¹ A third explanation, offered initially by political philosophers of classical antiquity, was that some men are by nature followers and others are by nature rulers. The followers obey because it is their nature to do so, just as leaders command because that is their nature. This argument has few defenders among contemporary political theorists, and it is seldom articulated by organization theorists. But one may wonder whether the batteries of personality and aptitude and intelligence tests used for selecting executives do not rest ultimately on the assumption that there are “natural” leaders who should be identified, separated from the “naturally” subservient mass, and elevated to their “natural” managerial roles.

² This reasoning underlies most social-contract philosophies of the origins of civil and political society. The emphasis was placed in some cases on escape from the risks and uncertainties of anarchy (as in Hobbes and Locke), in others on ascension to a higher, richer, distinctively human and civilized life (as in Rousseau, whose logic, in turn, parallels that of classical political theory). The hypothesized reasoning in men's decisions to form or join groups in which they must then submit to others is not far removed from the analysis by March, J. G. and Simon, H. A., Organizations (New York, 1957)Google Scholar, of individual calculations regarding “the decision to participate” in organizations (ch. 4). See also Simon's assertion that a distinctive feature of organization theory is its treatment of joining an organization as an “all-or-none choice of participation or non-participation,” in Models of Man (New York, 1957), p. 74Google Scholar and chs. 10 and Organization theorists and most political philosophers exhibit little confidence in fear as a long-range mode of eliciting obedience. But for a few political theorists (Hobbes, for example), and for more than a few rulers and managers, it is the cornerstone of theory and practice.

³ Many political theorists recognized this. For example, according to Jaffa, H. V. (“Aristotle,” in Strauss, L. and Cropsey, J., eds., History of Political Philosophy (Chicago, 1963), p. 75Google Scholar, Aristotle held that “Trained obedience, as distinct from brute direction, is the characteristic of being ruled politically or royally.” Hume, says R. S. Hill (“David Hume,” ibid., pp. 511–12), considered that “The main support of the rule of the few over the many … is the opinion that those in authority have a right to that authority. This opinion is usually the fruit of time and habit. Custom is the great guide of human life; most men never think of inquiring into the reasons for the authority of the form of government to which they have become habituated.” Rousseau (see A. Bloom, “Jean-Jacques Rousseau,” ibid., pp. 527, 531) believed “the manners of society are of as much or more concern than the institutions of government because manners underlie institutions and give them their force,” and he saw an advantage in the ancient city “because it is small enough … for citizens to share a common heritage and a common way, because the particular wills can more easily be submerged in custom, and because the statesman can control the entirety.” Burke (see F. Canavan, “Edmund Burke,” ibid., p. 603) also ascribed obedience to governments and laws to “opinion, habit, and acquired sentiment,” and to the fact that “men think it right to submit to them,” and Bentham (see H. M. Magid, “Jeremy Bentham,” ibid., p. 623) explained political society as arising from “the habit of obedience.”

These interpretations may be compared with similar formulations by Simon, H. A, Smithburg, D. W., and Thompson, V. A. in their Public Administration (New York, 1950), at pp. 188–201Google Scholar, attributing obedience in part to the authority of confidence (or expertise), of identification (or group loyalty), and of legitimacy (the feeling that one ought to obey). In like fashion, Blau, P. M. and Scott, W. R., Formal Organizations (San Francisco: Chandler, 1962), at pp. 27–32, 140–45Google Scholar, stress “culturally denned role expectations” (p. 30) and internalization of social values (p. 144). Presthus, R. V., “Authority in Organizations,” in Mailick, S. and Van Ness, E. H., eds., Concepts and Issues in Administrative Behavior (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1962), at p. 125Google Scholar, emphasizes socialization, or the acceptance of societal or group norms and values, as a key process producing acceptance of authority.

⁴ For a brief summary of his logic, see Sabine, G. H., A History of Political Theory (New York, 3d ed., 1961), pp. 167–69Google Scholar.

