Egalitarian Societies

Egalitarianism is a word derived from the French word égal, meaning “equal”. This article about egalitarian societies talks about what is egalitarianism, and how business management related to egalitarian societies are performing in this information age.

In modern English, egalitarianism has two distinct definitions.

1. Egalitarianism is a political doctrine that holds that all people should be treated as equals and have the same political, economic, social, and civil rights.

2. Egalitarianism is a social philosophy advocating the removal of economic inequalities among people.

Throughout history, people have been divided into an upper class and a working class (in Ancient Rome, the respective terms were patricians and plebeians); the rise of a third estate or middle class led philosophers to question the assumption that class divisions were natural and necessary.

Egalitarianism asserts that all people are of equal value and should be treated the same irrespective of their birth.

Egalitarian Societies

In the United States Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson in 1776, states as follows:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;

In business, management theory has followed a smooth trajectory, from enslavement to empowerment over the past 100 years.

Egalitarian Societies in Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley has always been at the forefront of this kind of egalitarian societies (egalitarianism).

In the 1940s, Bill Hewlett and David Packard pioneered what business author Tom Peters dubbed “managing by walking around,” an approach that encouraged executives to communicate informally with their employees.

In the 1990s, Intel’s executives expressed solidarity with the engineers by renouncing their swanky corner offices in favor of standard-issue cubicles.

And today, if Google hasn’t made itself a Greenleaf-esque slave to its employees, it’s at least a cruise director: The Mountain View campus is famous for its perks, including in-house masseuses, roller-hockey games, and a cafeteria where employees gobble gourmet vittles for free.

What’s more, Google’s engineers have unprecedented autonomy; they choose which projects they work on and whom they work with.

And they are encouraged to allot 20 percent of their work week to pursuing their own software ideas.

The result? Products like Gmail and Google News, which began as personal endeavors.

This concepts may give you some business ideas or some considerations when you are making business management decisions.

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