Why are techniques pioneered by slave owners in 1800s widely used in US richclass business management today?

Question

http://www.forbes.com/sites/hbsworkingknowledge/2013/01/16/the-messy-link-between-slave-owners-and-modern-management/#!

‘(Rosenthal) sees her research as a critique of capitalism—one that could broaden the understanding of today’s business practices… Tracking this information allowed planters to determine how far they could push their workers to get the most profit.

Rosenthal, a Harvard-Newcomen Fellow in business history at Harvard Business School, found that southern plantation owners kept complex and meticulous records, measuring the productivity of their slaves and carefully monitoring their profits—often using even more sophisticated methods than manufacturers in the North. Several of the slave owners’ practices, such as incentivizing workers (in this case, to get them to pick more cotton) and depreciating their worth through the years, are widely used in business management today.

Answer 1

I guess you posted this first with one of your other accounts, accidentally, eh?



Hmm... sounds like a study that began with the decision to equate capitalism to slavery, then set about looking for supporting evidence (and ignoring the non-supporting evidence).



All management uses similar techniques - to get all a-quiver and make inane and fallacious arguments in order to make a patently false claim that capitalism is akin to slavery is the depth of un-intellectual pursuit. It is propaganda and emotionalism disguised as scholarship. Management techniques would be no different if slavery never existed.



That might be accepted as "scholarship" at Harvard, but I can see through such transparent agendas.

Answer 2

In other words, you take acceptable and SMART business practices of tracking production and giving incentives to workers, and twist them into ugly, inflammatory "slave era" ones to keep pumped-up your pathetic need to slam Capitalism and feed your misguided "richclass" ideas.



Just how does business "depreciate" a workers worth? That doesn't even make sense. You are in no way connected with running a business, are you?

Answer 3

I see nothing similar. People that say this have no idea what slavery truly is . Sounds like the argument a person who doesn't want to work makes to downgrade anyone who does work for a living.

Answer 4

Where does the slave part come in? You aren't forced to work anywhere so I don't get it. These evil corporations keeps the socialism in this country paid up, everyone will be getting their food stamps and free medical care every month.

Answer 5

You left out the slave camps in the soviet union, China, Cambodia, and North Korea.

Answer 6

It is called payed slavery.No matter how much you make the boss wants you to run.Next Question

Answer 7

You know they eat fried rats in China and parts of Mexico.

Answer 8

So if no one works, how will we all live and who will produce the things we need to live?

Answer 9

So jobs are racist now and that's why liberals hate them?

Answer 10

trending now ...



http://www.google.com/about/jobs/lifeatgoogle/