Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
I am a regular subscriber to the website WhoWhatWhy written by investigative journalist Russ Baker. Recently he ran a response by one of his readers, Dave Parker, to a video Russ posted of Nick Hanuer, a billionaire venture capitalist who gave a talk at TED, which is an acronym for the non-profit, Technology, Entertainment and Design, TED holds conferences around the world on business/societal issues that relate to its theme. In his talk Mr. Hanuer dispelled the idea that the Rich create wealth and instead said it was really the middle-classes that drove the economy. He disparaged the idea that it is the entrepreneurs who are the “job creators”. Although the talk was well received by the conference attendees, TED curiously chose not to publicize it as it usually does with other such talks. Perhaps their decision was because Mr. Hanuer’s thesis goes against the current widely accepted mythology regarding job creation and entrepreneurship. Here is a video of his talk:
In his comment on this video, Dave Parker used the writings of Joseph Campbell. Joseph Campbell was:
“an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience.”
My reading Dave’s article was the type of moment where you can imagine me slapping my head and exclaiming: “Damn, why didn’t I think of that”. Indeed, I’ve read all of Campbell’s books and seen all of his famed PBS series of interviews, done with Bill Moyers. What follows is my jumping off from Mr. Parker’s excellent comments and any credit for what I’m writing here goes to him for his perception. In applying Campbell to Mr. Hanuer’s comments, Dave solidified a concept for me that’s been playing in my head for years about the 1%’s need to increase the disparity between themselves and everyone else . The Rich are trying to create a new kind of feudalism where Lordships are won not on battlefields, but in corporate boardrooms. The rest of us need to be impoverished because without serfs to worship them, having everything ultimately becomes boring. Some of the 1% no doubt are less ego-driven and have empathy for those not on their level, but even they are beneficiaries of a mythology in creation. I believe that this mythology is the result of a campaign waged since the supporters of Barry Goldwater went down to an inglorious defeat.
Joseph Campbell spent his life studying and teaching about mythology. This is a word that usually evokes images of the Hindu, Greek, Roman and Norse Gods. In a way, for some, mythology has become conflated with paganism. To Christians, Muslims and Jews of fundamentalist beliefs mythology is the other guys religion, when in fact it is also true of their own. However, Campbell did not stop with religion as mythology, he saw it as a driving force shaping human behavior and thus also studied the effects of cultural and political beliefs on human societies. Below is his sense of the role mythology plays in shaping ourselves and our societies via what Campbell calls the “Four Functions of Myth” taken from Campbell’s: “Pathways to Bliss (Novato, CA: New World Library), pp 6-10.”, I will discuss how these functions play out today to shape our collective views of the world.
One salient piece of Campbell’s history should be looked at before showing how these elements of mythological creation have been used in America, to lay the groundwork for a Corporate Feudalism, that will leave enthrone 1% as our Nobility. Dave Parker gives a side of Campbell that I was not aware of and I feel explains much:
“Campbell himself lectured for the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute for Decades, beginning 1956.……………That tells me that ever since the greed heads and warmongers at State and elsewhere have been steeped in a perverse reading of Campbell’s work. They read it for its utilitarian value in pursuing “National Security”. And the “successes” of the Feds are envied and emulated in the world of corporate propagandizing”
My suspicions are that we are being led via popular culture and the redefinition of celebrity, into a mindset that opens the door for Corporate Feudalism and indeed shapes the attitudes of most people. These are Campbell’s Four Functions of Mythology (.pdf):
1. …the first function of mythology [is] to evoke in the individual a sense of grateful, affirmative awe before the monstrous mystery that is existence
2. The second function of mythology is to present an image of the cosmos, an image of the universe round about, that will maintain and elicit this experience of awe. [or] …to present an image of the cosmos that will maintain your sense of mystical awe and explain everything that you come into contact with in the universe around you.
3. The third function of a mythological order is to validate and maintain a certain sociological system: a shared set of rights and wrongs, proprieties or improprieties, on which your particular social unit depends for its existence.
