature in some magic dream, but from the study and interpretation of Nature (Randall, 1940, p. 224). Although he believed that Nature was God’s creation, he also maintained that God had no further involvement in Nature. As Leiss explains, to Bacon, God was separate from Nature and thus neither immanent within, nor transcendent beyond, Nature. In fact, Bacon argued that humankind’s pursuit of scientific knowledge for practical purposes was not counter to God’s plan, but rather it was consistent with it.

When humankind fell from the Garden, as the Christian story goes, human beings lost their power over Nature. In the Garden, before the fall, the animals obeyed human beings, but since the fall the animals were wild and dangerous – Nature’s evilness was evident. Portraying scientific knowledge as a respectable endeavor toward recapturing what humankind had lost in the fall from Paradise, Bacon leveraged Christianity in selling his ideas. In his New Organon, Bacon wrote:

For man by the fall fell at the same time from his state of innocency and from his dominion over creation. Both of these losses however can even in this life be in some part repaired; the former by religion and faith, the latter by arts and sciences. (Spedding et al., 1864, pp. 247–8)

As Leiss describes, Bacon argued that both the respectability and acceptability of dominance over Nature through the physical sciences can be realized. He afforded people a method of regaining a part of what was lost in humankind’s expulsion from Paradise – a very compelling and clever argument. Thus, by speaking of religion and science as two separate avenues for overcoming the distinct consequences of original sin (loss of moral innocence and loss of dominion), Bacon placed scientific progress in God’s plan and the fruits of its activities as humankind’s right – that humankind be served by Nature. The implication is that it was in God’s plan that human beings exercise dominion over Nature, toward increasing the wealth of humankind. Thus the Judaeo–Christian tradition provided the ontological basis for the pursuit of the control over Nature, and Bacon’s ideas simply provided the epistemological means.

Hence from Bacon we have a philosophy advancing the primacy of technological development and the seed of a new secular order – one in which utility is the primary measure. The question this philosophy puts forth is ‘what utility does it offer and (how) does it work?’ to the exclusion of what reason might provide in seeking answers to ‘why or for what (human) purpose?’ Accordingly sensory experience and the quantifiable must dominate, as values (which are qualitative) are relegated to being inconsequential and inevitably to be ignored.

Clearly, the Baconian mindset is in evidence today as we utilize our technological advances to significantly impact Nature in all its aspects, irrespective of what reason might tell us about the effect of these advances upon humankind. It is from this system of orientation that we’ve been able to develop the belief that it is not only possible, but that it is right, for us to separate ourselves from each other (it’s not personal, it’s business) and to objectively know and judge each other’s utility relative to our self-interests. Thus we can understand why ‘value’ today means that which serves someone’s own interests as opposed to what is generally good.

Cartesian Influence

In parallel fashion, as the focus of activity shifted from a contemplative science to a practical science, the worldview shifted from a theocentric worldview to a mechanistic worldview. In other words, mystery gave way to mechanics, opening the door for all things out there in the external world (including people) to become mere objects in motion.

Almost twenty years after Bacon published New Organon, Rene Descartes wrote Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason and Seeking Truth in the Field of Science, in which he, like Bacon, attacked the contemplative nature of traditional Greek philosophical learning. Descartes argued:

Instead of the speculative philosophy now taught in the schools we can find a practical one, by which, knowing the nature and behavior of fire, water, air, stars, the heavens, and all the other bodies which surround us…we can employ these entities for all the purposes for which they are suited, and so make ourselves masters and possessors of nature. (Descartes, 1637, p. 45)

It is clear that he too advanced the notion that it was humankind’s purpose to control all of Nature and that scientific knowledge would enable humankind to do so. Descartes sought certainty, for what better way to gain control than through the certainty derived from scientific knowledge.

Descartes viewed Nature as a machine, and all things contained therein as machines, and God residing outside of his creation, not immanent in Nature, as did Bacon. However, unlike Bacon, Descartes believed that the advance in knowledge toward practical ends came from clarity of thought rather than solely through inductive experimentation. As a result, he claimed that experimenting and collecting data without clarity of thought would not lead to truth and certainty. Descartes saw doubting as the first step in becoming ‘the seeker after truth to consider all preconceptions regarding the subject matter at hand as false’ (Leon, 1999, p. 88). Thus for Descartes, scientific knowledge was knowledge derived by a definite method that began with doubting as much as one can and then, through reductionism, successively breaking down the object under investigation into its simplest components. Thus in the Cartesian approach, knowing or learning about something consists of a mind (that is, an ‘I’) confronting that which is out there (an object) and dividing it into its components through thought and measurement.

When Descartes argued, ‘from the very fact that I know with certainty that I exist…it is certain that this I is entirely and truly distinct from my body and that it can be or exist without it’ (Descartes, 1637, p. 25), he was viewing himself (and all individuals) as a disembodied mind – mind and body were separate. ‘I think, therefore I am’, implies ‘I am not my body, and that (this) I and (this) body are separate and distinct’.

