--- Shane Taylor <shane.taylor at verizon.net> wrote:
> Mother Jones
> May/June 2006 Issue
>
> The Predator State
>
> Commentary: Enron, Tyco, WorldCom... and the U.S.
> government?
>
> By James K. Galbraith
>
>
http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2006/05/predator_state.html
>
[WS:] This is a trully excellent piece, a rare example of exceptional insight amidst distractions created by smoke and mirrors. Not only does it provide an accurate description of the Amerikan system, but also inspires a follow up question - what causes states to become predatory systms?
The same dynamic has been well documented in the Soviet regime - which truned from a centrally planned economy into a central dispensation of clientelistic privileges and predation, or rather scavenging on the decaying remnants of the planned economy.
It seems that neither markets not hierarchies (meaning "instituions" in the transaction cost economics lingo) are capable of preventing a system into truning to a predatory racket. This line was argued by organizational sociologists Charles Perrow and Mark Granovetter, who claimed that it is social networks (aka 'weak ties') and cultures that they create that make a system work or turn into a racket.
It seemsa that the common feature of the Amerikan and the Soviet systems is the prominence of the professional managerial class that are neither owners nor workers (or consumers). The social networks and culture created by that class are responsible for the development of predator state described by Galbraith as well as that documented in the Soviet system.
Professional managers are by definition predators - they do not produce anything, their success depends solely on extractinh what other produce. A wise predator/manager understands that relationship and cultivates its prey so it continues producing or even increases its output. But that wisdom is often lost as a result of incuclcation with managerial ideology liberally dispensed by MBA programs and the delusions of self-importance thus created. The parasite manager forgets that it preys on others and start thinking that he alone is the source of his own livelihood.
If this analysis is correct, then the best antidone against predatory managerialism is workplace democracy or instituional mechanisms that allow employee and stockholder control of key aspects of managerial behavior.
Wojtek