Do we want Great Britain Ltd?
F. A. BISHOP
F. A. Bishop, after a civil service career in which he was principal private secretary to two Prime Ministers, deputy secretary to the Cabinet, and permanent, secretary of the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources, re- signed in 1965 to join the board of S. Pearson and Son and other companies among Lord Cowdray's interests. As a director of Air Holdings he played an important part in the securing of the air-bus engine order for Rolls-Royce.
Quite a few columnists, during the recent months of perplexity and disillusionment, have indulged in the game of selecting rival boards of directors for Great Britain Ltd. The field of selection has usually been the business world, including some former politicians who have taken up with varying degrees of earnest- ness a business career; though a rival weekend review, I recall, drafted in a few more glamorous candidates such as the Duke of Edinburgh and Twiggy. More than one of those selected have taken the game quite seriously, though purporting Caesar-like the while to turn the proffered crown aside.
Is there anything in the idea that the coun- try ought to be run as a mammoth, but at the same time efficient, commercial company? Looking at some of the teams that have been suggested, and particularly at the names of businessmen or public figures who would need to work closely together in the five or six key posts in a government, it is indeed not easy to take the proposition very seriously. And yet, on the other hand, when we observe the inefficiency of the present system of govern- ment, the lack of a working relationship be- tween the legislative and the executive, the imbalance between the product of the machinery of government and the resources put into running it, the absence of long-term planning—or perhaps I mean the ,prevalence of instant-by-instant government regardless of the long-term needs—when we observe all these manifestations of disorganisation and waste,., there is some temptation to think that the country would be better served by a team of technocrats who have proved their ability in the commercial field.
This, alas, is mere fantasy. - Several reasons for disbelief in this pipe- dream occur to me . First, businessmen, like politicians, are men, and both, however success- ful, are not unlike ordinary men. Successful businessmen and successful politicians are sometimes a little larger than life, as are successful dons or trade unionists. But— having observed many political ministers of both parties at close hand, and quite a number of businessmen too—they are remarkably like us. There is really no reason to suppose that to replace politicians by businessmen would by itself bring any improvement.
Indeed, the contrary result could be expected. For although politicians and businessmen are similar human beings, with similar packages of human frailties and prejudices, they have equipped themselves with different experience. It is this that is of value in their different pro- fessions. Although it is possible to fill a lack of experience in something of a hurry, it is not often done successfully. There are many examples of the distinguished civil servant or businessman who could not learn the lessons quickly enough to perform acceptably as a politician. In the old phrase—`As a singer she was a very good dancer.' Even an indifferent daticer, through practice and experiente, will make a better showing at the cancan than will a star vocalist, always assuming that they have not run short of stamina and voice respectively. Experience above all counts in politics, for the field of subject is so wide and diffuse that it is not sus- ceptible to deliberate concentration—it must be lived through and abSarbed. Thank heavens, therefore, for the vocational politician, pre- pared to lead a dog's life of increasing pressure as he ascends, slowly if at all, the ministerial tree.
This vocational direction apart—and that after all is what steers businessmen and poli- ticians and all of us into our predestinate grooves—it is not the kinds of men that are different, but the kinds of problems. This is the second reason why Great Britain Ltd can- not be run as a business corporation. The ob- jective of the businessman is relatively easy to define and to measure—commercial success. Most of the time, his aim for his bull's-eye need not waver at all; and even in the infrequent cases of business decisions that are complicated by other factors of a social nature, in the end it is a matter of judgment of commercial interest, enlightened no doubt by social im- plications but still commercial.
The objective of politicians—other than to maintain themselves in office, which by and large is fair enough—is more complex, and the test of success much less straightforward. While national economic viability is of the highest importance, it has to be reconciled with the social or even moral requirements of the people, or rather with those requirements as they are variously felt by the different sectors of society. The nature of the national task was examined most interestingly by Mr Arthur Shenfield in a recent essay (in the study pro- duced by Mr Max Stamp for a Hill Samuel Occasional Paper). This was a reminder of the distinction that is too often forgotten by economists between wealth and happiness, and between economic growth and economic balance.