4. …the fourth function of myth is psychological. That myth must carry the individual through the stages of his life, from birth through maturity through senility to death. The mythology must do so in accords with the social order of his group, the cosmos as understood by his group”
As sentient beings, self-involved, the fear of our inevitable demise is primary to our existence. This gives rise in us to yearnings for meaning in our lives and purpose to our lives. Most of us need the comfort that when our inevitable end comes, we will continue to exist in some form. Beyond religion though, we are essentially social beings, who have learned the benefit of co-existence with other members of our species. In shaping our society it is essential that we have some over-arching concept that something exists around us to keep us safe from the terrors that are the legacy of our predatory past. We develop words like Republic, Democracy, Islamism, Libertarianism, Fascism and others of that ilk that provide individuals with a sense of something larger than themselves that provide protection for us and give meaning to our lives. In tandem to those words connoting societal structure are conflated words relating to the economic systems we live under such as Capitalism, Liberalism, Socialism, Communism etc. In truth all of these words meanings varies with each individuals perception of their meanings.
Most Americans have been inculcated with a set of mythological buzzwords if you will, that connote our Country’s notion of “exceptionalism“. We have been taught that America is a “Republican Democracy” thriving under a “Capitalist” economic system that provides us “Freedom”. We use symbols such as our Flag, our Anthem, and our Constitution to invoke the “grateful, affirmative awe” that Campbell describes. We are proud to be Americans and most importantly we feel protected by our mythology.
These mythological symbols have been translated by our government beginning in WWII and throughout the “Cold War” into awe inspiring emotions within us. Even as I try maintain a skeptical distance between myself and the myth of America’s Dream, I am also emotionally stirred by the evocation of this mythology, that approaches the “grateful awe” of which Campbell speaks. My sense of that awe is limned by my understanding that America’s Constitution nowhere mentions Capitalism, or even sets up a national economic system, so when I see this economic theory conflated with the notion of Freedom my hackles rise. I imagine this is not true for the majority of Americans and this has led to the widespread belief in the “American Dream” and our viewpoint that even the least among us can achieve untold success. People seem to not want to vote in their own self interest. It is this notion of the “American Dream” that has allowed taxation to become inequitable to the point where the rich pay a lesser percentage of their income than the rest of the people, yet many of those shouldering this burden are lured by the siren call of “no more taxes” for fear that they will be burdened once their own success is achieved.
This matches well with another piece of the American mythological order in that there is the widespread concept of a “free market” being the apex of economic freedom. Thus all economic problems can be solved by ensuring that the “free market” is allowed to reign undisturbed by selfish manipulations of the government. The argument about whether there even is such a thing as a “free market” I’ll leave for another day. It is incontrovertible though, that this is a belief of a large majority of Americans and certainly has fared well in the political context. In the notion though of a “free market” comes a further notion that those who partake in the market’s freedom, indeed the movers and shakers of the market itself, are the “real heroes” of the “American Dream”. The Entrepreneur is held up as the most meritorious among us, because it is the Entrepreneur whose efforts create all of the blessings we share in common. The definition of entrepreneur of course is quite stretchable and leads from people of modest birth like Buffett/Gates, to those whose fortunes have been inherited like the Koch Brothers/Walton’s/Trump’s.
If our society is driven by these entrepreneurs then of course their status is rightfully at the top of our particular American food chain. They become sources to be venerated, copied, modeled after and of course envied. I believe they are well aware of this, luxuriate in their Alpha positions and assume the trappings suited to their status. Interestingly, many of the scions of “Old Wealth” in this country eschew the immodest lifestyle, thinking it gauche and nouveau riche. While their living standard reflects the elite into which they were born, they don’t feel the need to flaunt it like those parveneau’s such as Trump. For the masses of us we understand on some level that the Mellon’s for instance, are better than we, even though they don’t comport themselves in a way that draws publicity. Our role models for wealth come from those such as Donald Trump, who beyond his money and/or accomplishment, branded himself as the epitome of wealth and living luxuriously, even though his example is one of gaudy ostentation in the worst of taste. He is the entrepreneur as version of the Movie Star, which has been so confused with success and the “American Dream” that one became President and another the Governor of California.
Awe can be described as “a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder”. This in truth is the way many of us view the elite of this country. This has been reinforced time and again by both media and by those in Academia who have functioned as their minions. It has also been the thrust of a massive propaganda campaign to disparage “liberalism” and turn the country towards what was redefined as a “conservative”viewpoint. I believe that viewpoint is less about political philosophy and more about solidifying the hold upon this country of a newly defined aristocracy. We are in “awe” of these our bettors, just as much as the medieval peasantry was in awe of the nobility of their day. Back then the gossip about the local Dukes latest mistress was as interesting and as titillating as Tom Cruise’s divorce, or The Kardashian’s TV show.
