A model for management styles

[james_davis_nicoll]

[Stolen from a discussion where I kvetched over the use of somewhat vague terms to describe governments]



> Definition on socialist and capitalist (If only because I
>don't see them as necessarily opposed). Maybe dirigiste vs laise fair?

Actually, thought of two more pair of terms to add to that:
redistributive vs anti-redistributive, and high-feedback vs low.

	 Redistributive
	    	|
	A	| 	B
		|
		|
 LF----------------------Dirigiste
		|
		|
	C	|	D
		|
	Anti-redistributive 

It's rather hard to add that third axis but imagine it is
there so that each of the four quadrents is divided into two.

A type governments take in taxes and pay out benefits but
don't try to tell subunits [1] what economic activity to engage in.

B type as above but they try to direct the economy from a
central office.

C types don't take in many/any taxes and don't spent money
either.

D types as above but the central office still tries to tell
people how to conduct their economic activity.

High feedback states have some mechanisms whereby the effects
of policy are effectively communicated to the central authority. Low
feedback states don't. My gut instinct is that the most spectacular
failures come from low feedback B states but that low feedback D states
probably won't set records for stability either. It may be difficult to
distinguish between low feedback and high feedback C states.


1: states, companies, citizens

Comments

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

That looks rather useful. Thank you.

[velochicdunord.livejournal.com]

That seems like a more useful model for discussion than socialist vs. capitalist. Because the two terms are not opposed, simply at different tangents to one another.

Do you have any handy links for further exploration of the concept?

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Not as far as I know. I just made it up during this conversation:

http://groups.google.ca/group/rec.arts.sf.science/browse_frm/thread/91b840700e6b3f52/97ede984b033389c?lnk=st&q=High+feedback+states+have+some+mechanisms+whereby+the+effects&rnum=1#97ede984b033389c

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

http://www.reason.com/news/show/30464.html

Herbert Croly is not exactly a household name, but he should be. Seven decades after his death, we are still living in the political world his ideas built--and struggling to escape it.

Croly did two very important things: He wrote The Promise of American Life, published in 1909, which crystallized the thought of the Progressive movement as it assumed significant, multiparty political influence. And, five years later, he founded The New Republic, which gave--and gives--voice to those ideas.

Croly's central message was that the government's job is to solve social problems and to actively shape the future, not to be a neutral referee. "To conceive of a better American future as a consummation which will take care of itself,--as the necessary result of our customary conditions, institutions, and ideas,--persistence in such a conception is admirably designed to deprive American life of any promise at all," he wrote. Croly's ideas influenced, among other contemporaries, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, political rivals who in retrospect had more fundamental agreements than differences.

Seeing Like a Government by Scott--it's about big government projects that went badly wrong, and mentions lack of feedback from the populace as part of the problem.