Managers: Good Goldfish?

Abstract

We argued in Chapter 1 that the authors who have revised liberal political economy over the past fifty years (for instance Galbraith) have increasingly placed managers in the foreground and charged them with the responsibility of acting as custodians of a constitutionalised corporation. Such a view has by no means fully displaced the orthodoxy. Thus, for Friedman, ‘good’ managers will be single-mindedly dedicated to the pursuit of profit, and in so doing automatically act to the greater happiness of the greatest number. Here, it would be irresponsible for them to act in any other way. Nor can the managerialists convince the Left of the advisedness of deregulating corporations, and therefore the actions of managers. The extent to which managers may be trusted as spontaneous arbiters of the public interest is also questioned.