In medieval times entertainers were considered to be much less reputable, even while sharing relatively wide fame. Shakespeare was considered disreputable despite his fame in his day. Today entertainers are lionized as members of the elite which is mainly to conflate their fame with that of the Corporate/Inherited Elite, thus borrowing their glamour for the latter. In our society today the doings of the super-rich and other celebrities has become mainstream news. HGTV, for instance, has three programs dedicated to lovingly show the housing of the rich in New York, LA and London. The edifice homes, some costing as much as $50 million are displayed to us peasants for what reasons exactly, if not to inspire us with awe at the lives of our “betters“? Can we all remember the adulation poured out on the passing of Steve Jobs? He certainly was a man who made many contributions, but from his deification one would think he was directly transported to Valhalla. There is deification of our Armed Forces as the heroic exemplars of all that is good and true in America, yet are true gratitude is such that 50% of their families are on Food Stamps. Remember the hushed tones in which the news media portrayed General Petreus? That polls have shown many Americans to believe Ronald Reagan was our “Greatest President” is yet another example of the conflation of celebrity with supposed greatness. Neither Petreus, nor Reagan were either super-rich or super-competent, but they were treated with the deference of nobility and that is the point. We hold all these symbols in awe and the underlying message is one of gratitude to them for showing us what to aspire to and by leading us benighted fools through example. Jesus is of course the ultimate myth since in the opinion of many his decisions control our lives for eternity. “What would Jesus do” is a question asked by multitudes and many have been led to believe that if returned today he would be our ultimate entrepreneur.
This returns us full circle to Mr. Hanuer dispelling the idea that the “rich” create wealth. They are not in the end the “job creators” that Mr. Romney and conservative “wisdom” would have us believe. Yet I must acknowledge that a sizable number of Americans would take exception to that assertion. I think too that the “creator” part of that meme is one fraught with connotation. Just as religion deems that God created the world, isn’t there a strong inference with the term “job creator” that would lead one to feel that the Entrepreneur created America. Doesn’t the mythological creature in that reference stand above the Founding Fathers in our current mythological reference of America being the most exceptional country in history? I believe we are blinded by this American mythology to such an extent that the problems we face as a society will not be fully recognized until it is too late and we will collapse in the shattering realization that so many of our life perceptions are mythological in origin.
Adolph Hitler took a shattered country with a hyper-inflated, impoverished economy and through the brilliance of a master of mythology, Joseph Goebbels, created a world power with the potential for empire. NAZI Germany’s destruction though came about chiefly because the mythologists began to believe, along with those they had gulled, that their mythology was absolute truth and that they the “Master Race“ would prevail against all odds. Fresh from the incredible triumph of World War II and with the evidence of the most impressive military/industrial buildup in history, our politicians and public became convinced of the “exceptional nature” of the United States. We discovered another implacable foe to oppose and fought a new kind of war on a global basis. That having ended with the USSR’s collapse the country’s elite searched for new “enemies” with which to keep our military occupied and our defense industry rich. Perhaps the culmination of the idea of our country’s exceptional nature came with the writing of the “Project For The New American Century” a design to make the United States into an Empire in the Twenty-First Century. The two main guiding architects of that manifesto were Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfield, who also were the architects of the two wars in which we are still enmeshed.
Joseph Campbell correctly believed that mythology serves as a glue to maintain human beings in the close relationship of society, to give meaning to our lives and to give us inspiration to progress and achieve heretofore unthought-of accomplishments. Mythology though can also be the undoing of a society, community, ethnicity and religion. I believe that in the case of our country I see the signs of our common mythology seeding the possibility of disaster. For the dream captured, however imperfectly, in our Constitution, to culminate in a feudal system dominated by Corporatism, would seem to me tragic. My hope is that this piece will initiate some creative thought in the reader, just as Dave Parker’s comments did with me and I’m interested in how others view this concept of mythology recreating the Feudal System.
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
mespo/Mike,
Gibbon should be required reading.
Quantum-activated water?
Oh noes.
tony c:
“If we raise taxes on income over $1M from 15% to 90%, the point is not to increase those tax revenues by sixfold, the point is to practically eliminate those tax revenues and force businesses to take the risks of reinvesting instead of taking that money as profits.”
Does it really matter? The money gets invested either way. The companies who make the profits invest them in something, they dont stuff it under a mattress.
