Editorial

Citation

Coleman, J. (2003), "Editorial", European Business Review, Vol. 15 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ebr.2003.05415aab.001

Editorial

Editor John Coleman

Deputy Editor Aidan Rankin

Things of the forked tongue: authoritarian tendencies

The articles in the present issue tend to fall into two categories: those that concern Europe's wider concerns and those that concentrate on the ethical concerns. Paul Dickinson reminds us that Finland has a special relationship with Russia, which is in some ways not unlike the UK's relationship with the USA. He sees the need for Finland to play a special role especially as the European Union enlarges to take in many new countries with borders on borders.

The second article, by Brian Johnson, an eminent scientist with English Nature, looks at the division of opinion on GM crops. As a scientist he takes up a very cautious stance agreeing neither with America nor with the total hostility of the European position. Perhaps the most significant sentence in his article is: "To my mind there is a pattern behind the social use of new discoveries". In this case the UK might play a special role in responding to the USA in the wider interests of Europe.

In both cases and in both articles a clear ethical dimension is evident. In Robert Protherough and John Pick's article based on their book Managing Britannia the moral question is at the forefront. The state has taken over the management culture and, as the authors say, "The British people can no longer be proud of their individual achievements – they can only achieve their 'targets' and 'deliver agreed outcomes' in a way that satisfies government planners". In the 1950s a view was developing at the Harvard School of Business Administration that the best way to achieve results was by having a management that knew as little as possible about the work they managed. Too much knowledge might weaken the will to achieve the targets and those professionals and workers actually doing the job would be forced to find ways around the difficulties. It now seems that as this system has developed it might well be termed the "Management of the forked tongue". The authors make the comment that "there are times when whole civilisations become obsessed with a single route to salvation" and they are convinced that that is happening to our civilisation today, not just in the UK, but also in the whole of the western World.

The final contribution goes to the heart of the moral question. Kenneth Wynne-Brown, an engineer of international standing, gives the very remarkable example of the influence of Confucius on the Chinese population, one third of the population of the world, to show what can be done when there is trust between the governors and the governed. The notion of the "forked tongue" applies not only to politics but also perhaps to business and religion.

Aidan Rankin's review of the Federal Trust's book Europe's Wider Loyalties is a positive response to the moral and democratic problems with which the Trust is grappling in this series of essays. However he rightly questions whether the European Parliament, because of its polyglot nature, can really fulfil a democratic purpose – and that is leaving aside the possibility of the politics of the forked tongue dominating at the European level as well as the national.

Further readingRankin, A. (2002), The Politics of the Forked Tongue, New European Publications, London.Wynne-Brown, K. (2003), The Power Source of the Universe: Science and Spirituality, New European Publications, London, forthcoming.