Adam Smith said that long ago.
What’s it say about business schools?
About professional conferences in general?
Boy, they sure are efficient. We’re more optimized today to no end.
But do these functions which put businessmen together serve the public interest?
It used to be that business majors (and the business mindset) were secondclass and even derided at institutions of higher education. Who’d ever say outright that they’re getting an education to make money? That’s venal. To do something for money instead of merit has a bad name in the dictionary one would be studying from. Heck, prostitution is a synonym. A decent citizen gets educated so they can learn what is worthwhile in life, so they can help make it happen, and in so doing hopefully earn a living wage. Right? Anything else is credentialism, voc-tech, job-training, log-rolling or brown-nosing.
But I suppose those days of, say, as late as the 1970’s, were the last vestige of an old class system where businessmen were still in the servile sector, doing things that educated people needed to have done so the world could be civilized. They were the infrastructure people, the beancounters. Never leaders or influencers.
Why did that change? Did businessmen, professionals or careerists come up with a lead idea? One that helps us keep our social and cultural footing? That helps root and ground us, as we need to have redone to us every generation?
Oddly enough, since the 1970’s I haven’t really noticed any memorable or distinctive cultural leadership of any kind. Sure, nearly all the niche markets have exploded and been optimized, but that’s not what I mean.
Also, I emphatically note that not all endeavors in the market are run by businessmen. Business is a second-tier function that any project-person has to take care of. My only point here is that it DOESN’T LEAD. Everyone needs a filing system. But small biz and indy biz aren’t in it for the money. They aren’t even ideally in it to make a living. (Both things being frequent excuses for very nasty behavior.) They’re doing what they have to do. They’re following their call. And if the stars are right and enough people respond there’s a living there. (Note that “enough people” isn’t the same as “a market.” Just like “mass market” and “market” aren’t the same—nor are “mob” and “gathering” nor “consumer” and “person buying what they need.”)
I wonder why college kids tend to drink themselves into a stupor every nite of the week til the wee-hours nowadays. Why has child drunkenness grown so hugely and steadily? College kids are innocents, after all. You can’t get away from in-loco parentis. What the profs are telling them they’ll have to do to get ahead is driving them collectively insane. Well, they drink so they can keep functioning. Kind of. The trend of innocents to rush to oblivion seems to me to somewhat relate to the taking over of education by greedheads. Possible?