MIke S:
I consider Gibbon the finest historian I have ever read and second only to Shakespeare in his mastery of the language. I believe you can educate yourself simply with a read of “Decline & Fall.” Here’s the master at work:
Among the innumerable monuments of architecture constructed by the Romans, how many have escaped the notice of history, how few have resisted the ravages of time and barbarism! And yet even the majestic ruins that are still scattered over Italy and the provinces, would be sufficient to prove that those countries were once the seat of a polite and powerful empire. Their greatness alone, or their beauty, might deserve our attention; but they are rendered more interesting by two important circumstances, which connect the agreeable history of the arts with the more useful history of human matters. Many of these works were erected at private expense, and almost all were intended for public benefit.
It’s an elegy — as beautiful and inspired as any poet could do..
Mark,
I agree about Gibbon. I love to read history and when the historian has a superb eye for detail, an excellent, non-pedantic writing style and most importantly great insight, I enjoy so the hours I spend with their works..
“…and I’m certain that on one of those levels, lives a PR department gleeful at their creativity and basking in their ironic cool.”
Amen
@Slart: Jim Bradley is just another religionist pretending logic supports him. He says (here) that he is not against government regulation, but he is adamantly in favor of a “free market.”
Which means to me he is redefining what the phrase “free market” means to be whatever he wants it to mean at the moment. It is like a catch phrase he thinks sounds “important” so he is determined to incorporate it into his pitch no matter what; kind of like an advertisement for ‘quantum-activated water.”
FWIW, I do not think Marie Antoinette ever really said, “Let them eat cake.”
Jim,
Regarding Mike S’s comments about civility–I don’t consider people who refuse to participate in debates in good faith (and your bad faith has been well documented here) as being civil. Maybe you should consider the beam in your own eye before complaining about the mote in other’s eyes…
Dredd,
I’ve actually read Gibbons excellent “Decline” though in the abridged version. what surprised and delighted me about it was that although in school he was oft referred to in hushed tones and the Roman Empire portrayed as glorious, Gibbon wrote their history with the jaundiced and skeptical eye of one who saw through their veneer.
Mike Spindell 1, July 10, 2012 at 10:56 am
Dredd,
Yes your examples are quite consistent with my theme. That Ms. Hilton has become an “A List” celebrity is an example of what passes for role models today. It is mildly interesting that both she and Kim Kardashian’s fame exploded when sex tapes of each were released on the Internet. I am both amazed and disturbed by how the Main Stream Media breathlessly reports their doings and they are interviewed as if they have more to express other than flacking their line of products. The juxtaposition of their lifestyles with that of most people who are struggling to exist in our country is reminiscent of Marie Antoinette’s “let
them eat cake” and the Romans “Bread and Circuses”. In fact when one see the semi-religious ritual of the “Super Bowl” in tandem with the quest for Empire and the death of the Republic, just how are we different from the “glory” that was Rome?
==============================
You are doing a yeoman’s job on this thread Mike, giving responses to the comments in a measured and well rounded fashion.
You ask:
In fundamental principles, I think none.
The books and what not that use “The Decline of The Roman Empire” to describe a syncopation of events can miss several critical factors, it would seem:
(A Decline Of The American Republic). We see that now in the U.S.eh?, with the “blind men around the elephant syndrome”, each blind man seeing and feeling part of the same animal, yet describing wholly different parts and arguing about what animal it is they are involved with.
But I think the feudalism mechanism, fused with mythology, that you have focused on in this post, is probably the final decline in any empire.
It is just that it follows different timelines, and different catastrophic paths, depending on the particular society / empire involved.
Mike,
If you want an example of just how weak minded the individual has become recently, I give you two words:
Freedom Tower.
And the nexus between the destruction of the twin towers and freedom was what??
Why didn’t we re-name Pearl Harbor “Freedom Harbor?”
Like I said; it’s all about Staying In Your Own Movie.
Bob,
I agree with SIYOM, but sometimes its damned hard not to let things make me crazy. “Freedom Tower” is ironic on so many levels and I’m certain that on one of those levels, lives a PR department gleeful at their creativity and basking in their ironic cool.
P.S. I will also point out that the proper tax structure will decrease total tax revenue; the Laffer curve arguments are based on the wrong premise entirely. The point of increasing taxes does not have to be increasing tax revenue, the point of increasing taxes can be to encourage legal tax avoidance: Meaning reinvestment of revenues into business expansion.
If we raise taxes on income over $1M from 15% to 90%, the point is not to increase those tax revenues by sixfold, the point is to practically eliminate those tax revenues and force businesses to take the risks of reinvesting instead of taking that money as profits.
@shano: It is true the majority of jobs in the country are created by tiny businesses hiring and by entrepreneurs hiring themselves. However, the ones actually doing the hiring are usually earning far less than $200K, and they do not need tax breaks to do it.
