Businesses should be studied by anthropologists. I find most business behavior is better explained by asking what emotional needs it is meeting for the people in charge. It’s really frustrating reading people who pretend the role of business is to make as much money as efficiently as possible, because that is absolutely not at all how it works. There are factions and feather-nesting and curry-favoring and consolidating power bases and a whole host of sociopolitical shennaingans constantly going on, especially as corporations grow.
But guess what? Businesses aren’t going to pay an anthropologist to embed. No, they’ll pay psychologists to come up with a bunch of science they will follow if it suits them and ignore if it doesn’t.
In fact, I’d say one of the real problems oligopolies face is that allows them a large margin to be bad at business, meaning asskissers and social climbers have an enormous edge over people with product or content knowledge. This is a pretty commonly accepted phenomenon among royal courts through history, but we like to pretend businesses are rational creatures.
I’m sorry, I can’t sit here and let this go by. It’s “favor currying”, or “currying favor”, with the latter being the common expression. Curry favoring is what I do at Thai restaurants.
Getting a business degree is simply the socially acceptable version of the underwater basket weaving trope that people complain about. It’s only practical in the sense that people don’t scorn it in the same way they do other niche topics. I would trust the intelligence of someone with a degree in medieval shoe making over a suit with an MBA.
I’ve said this before that MBAs teach people to make the worst decisions possible in any given situation. The critique of the frozen businessmen from Adventure Time is pretty spot on.
Your link goes to the end of the Graeber piece, I had to scroll way up to find the start. But wow, what a start.
I would like this book to be an arrow aimed at the heart of our civilization. There is something very wrong with what we have made ourselves. We have become a civilization based on work—not even “productive work” but work as an end and meaning in itself. We have come to believe that men and women who do not work harder than they wish at jobs they do not particularly enjoy are bad people unworthy of love, care, or assistance from their communities. It is as if we have collectively acquiesced to our own enslavement. The main political reaction to our awareness that half the time we are engaged in utterly meaningless or even counterproductive activities—usually under the orders of a person we dislike—is to rankle with resentment over the fact there might be others out there who are not in the same trap. As a result, hatred, resentment, and suspicion have become the glue that holds society together. This is a disastrous state of affairs. I wish it to end.
Businesses should be studied by anthropologists. I find most business behavior is better explained by asking what emotional needs it is meeting for the people in charge. It’s really frustrating reading people who pretend the role of business is to make as much money as efficiently as possible, because that is absolutely not at all how it works. There are factions and feather-nesting and curry-favoring and consolidating power bases and a whole host of sociopolitical shennaingans constantly going on, especially as corporations grow.
But guess what? Businesses aren’t going to pay an anthropologist to embed. No, they’ll pay psychologists to come up with a bunch of science they will follow if it suits them and ignore if it doesn’t.
In fact, I’d say one of the real problems oligopolies face is that allows them a large margin to be bad at business, meaning asskissers and social climbers have an enormous edge over people with product or content knowledge. This is a pretty commonly accepted phenomenon among royal courts through history, but we like to pretend businesses are rational creatures.
I’m sorry, I can’t sit here and let this go by. It’s “favor currying”, or “currying favor”, with the latter being the common expression. Curry favoring is what I do at Thai restaurants.
Thanks. Once I reversed the order, I couldn’t remember if it was curry being favored or favor being curried.
Well, both really.
And lets introduce curry flavoring into the mix.
Hast thou ne’er curry savored?
I read it as curry flavoring, no wonder why I’m now hungry
It doesn’t mean nepotism in the south Asian community? (no offense intended)
Royal courts at least had jesters.
Though there was an interesting book I read years and years ago about corporate jesters.
Most businessmen I know are absolute fucking clowns, so that checks out.
Getting a business degree is simply the socially acceptable version of the underwater basket weaving trope that people complain about. It’s only practical in the sense that people don’t scorn it in the same way they do other niche topics. I would trust the intelligence of someone with a degree in medieval shoe making over a suit with an MBA.
I’ve said this before that MBAs teach people to make the worst decisions possible in any given situation. The critique of the frozen businessmen from Adventure Time is pretty spot on.
I know someone who used to work for a major beer manufacturer and they had a corporate magician on staff lol
Not exactly what you want, but David Graeber has your back there. Less related but see also.
Your link goes to the end of the Graeber piece, I had to scroll way up to find the start. But wow, what a start.
Oh shit you’re right. Fixed. Also yeah Graeber is wild like that. If you’re up for a longer read you should read his Debt: the First 5000 Years.