⁵ For an outline of recent anarchist thought (which is an updated version of anarchist philosophies of ancient times), see Coker, F. W., Recent Political Thought (New York, 1934)Google Scholar, ch. VII. Also relevant are chs. VIII (on syndicalism), IX (on guild socialism), and XVIII (on pluralism).

⁶ E. g., Mooney, J. O., The Principles of Organization (New York, 1947), pp. 14–15Google Scholar: “The scalar principle is the same form in organization that is sometimes called hierarchical …. The common impression regards this scale or chain merely as a ‘type’ of organization, characteristic only of the vaster institutions of government, army, church, and industry. This impression is erroneous. It is likewise misleading, for it seems to imply that the scalar chain in organization lacks universality. These great organizations differ from others only in that the chain is longer. The truth is that wherever we find an organization even of two people, related as superior and sub-ordinate, we have the scalar principle. This chain constitutes the universal process of coordination, through which the supreme coordinating authority becomes effective throughout the entire structure.” See also, Weiner, M. G., “Observations on the Growth of Information-Processing Centers,” in Rubenstein, A. H. and Haberstroh, C. J., eds., Some Theories of Organization (Homewood: Dorsey and Irwin, 1960), p. 150Google Scholar: “The transition from individuality to division of labor and the acceptance of hierarchy in the form of a leadership structure … represents the point at which an ‘organization’ can be said to exist.”

⁷ Metcalf, H. C. and Urwick, L., eds., Dynamic Administration: The Collected Papers of Mary Parker Follett (New York, 1941), especially pp. 101 ffGoogle Scholar. and ch. VII.

⁸ Argyris, C., Personality and Organization (New York, 1957)Google Scholar.

⁹ Thompson, V. A., Modern Organizations (New York, 1961)Google Scholar; Fisch, G. G., “Line-Staff is Obsolete,” Harvard Business Review, Vol. 39, pp. 67–79 (1961)Google Scholar; Bass, B. M., “Industrial Organization for the Space Age,” unpublished manuscript, Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Pittsburgh, 1963Google Scholar. See also the query of Evan, W. M., “Indices of the Hierarchical Structure of Industrial Organizations,” 9 Management Science, Vol. 9, pp 468–77 (1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, regarding the validity of the “iron law of hierarchy.”

¹⁰ The firm is Non-Linear Systems, Inc., of Del Mar, California. Its structure and procedures are described by Kuriloff, A. H., “Management by Integration and Self-Control,” Proceedings of the Industrial Engineering Institute, February, 1963Google Scholar.

¹¹ Plato and Aristotle, for example, saw as the purpose of the city-state the promotion of the highest moral development of its citizens. For Hobbes, the end of government was the preservation of order. For Locke, it was the protection of “natural rights,” such as the right to private property. For the Utilitarians, it was to produce the greatest good for the greatest number. For the early liberal economists, it was to furnish just enough service and regulation to permit the reciprocal processes of the market place to operate effectively. In all these instances, selected haphazardly from the broad array of goals postulated in political thought, the existence of a common purpose and interest is axiomatic.

The same is true of most contemporary organization theory, although the specification of common interests is rarely articulated as explicitly as in political philosophy. Rather, it is assumed that every human association has some goals shared by all its members, and can be understood only in terms of those common purposes. E. g., in H. S. Simon, D. W. Smithburg, and V. A. Thompson, op. cit., at p. 3, purpose and cooperative action are described as the “two basic processes of what has come to be called administration …. Administration can be defined as the activities of groups cooperating to accomplish common goals.” Similarly, P. M. Blau and W. R. Scott, op. cit., at p. 1, declare that what organizations “all have in common is that a number of men have become organized into a social unit—an organization—that has been established for the explicit purpose of achieving certain goals.” And Argyris, C., Understanding Organizational Behavior (Homewood: Dorsey, 1960) hypothesizes, at pp. 10–11Google Scholar, “that organizations are intricate human strategies designed to achieve certain objectives,” and that the objectives of any organization include “achieving its goals (intended consequences).”