Further, in viewing the body as a machine, Descartes compared the workings of the body to that of a watch:

A clock, composed of wheels and counterweights, is no less exactly obeying all the laws of nature when it is badly made and does not mark the time correctly than when it completely fulfills the intention of its maker; so also, the human body may be considered as a machine, so built and composed of bones, nerves, muscles, veins, blood, and skin that even if there were no mind in it, it would not cease to move in all the ways that it does at present when it is not moved under the direction of the will, nor consequently with the aid of the mind. (1637, p. 138)

His view of the body was no different than his view of Nature – machine-like, with matter distinct from mind. Therefore Descartes argued that in the process of knowing, it is the mind (the subject) that confronts all objects (which are not ‘I’) that are out there in the external world, with the intent of controlling and mastering (for practical purposes) the object of the mind’s attention. This view of the relationship between humankind and Nature became the ontological basis in support of humankind’s domination over, and exploitation of, Nature. The implication is that what is done to Nature is not done to one’s self. In other words, we are unaffected by our exploitation of Nature since we are separate and apart from Nature.

Epistemologically, to Descartes, truth was solely scientific truth, as all other ways of knowing were riddled with error. He believed that through the powers of the human mind, following a process of deductive thinking, we would be able to know the world and we would know it with truth and certainty. However, Descartes believed that the possession of a good mind only fulfilled half the requirement, as he advocated the necessity to use it well by following the reductionism of his scientific method. Clearly, Descartes’ goal was to achieve certainty of the world through scientific methods, not mere observation of it.

Seeking to develop his method of thought, himself a mathematician, he turned to mathematics – specifically geometry, ‘because of the certainty and self-evidence of its proofs’ (Descartes, 1637, p. 7) to guide its formulation. He saw that rationality in geometry began with a select few maxims or assumed truths, and deductively developed laws of conduct in producing greater order. Thus, in viewing Nature as a machine, Descartes believed that the way to its precise description was through the exact laws of mathematics. In the Cartesian view, Nature is a logically and mathematically explainable machine where every effect is linearly and directly traceable to a definite cause. Consequently, through rationally-derived mathematical laws, Descartes concluded that we could quantitatively explain the economy of Nature’s acts. Clearly such a method of thought is very appealing, for its predictive power enables one to know with certainty; and, in this determinism, there is a sense of control.

Accordingly mathematics became the language of the natural sciences and mechanics was the context – the lens – utilized to describe the structure through which everything would be framed. Believing that all things were explainable in a mechanistic context and mathematical terms meant that even the universe could be explained in such terms. Following the reductionism of geometry, his method of thought sought to divide each problem encountered into as many component parts as possible, with the objective of developing a certainty of knowledge, affording an understanding for an unquestionable solution. Basically this reductionist approach to knowing rests on the assumptions that that which is under investigation is equal to – and not less than, or greater than – the sum of its parts, and that the observer (mind/subject) is independent of, and distinct from, that which is observed (matter/object).

As people realized greater control over aspects of Nature, their experience with the scientific method came to validate the correctness of the idea, deeply solidifying this view of the world as the view of the world. Eventually, knowing something came to mean that it is expressible and explainable in the language of mathematics, and correspondingly quantification came to be the basis of meaningful understanding. Thus everything in the universe became an object to be quantified and mathematically modeled into exact laws of physical cause and effect. With the acceptance and application of this method, scientific progress and technological innovation grew in social importance.

Thus Descartes gave birth to the objective reductionist system of thought that guides our thinking today. Generally in solving problems reductionism predominates, as we breakdown each problem confronting us into smaller-sized more manageable problems. Also his dichotomous mind–body line of thought also aligns with the notion of the separation between thinking and doing, often seen in the way organizations are organized and managed. In the management of organizations we create hierarchical (reporting) structures – breaking the work up into more manageable parts – with the intention of realizing control and mastery over the profit-making machinery. The top of the hierarchy is the ‘I’, the mind, and the rest of the hierarchy is the object, the body. In other words, the organization is a machine – the component parts of which are people, units of labor – that is controlled by a mind, residing at the top of the organization. Furthermore we manage our organizations based predominantly, if not solely, on the quantifiable aspects, believing that if we don’t have metrics or numerical goals we won’t be able to attain certainty and control – a goal not quantified cannot be materially real. In other words, our thought process leads us to approach structuring organizations by breaking them into more manageable parts (with the intention of realizing control and mastery) and to manage them based predominantly, if not solely, on the quantifiable aspects. Yet, while believing we have thought of everything, we are at a loss to understand why our organizations are generally ineffective.

Moreover the influence of Descartes’ philosophy is quite evident as we widely employ the logical if…then… determinism of geometric law in our method of thought. Even though the if…then… concept existed before Descartes, his philosophy gave strength and support to its widespread use. Unfortunately, if…then… exactness only applies in a world/context independent of time and mind – like Euclidian geometry – which ours is not. Nevertheless, today our world is replete with people universally applying a method of thought based solely upon a framework of reductionism, determinism and positivism. While this system of orientation is appropriate in a world where mind has no effect, it does not fit a world that is not machine-like, where self-initiation, human interaction and ideas matter. Unfortunately to a large extent, our world has become a world of machines and not of people, a world of fact and abstraction and not of value and the concrete human experience.

As further example, we see the influence of this system of orientation reflected in the highly quantitative graduate business curriculum (the traditional MBA) that we use to educate and train captains of industry. More generally in the educational system, we’ve separated and isolated each subject from all others and teach students the isolated facts of each. Further, in monitoring how much students have acquired through our process of disseminating facts in monologue (chalk-and-talk) lecture fashion, we objectively dev...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 A Historical Perspective
• 2 Practicing the Philosophy
• 3 The Effects are Personal
• 4 On Being Human
• 5 Prelude to Change
• 6 The Essential Changes
• 7 An Energic Perspective
• 8 Organizing and Managing for Viability
• Bibliography
• Index