An Open Letter to Henry Mintzberg

I have ambivalent feelings about management writers as a breed - but make exceptions for people such as Charles Handy, Henry Mintzberg, Gareth Morgan and Chris Grey.

Mintzberg and Morgan are the best known - Canadians and therefore less inclined to the fanciful nonsense that US proponents of the craft inflict on us – the other two are Brits. One of Mintzberg’s highly readable books was “Strategy Safari – a guided tour through the wilds of strategic management”

Some years ago I wrote to him about an early draft of his very accessible booklet “Rebalancing Society – radical renewal, beyond left, right and center” (2015) and he was kind enough to respond and to refer to my comment in a following draft. 

He actively blogs and maintains an excellent website which continues to update the text of “Rebalancing Society”.

In the light of the series of posts I’ve been doing, I thought it would be useful to drop him another note and indeed to reproduce its content as an Open Letter. After the initial reference to our previous exchange the note went as follows - 

You rightly remind us that there are three sectors – private, public and social – and that it is the last that really matters. The actions that each and every one of us take are indeed of central importance - and the table you included in the 2015 version is an excellent tool for exploring the options open to us in all sectors.

However I’m not sure if your text properly takes on board the structure of power which, of all people, you so well understand has elements of “hegemony” (I hate the word but it can be a useful shorthand).

Trade unions, the working class, social democracy are, sadly, not the force they once were. 

As political parties lose their functions – and governments their usefulness to citizens – all that is left is the (withering) power of social movements and social enterprise to challenge the increasingly stronger power of monopolies and oligopolies. We are – in the dreadful language of the sociologists – losing our power of “agency”

In my youth, I was a very active (Regional) politician who helped set up community structures and businesses as part of a positive discrimination strategy which the Scottish government continues to honour – but I have lost my faith in political parties.

My question is – how do you persuade someone like me that there is a future in social movements – let alone in political parties or government?

I have to say that I don’t see enough recognition in the general literature of the importance of this issue of the structure of power and the need for an effective system of “countervailing power”.

Useful Reading

Reclaiming the State – a progressive vision of sovereignty in a post neo-liberal world Bill Mitchell (2017)