First, understand that hiring is an expansion move. I only hire if I need help meeting demand or I am opening a new location or offering a new service. (The reason large businesses account for very little new hiring is they are long done with their early growth spurts).
Second, employee payroll expenses are a business expense, and 100% deductible from revenue (along with the taxes) before I compute profit for income tax purposes. Giving me an income tax break will not leave me more money to hire somebody. I would be an idiot to hire somebody with after-tax money, if I want to expand I will expand with pre-tax money and deduct ALL OF IT, I won’t pay a dime of income tax on salary, bonuses, taxes, insurance, commissions or anything else that goes to an employee; that is a straight-up business cost hat does not count as “income.”
In fact, higher income taxes would encourage me to undertake a tax-free expansion in order to not realize some of that “excess revenue” as income in the first place.
For example, for the point of the argument, suppose the tax on income over $1M was 90%, and I project I will have $2M in excess revenue for the year. If I do nothing, that will all count as income.
On that second million, I will be paying $900K in taxes and get $100K in my pocket. However, if I use that second million to build myself a second store or factory I can spend the entire million, and have a million dollar asset, and the cost to me was really just the $100K in income I gave up. That is like a ten to one payoff.
The same is true if I pump another million into R&D, or advertising, or any other legitimate business expense. I can get a million dollars in benefit, all owned by me, by giving up $100K in income.
The lie perpetrated by the politicians is the opposite of what is true. High income taxes encourage reinvestment in lieu of profit-taking, LOWER income taxes encourage profit-taking instead of reinvestment.
If we really wanted to encourage job growth; the proper tax structure is to raise taxes very high on income over $1M per year, and use that revenue to lower or eliminate payroll taxes for micro-businesses (under 20 employees) so they could afford to hire (and expand) sooner.
The Dream-State of Recent History
Oliver Stone: “As a filmmaker I have always responded as a dreamer, not as a doer. I don’t build houses, I don’t make the waters run, pump electricity, explore the universe, doctor people … all I do is dream. I make some semblance of those Hindu wall paintings that I hope people like because it reflects a dream of theirs. I try to go to the secret heart we all have, the collective unconscious. But the price I pay is that life increasingly seems to me but a dream, a psychological delusion and metaphor, all symbol, that I have witnessed in my lifetime. My critics like to call me “Oliver Stoned,” but I feel we all are “Oliver Stoned” because we have to be in order to fully understand the madness of modern times. Don’t we all, whether we know it or not, live in the mass delusion of a dream state of recent history?”
…
“I honestly have reached a point, cynical as it may sound, where I do believe that history is written by those who win. They won. They killed Kennedy, they rewrote it to match what they wanted you to believe, and if Hitler had won World War II, believe me, today we’d be reading a different history about the United States to justify Hitler. Winner takes all. Never underestimate the power of corruption to change history.”
http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/conversations/Stone/stone-grad1.html
Bob,
On a gut level I can’t disagree with Oliver Stone, but for me to give in fully to that understanding would be the road to my despair. So I cling to the illusion that there will be a happy ending. In my life I’ve had hope in personal matters and in some things been rewarded. However, for my country and for humanity as Smedley Butler opined it’s a racket.
@Idealist: BUT, it also stifles free thinking generally. In effect in all aspects of life in the village.
On the contrary, at WLGA, employees are encouraged to work on their own projects, and (as in that article I linked) some have done so for more than three years without selling a thing. WLGA now sells 35% of all guitar strings; but the project to reinvent the guitar string was three years in the making, and done by employees (on the clock) choosing to work on that project around the edges, conducting experiments with various coatings and recipes to zero in on some particular aspects of performance and consistency they were aiming to achieve. And did.
The same thing has been true of many products of WLGA, the employees invent them. Back to their own mantra; they have no R&D department because everybody is in R&D. In fact, all employees are officially encouraged to spend 10% of their time on R&D projects of their own choosing, either their own ideas or somebody else’s idea that they like and to which they can contribute, and there are financial rewards for success (a policy copied by Google).
@Idealist: There must be a central part in Gore, I believe.
There is, of course, a CEO and division heads, but the company is privately held by the Gore family. The founder is dead, his son was the CEO but is now retired, but the remainder of the family runs the company according to the rules the first two Gores laid out in the company constitution; and the CEO and division heads are never hired from outside, but are long-term citizens of the WLGA culture promoted from within. Meaning, they were “raised” in the WLGA culture and believe in the Gore charter as a way of business life. The board they answer to is the Gore family, and I think they subscribe to the maxim “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.”
