Democracy Takes Over

Democracy Is Inevitable

by Philip Slater and Warren G. Bennis

Cynical observers have always been fond of pointing out that business leaders who extol the virtues of democracy on ceremonial occasions would be the last to think of applying them to their own organizations. To the extent that this is true, however, it reflects a state of mind that is by no means peculiar to businesspeople but characterizes all Americans, if not perhaps all citizens of democracies.

This attitude is that democracy is a nice way of life for nice people, despite its manifold inconveniences—a kind of expensive and inefficient luxury, like owning a large medieval castle. Feelings about it are for the most part affectionate, even respectful, yet a little impatient. There are probably few people in the United States who have not at some time nourished in their hearts the blasphemous thought that life would go much more smoothly if democracy could be relegated to some kind of Sunday morning devotion.

The bluff practicality of the “nice but inefficient” stereotype masks a hidden idealism, however, for it implies that institutions can survive in a competitive environment through the sheer goodheartedness of those who maintain them. We challenge this notion. Even if all those benign sentiments were eradicated today, we would awaken tomorrow to find democracy still entrenched, buttressed by a set of economic, social, and political forces as practical as they are uncontrollable.

Democracy has been so widely embraced not because of some vague yearning for human rights but because under certain conditions it is a more “efficient” form of social organization. (Our concept of efficiency includes the ability to survive and prosper.) It is not accidental that those nations of the world that have endured longest under conditions of relative wealth and stability are democratic, while authoritarian regimes have, with few exceptions, either crumbled or eked out a precarious and backward existence.

Despite this evidence, even so acute a statesman as Adlai Stevenson argued in a New York Timesarticle on November 4, 1962, that the goals of the Communists are different from ours. “They are interested in power,” he said, “we in community. With such fundamentally different aims, how is it possible to compare communism and democracy in terms of efficiency?”

Democracy (whether capitalistic or socialistic is not at issue here) is the only system that can successfully cope with the changing demands of contemporary civilization. We are not necessarily endorsing democracy as such; one might reasonably argue that industrial civilization is pernicious and should be abolished. We suggest merely that given a desire to survive in this civilization, democracy is the most effective means to this end.

Democracy Takes Over

There are signs that our business community is becoming aware of democracy’s efficiency. Several of the newest and most rapidly blooming companies in the United States boast unusually democratic organizations. Even more surprising, some of the largest established corporations have been moving steadily, if accidentally, toward democratization. Feeling that administrative vitality and creativity were lacking in their systems of organization, they enlisted the support of social scientists and outside programs. The net effect has been to democratize their organizations. Executives and even entire management staffs have been sent to participate in human relations and organizational laboratories to learn skills and attitudes that ten years ago would have been denounced as anarchic and revolutionary. At these meetings, status prerogatives and traditional concepts of authority are severely challenged.

Many social scientists have played an important role in this development. The contemporary theories of McGregor, Likert, Argyris, and Blake have paved the way to a new social architecture. Research and training centers at the National Training Laboratories, Tavistock Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard Business School, Boston University, University of California at Los Angeles, Case Institute of Technology, and others have pioneered in applying social science knowledge to improving organizational effectiveness. The forecast seems to hold genuine promise of progress.

Philip Slater is artistic director of the Santa Cruz County Actors’ Theatre. The author of many books and articles, his most recent book is Creative Chaos: Stumbling Toward Democracy, to be published by Beacon Press in 1991.

Warren G. Bennis is Distinguished Professor of Business Administration at the University of Southern California. His most recent book is On Becoming a Leader (Addison-Wesley, 1989). This article appeared originally in HBR March–April 1964.

Rob Asghar

Fellow, USC Center on Public Diplomacy; and member, Pacific Council on International Policy

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Date: 2016-01-14; view: 806