Willowiest article, “Strength is ignorance; slavery is freedom: Managing culture in modern organizations”, is a harsh critique of corporate cultism’s’ totalitarian attempt of ‘controlling and winning the hearts and minds of their employees, in order to secure unusual efforts. ‘(1993 ) The article, which was published in the Journal of management studies in 1993, tests existing theories of management, and enunciates the “narrowing of values and the a-moral dimension of corporate culture”. (Fauve, M. 99)
It is aimed at heritors and academics, in order to stimulate discussions, and is not intended for practical Use. The article claims that corporate cultism, in its essence, is unethical manipulation of the individual by management. An instrument of control, working under disguise of freedom while defining limits which gives the appearance of individualism whilst enslaving the employees’ free mind. Pushing employees toward a mode, a monoculture of assorted affinity, where the employees’ are under an unconscious spell of striving to accomplish extraordinary effort in order to obtain increased corporate competitiveness.
According to Fauve it theorizes ‘the colonization of workers’ thoughts and feelings and the governance of workers’ values”. (Fauve, M. 199 ) Wolcott advocates the detrimental effects to employees’ free will, caused by corporate cultism, and supports his claim by a preponderance of evidence. Wolcott claims that “corporate cultism is the systemization and legitimizing of a mode of control that purposefully seeks to shape and regulate the practical unconsciousness and, arguably, unconscious strivings, of employees..
To the extent that succeeds in this mission, corporate cultism becomes a medium of nascent totalitarianism, “(1993. G. 523) an emerging system of controlled thoughts, feelings and emotions. To back up his claim William introduces Mess’s argument ‘where parallels are drawn between the propagandist methods of Nazi Germany and the totalitarian tendencies of corporate cultism. ‘ (Meek in Wolcott, 1993) Wolcott ends his crusade against corporate cultism, just before the inclusion, by saying “corporate cultism contrives to eliminate the conditions – pluralism and the associated conflict of values – for facilitating the social process of emotional and intellectual struggle for self-determination”(1993, peg. 40)
The logic behind Willowiest’ arguments is simple; a corporation seeks to exhort extraordinary effort from its employees by increasing their commitment to the firm in various ways, from ‘increased effort to increased flexibility,’ (Wolcott) and accomplishes this by “managing what they think and feel, and not just how they behave”. (Wolcott, 1993, peg. 16) Williams article seems to be exceedingly one sided, as his claims of detrimental effects to individualistic freewill are repeated over and over again.
The claim of logic behind Willowiest’ critique can be argued as Fauve articulates a counter claim by enunciating that “it would be wrong to simply oppose economic organizations to socialist collectivity, when the former and latter can be characterized by the variability of their intrinsic.