The goal of any government must, in fact, be the appropriate economic and social balance. The balancing trick, and the task of continually adjusting the balance, is essentially a political job—essentially not the sort or job for which a businessman has a vocation or in the performance of which he has accumulated experience. Indeed, he is bound to be impatient of it. The diagnosis and treatment of the con- flicting and shifting requirements of society must above all entail compromise, and some- times a measure of indecision; whereas the industrial leader must wish to simplify, to decide in a clearcut manner, and always in the knowledge that his decisions will be tested by the standard of commercial success.
The illusion that we should be more wisely and safely governed by businessmen is held only by those who have formed a strikingly shortsighted view of the acceptable social and economic balance for our country. It is part of the illusion that economic growth is the holy grail—even regardless of what kind of growth it is. Many businessmen are naturally inclined to propagate this view. And it is true that much of what is socially desirable can only be pro- vided out of the marginal surplus of economic effort. But, undeniably important as economic achievement is, there are many other achieve- ments of a broadly social description to which people attach equally great importance— enough importance to force a democratic govarnment to -pay elettoral heed to-them. And although in some few of these fields we are beginning to apply economic measurements— the cost of traffic congestion, or the comparative evaluation of different forms of land use—it does not seem likely that cost-benefit analysis techniques will be accurately applicable to questions of leisure and pleasure. In this non- measurable area the businessman would be lost.
All this, of course, is on the assumption that the concept of Great Britain Ltd. Or business- man's government, is not intended to dispense with the protection of the democratic constitu- tion. Anyone can govern—and govern in a sense with efficiency—if we are prepared to exchange the parliamentary system for a dictatorship, But personally I do not believe that the In- dustrial Policy Group had any such sinister intention, even subconsciously. I have heard more than one eminent businessman say that what hinders businesslike government is the requirement that at any time ministers must be able to carry with them in their policies, however unpleasant, a majority in the House of Commons. But this worry arose from the feeling that as an inevitable consequence, the long-term plans of any government would be almost certain to be frustrated. And business- men understand the value of long-term plan- ning, and accept the frequent need to pursue it by way of unpleasant short-term decisions.
The electorate's disillusionment with politi- cians (and currently with Labour politicians) is, nevertheless, real and dangerous. Instead of allowing this mood to foster such pipedreams as Great Britain Ltd, with Lord Robens or Lord Beeching, or even Mr Cecil King as chairman and managing director, there ought to be the most careful diagnosis and then remedial measures. It is here that I think that the business world has something important and helpful to offer—in- the--way- not-of---men;-however com- mercially eminent, but of methods. I believe that what is at the root of our political and social malaise is not anything as simple as the fluctuating status and power of the Prime Minister. Our constitution is sufficiently resilient and elastic to accommodate safely a tendency towards the presidential system or a preference for the team spirit with unobtrusive chairman- ship. Nor has the parliamentary system as such turned sour.
The real trouble is that the machinery of government as a whole has overwhelmed us. It has grown, spread, ramified, until the orderly garden shows signs of becoming a jungle. This has led to what has been called 'the dual break- down of communication between the citizen and the executive, and the executive and its own machine.' What a pity that, because he writes amusingly, Professor Parkinson has not been taken more seriously! It is true that the system hai not yet ground to a standstill. Occasionally, problems are resolved and decisions taken : but this is because someone in Whitehall has cut through or sidestepped the proliferation of committees, the interdepartmental consultation, or their equivalent in Parliament or the party machine. Some drastic simplification, some surgical excision, is the urgent treatment that is required in many parts of the machinery of government. It is not easy, and in some areas it may be impossible, to apply the tests of efficiency, such techniques as cost-benefit analysis, to this machinery. But at least it seems clear that `whate'er is worst administered is worst.' A new look—a business look—at `the system' is what the world of business is best fitted to contribute to the solution of our national problem. But so far as jobs are con- cerned, the businessman should adopt the politician's motto—`stick to the last.'
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