President wanted, MBA not required: Why the government isn't a business.

The LA Times ^ | July 3, 2006 | Charles R. Kesler

[Gondring]

George W. Bush is the first president with an MBA (from Harvard Business School, no less), but it's not clear that being a master of business administration has made him a better chief executive.[...]

Business schools are a relatively new institution. The MBA was invented in the Progressive era as a way to abort future generations of robber barons. The idea was to train a class of business administrators (the ethos was anti-entrepreneurial) who would expiate capitalism's sins by managing their corporations in keeping with higher morality. The higher morality was whatever the spirit of the age revealed to professors and high-toned Protestant ministers. Over decades, the pursuit of ethical uplift waned, and the pursuit of efficiency and new methods of reading a balance sheet waxed, paving the way for the increasingly empty trendiness of modern management books.

[...A]few weeks ago, Bush said: "I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of Defense."

Being the decider-in-chief suggests one paradigm of modern management: the executive who makes the final decisions, the tough calls. He "hears" and even listens to others before deciding, but the point of a decision (from decidere, "to cut off") is to be decisive, not to reason your way to a judgment that can be explained to others.

Bush's management style is long on decisions and short on explanations. He's apparently better at listening to others than questioning their views. He prefers to have around him people whose judgment he trusts implicitly, even as he insists that they trust and abide by his decisions implicitly.

This isn't simple cronyism or "hackocracy," as the left charges.[...]

[Gondring]

"CHARLES R. KESLER is a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and editor of the Claremont Review of Books. A version of this article will appear in the summer 2006 issue."

The commentary against modern management style is worth reading in full, though the LA Times allows only excerpting here. I'm interested in hearing opinions from MBA/non-MBA folks.

[Judith Anne]

All I have to offer is this:

It's better to have an MBA from Harvard, than to be a divinity school dropout. Or another freaking lawyer.

[Gondring]

LOL

You wouldn't happen to be making a very pointed comment against some recent alternatives, would you? ;-)

[raybbr]

It's better to have an MBA from Harvard, than to be a divinity school dropout. Or another freaking lawyer.

Hmmmmmm.... What did GW learn at Harvard about business? Did he learn that a business has unlimited supplies of money and can spend at will without any thought about they would pay for it?

[Loyal Buckeye]

Actually, Pres. Bush's MBA training has been very helpful, in that he has had to manage many difficult situations.

[Common Tator]

The fallacy in this essay is that education determines what a person does. It is how dumb people see education. They believe that a person can only do what he has been taught to do because all they can do is what they have been taught to do. Such educators are the perfect example of those that can't think outside the box.

What makes George W. Bush different from a Bill Clinton is George W. Bush has self confidence. He knows who and what he is. He is comfortable in his own skin. It is the primary characteristic of people who make things happen.

Clinton could not tolerate an employee that was smarter than he was. Thus you see dingbats like Carville, and Madeline Allbright in his administration. The primary defect revealed in Clinton's sexual escapades was his need to prove his manhood. It is very dangerous to have a president who does not feel equal to other men... who must use sexual conquest to prove his manhood. What many do not understand is that Clinton needed to be caught in sexual escapades. It was how he proved his manhood.

It is also the characteristic of many professors. They fear men who have physical prowess. They are also jealous.

Clinton looked for weak subservient people to staff his administrating who followed his every lead and excused his every failure. Clinton was and is at heart a Neville Chamberlain... always looking for a way to avoid conflict. The Europeans liked him because he is a wimp.

Thus he could make a deal with North Korea that should have not been made. Clinton tolerated attacks on American ships, and embassies. He replied with only enough force to keep the media off his back.

George W. Bush would be the same person making decisions the same way no matter what school he attended. That really ticks educators off. They can't make up his mind for him.

If you want to examine a similar decision making process I would point out how Winston Churchill made decisions. Churchill wanted to take on Hitler in 1936. The elite were aghast and pointed out it would likely cost 2 to 3 thousand lives to take out Hitler. So they waited until it took millions of lives.

Oh yes, the elite in great Britain. Had a similar view of Churchill in the 1930s. In their view Winston was much too aggressive and not able to see the obvious shades of gray the in real world. Dumb old Winston tended to see the world as good guys and bad guys. Winston did have one exception to that view. He saw the educated elites as mediocre guys.. and they hated him for that.

In many respects I see a real similarity between Truman and Bush 43. Truman only had a high school education. It made no difference. Derided at the time by the elites it turned out he was right in nearly every move. Bush 43 has a Harvard MBA . It made no difference. Derided in his time by the elites, it is even now apparent that he was right in nearly every move.

History is very kind to men like George W. Bush and like Churchill and Truman .. he knows it.

There was a time when College Professors were seen as foolish impractical men not to be trusted with anything important. This professor makes a very good case for that view.

[LibLieSlayer]

No, we need another POS peanut-headed Nuclear Scientist (retired from the Navy), with a daughter that looks like Howdy Doody, who will allow another religion of EVIL like islam to flourish (hell catah was the Father of Radical Islam), cut our Military spending to the bone, turn his back on all of our allies while embracing our sworn enemies, and mishandle the economy so badly that 21% interest rates will be what level we HOPE they will eventually fall back to.

Oh, and let us all remember how catah and the dims told us that "America has experienced Her peak... We must all learn how to live in an America that has seen her best of times". America climbed out of that HELL when Ronaldo Magnus shined the Light of Liberty on catah and the dim LIES!!!!!

Add to all of the above, OIL prices at $200.00 bbl, and Gas lines reaching for miles (rationed by the odd/even number in your tag, tied to the odd/even date of the calender)... Yep, that is truly what we need. NOT!