I am not claiming WLGA has a recipe that will last forever because I think anything can be screwed up by a true sociopath that gains power. But WLGA has been growing for over sixty years and earned many billions of dollars, that is proof enough that the philosophy they employ works, and scales up without a problem.
@Idealist: (continued) And “norms” for unit profit? Who sets them?
And the size of the pie, who sets that and what influence does these 200 employees have on that pie size?
I am not sure there are norms for unit profit at WL Gore & Associates (WLGA for short). I believe the same procedures are used to split up the larger pie as are used to split up the unit pies; consensus achieved by following basic constitutional guidelines, with an open-book and open-meeting policy (my reading on WLGA says any employee can attend any meeting, with exceptions for legally sensitive issues).
So I do not know the details; but I would imagine that a factory is intended to make a profit, and WLGA could easily pre-define a percentage of profit over a base. For a toy example, say the non-labor costs of the factory and input materials are $10M, the labor costs at $8/hr per employee for 175 employees is $3M, and the revenues from the factory are $30M, so the gross profit is about $17M. WLGA’s guideline could be 50% of that profit goes to the parent, and 50% stays; so that is an additional $8.5M for the employees to split up (above the $8/hr base), or about $48.5K per employee.
I have no idea how WLGA actually does it, to me the key feature in any scheme is just the predictability of following some set of rules that appears to offer a fair split. Employees should understand that the owner is in business to earn a return on investment. (By “should” I mean if they do not grasp that concept they should be dismissed.)
Owners should understand that whether they like it or not, they are in partnership with their employees, and if they (the owners) take all the cash profits then most employees will get their “profits” by doing as little work as possible for the fixed pay they receive; i.e. they will maximize their ROI as well, by reducing their “investment” when returns (meaning their pay) are fixed.
I think the reason they have this new ‘meme’ that job creators (ugh) provide all sorts of benefits to society so we should give them free reign, open every avenue for these people, give them any advantage possible, lower their taxes so they can create even more jobs.
It forms a sort of protection around the wealthy, because they confuse the real function of ‘entrepreneurs’ to include all of ‘capital’. These things are not the same.
Tony c. Interesting posts. I think the co-op model is coming back to America in many sectors. It may be a better way to produce goods than the corporate model or the ‘union’ model.
We must look carefully to understand where these corporate systems have failed us, including concentration of wealth, creation of monopolies that can garner more power to defeat competition in nefarious ways other than providing service or good products Especially now that we have Multinational corporations.
The myth that these huge corporations provide ‘efficiency’ is proven untrue every time I have to call one to find out some small crucial bit of information. Just trying to communicate with giant corporations is a huge hassle. Bigger is not better in so many ways …one more myth
“We must look carefully to see where these corporate systems have failed us”
“The myth that these huge corporations provide ‘efficiency ‘ is proven untrue….”
shano,
I strongly agree with both propositions. Tony did indeed provide food for thought in examining business models diverging from current myth. I was a Business/Management major in college in the early 60’s and I find it interesting and depressing that even back then there were discussions of innovative business models, yet for the most part the corporate world never implemented them. My suspicion is that almost all fields of endeavor operate more on ego and selfish interest rather than for the good of the organization and/or society. This is why I’m far more interested in the mythology of something, rather than the operational specifics. In the case of this blog my interest was more in what deeming entrepreneurs “job creators” was meant to achieve, rather than in the actual mechanics of job creation.
What Slarti, Tony and especially Mike said.
@Idealist: I will answer in parts, due to other duties.
Team members interview and hire new team members at Gore; the probationary period is something like eight weeks long. I believe there are “administration” teams that provide services like background checks or basic legal training and information requirements, but they are not in charge of the employees.
Each employee chooses to work on the projects they like, if that project team has work for them to do. The leaders are by acclamation, basically, if you can attract people to work in your area you are a leader, if you cannot interest them, you need to find something else to do. Nobody is appointed a leader, by Gore’s standards, a leader or representative emerges naturally because people want to work with them.
For dividing the pie; as an employee you choose which teams to work on. If you think the pie division is unfair; then you can change teams, form your own team, devote more time to another team, whatever. In that sense, it is a market at Gore, if your skills are important they need to be recognized or you will “sell” them elsewhere, but if you do NOT sell them elsewhere and contribute, then you won’t be getting paid.
More later.