¹² Bentham, for instance, defined the interest of any community as the sum of the interests of those who compose it (H. M. Magid, op. cit., p. 622). Bentley, A. F., in The Process of Government (Bloomington: Principia, 1935), said (at p. 269)Google Scholar, “All phenomena of government are phenomena of groups pressing one another, forming one another, and pushing out new groups and group representatives (the organs and agencies of government) to mediate the adjustments.” Truman, D. B., using a similar framework of analysis in The Governmental Process (New York, 1953), added (at p. 51)Google Scholar, “In developing a group interpretation of politics, … we do not need to account for a totally inclusive interest, because one does not exist.” See also, Herring, E. P., The Politics of Democracy (New York, 1940)Google Scholar, ch. 30.

¹³ Barnard, C. I., The Functions of the Executive (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938), pp. 73Google Scholar (“a formal organization … [is] a system of consciously coordinated activities or forces of two or more persons”), 93, 137 (“The individual is always the basic strategic factor in organization.”), ch. XI, and pp. 161–75. See also, Simon, H. A., Administrative Behavior (New York, 1947), pp. 103–07Google Scholar; Simon describes coordination in terms of adjustments among individuals' behaviors. But he does observe that the individuals must find one plan agreeable to all participants if they are to cooperate, thus introducing the equivalent of common purpose.

¹⁴ For an exploration of the political theory implicit in the writings of organization theorists, see Waldo, D., The Administrative State (New York, 1948)Google Scholar.

¹⁵ E. g., N. Long, “The Administrative Organization as a Political System,” in S. Mailick and E. H. Van Ness, op. cit.

¹⁶ Plato, for instance, drew a parallel between the body and the city, and Hegel also turned to the metaphor of the organism. Cf. L. Strauss and J. Cropsey, op. cit., pp. 16, 25, 630. And after Darwin, comparisons between social and biological evolution were commonly employed, though usually in a fashion that did violence to the biological theory.

¹⁷ See C. Barnard, op. cit., p. 79: “Systems of cooperation which we call organizations I regard as social creatures, ‘alive,’ just as I regard an individual human being …” (His argument that an organization is more than the sum of its parts, as a person is more than the sum of his parts, is almost identical with that of Aristotle; cf. H. V. Jaffa, op. cit., p. 66.) See also Haire, M., “Biological Models and Empirical Histories of the Growth of Organizations,” in Haire, M., ed., Modern Organization Theory (New York, 1959), pp. 272–306Google Scholar; and Selznick, P., “Foundations of the Theory of Organization,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 13, pp. 25–35 (1948)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Leadership in Administration (New York, 1957)Google Scholar.

¹⁸ But see Campbell, D. T., “Evolutionary Theory in Social Science: A Reappraisal,” unpublished paper, Northwestern University, 1961Google Scholar, and the references cited therein. See also Redfield, R., ed., Levels of Integration in Biological and Social Systems (Lancaster: Jacques Cattell Press, 1942)Google Scholar.

¹⁹ The impression that large numbers of organizational fatalities occur is suggested in part by the frequency of business failures. Barnard, for example (op. cit., p. 5), comments, “successful cooperation in or by formal organizations is the abnormal, not the normal, condition. What are observed from day to day are the successful survivors among innumerable failures …. Failure to cooperate, failure of cooperation, failure of organization, disorganization, disintegration, destruction of organization—and reorganization—are characteristic facts of human history.”

²⁰ In this connection see P. M. Blau and W. R. Scott, op. cit., pp. 215–17.

²¹ For illustrations of the impression that there is a secular trend toward increasing centralization in modern life, see H. A. Simon, D. W. Smithburg, and V. A. Thompson, op. cit., pp. 272 ff.; R. Redfield, op. cit.; Seidenberg, R., Post-Historic Man (Boston: Beacon, 1957)Google Scholar.