LLS

[LoudRepublicangirl]

Having both a brother and a niece with an MBA I would trust them to run things much better than some east coast liberal elitist or some idiot lawyer who couldn't even carrying his own state in an election.

[HawaiianGecko]

The author of this article has misapplied analogies and demonstrated the worst logic I have seen in years.  There isn't a single sentence or topic that is actually proven to be true. McNamara's Ford upbringing didn't lose Vietnam, politicians lost Vietnam, yet he is trying to say that politicians are the people we should elect rather than common sense businessmen.

 

 

[Non-Sequitur]

George W. Bush is the first president with an MBA (from Harvard Business School, no less),

Ah yes. There's no BS like HBS.

[spanalot]

"Over decades, the pursuit of ethical uplift waned, and the pursuit of efficiency and new methods of reading a balance sheet waxed, paving the way for the increasingly empty trendiness of modern management books. "

Huh?!??! That quite a broadbrush swipe.

This is a reach and ridiculously precarious Bush Bash argument. But I guess this is all that the LA Times can muster

[Samwise]

You nailed it again, Tator.

[VOA]

I appreciate Dubya and his MBA (and not being a weasel lawyer) on most issues.
But, in honesty, I think his bottom-line business sense has led him
to believe the economics of nearly-unfettered illegal immigration is a
good thing and maintaining our borders is not such a big deal.

Having Rove in attendence at the next La Raza national meeting is
a sign that he's sincere in his views about sovereignity.
And willing to make nice with a racial-politics organization.
http://www.nclr.org/section/events/conference/event_information/speakertalent/
(See Rove on July 11; also note that Sen. Brownback will be in attendance on July 10)

[seamusnh]

I have my MBA from Harvard and have a couple of friends that are lawyers. MBA's work in business and create products and companies. In business, lawyers act as the agents for people that sue each other. Lawyers are overhead in society. Look at the stats for lawyers in Japan where their economy is not slowed down by these human barnacles... Look at the economies of India and China; is the law a huge factor in their growth? Lawyers are needed for criminal cases and to make sure contracts are valid, but they are not necessarily the best for running large organizations like states and countries....

[theBuckwheat]

>>
The fallacy in this essay is that education determines what a person does. It is how dumb people see education. They believe that a person can only do what he has been taught to do because all they can do is what they have been taught to do. Such educators are the perfect example of those that can't think outside the box.
<<<

I have seen this up close and personal, as they say. I started a successful business. It was not unusual to have people ask me where I went to school to learn what I knew. I had the delight in telling them which university I dropped out of, which of course totally blew away their assumption that people cannot learn unless it is handed to them on a platter in a classroom.

The modern education establishment is built on this notion, and further that only people who have the "proper" credentials can succeed. This is carried to completion by collusion with state governments to pass laws that the only people who are given a "license" to teach are those who have graduated from schools that have been "accredited", and that the accreditation process is only recognized if is done by people who have the proper credentials.

Thus the leftist-liberal elite have hijacked the system and they don't intend on giving up control. This is why they are so opposed to vouchers and homeschooling.

I am like Henry Ford- why should I bother getting a college degree when I can easily hire them, and sometimes for not very much money.

Bill Gates dropped out of college. He is part of a relatively small number of innovators who are singlehandedly responsible for more new wealth creation than a whole generation of professional educators.

[theBuckwheat]

Government cannot be a business and business must be kept out of government. The two are different animals. They have different incentive environments and totally different responsibilities.

Governments are political animals. If a government gets involved in business, it will be torn between the profit motive and the political pressures it faces. We will regret the day if we ever let governments profit from their decisions just like we have allowed governments to use eminent domain to get into the property tax business - and to seize modest homes so that expensive condos can be built in their place.

Government has sovereign powers that no business has. Governments, in the end, only rule by coercion. Business relationships must be voluntary. Further, you can escape from a business relationship. You cannot escape from government- it will not leave you alone if you disagree with its policies.

Even so, government must be "business-like" in how it conducts its affairs. Yet a business can only continue to exist if it makes sound economic decisions. Management knows that if it ever uses up all its capital, that the firm "dies", or becomes bankrupt. Business can only continue if it earns more than it spends, on average, and does not consume all its capital.

Government has sovereign power to tax and use deadly force against its citizens. If it makes a bad economic decision, it will still continue to live on- it only has to tweak the tax law to keep the money flowing in. It continues as long as it has the support of the citizen or can use coercion and the threat of deadly force to keep the citizens from overthrowing it.

So why is this member of the government-loving MSM running this piece?

[GBA]

Very well said. I would add that, as another mark of his character, President Bush also overcame his personal demon of alcohol. Additionally, he gained a lot of knowledge from observing is father's experiences in the White House.

It is interesting to note the lack of economic commentary these days. Despite the war on terror and the economy that President Bush inherited from Clinton, our economy is in pretty good shape. Not to say there are some major problems with Social Security and other issues that need attention, but rather that things are in much better shape than when he took office because of his leadership.

[pageonetoo]

There is no reason to make fun of a girl's appearance, when she has absolutely nothing to do with this article or do you always such a lack of common decency!

It is easy to wise crack about looks, and put others down. Post us a picture of yourself, and let's see what good put downs we can come up with!

[goldstategop]

I view intellectuals as people who most of the time spout nonsense and make it seem profound. Its not just my opinion. You should hear some of the things Paul Johnson, the eminent English historian, has to say of their like in his now out of print book Intellectuals. Its very aptly titled. Most people on the Left in the universities, besides being unreconstructed radicals, are quite simply educated fools.

(The Palestinian terrorist regime is the crisis and Israel's fist is the answer.)

[pageonetoo]

should read: do you always display such a lack of common decency!