Thursday, June 30, 2011

The Court's Naive Liberals

While last week's Supreme Court Wal-Mart decision was about class actions, it offered some insight into the way the "liberals" on the court think about how a business should be run.

In her opinion, Ruth Ginsburg opined that jobs should be numerically classified to eliminate "arbitrary and subjective criteria." Promotions should be determined by written tests or seniority, not by managers choosing "on the basis of their own subjective interpretations." In others words, business shop operate the way the government does.

Justice Ginsburg and the others clearly demonstrate an utter lack of understanding of how a business must operate in a competitive environment. Efficient operations depend on holding managers accountable for performance. That absolutely requires "arbitrary and subjective criteria" -- such as how to please a customer, when to fire an employee, when to promote one. If you don't do that, your business operates, well, like government -- which in a competitive environment is a terminal strategy. Won't life be grand when Wal-Mart is forced to operate like the DMV?

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