Abstract

The article focuses on the exercise of leadership within societies which are politically democratic and economically organized on the basis of free enterprise. Unquestionably in such societies, the development of modem technologies has led to a tremendous concentration of power in the hands of those who direct large economic groups. The typical enterprise has become larger and larger, for more and more individuals setting the pattern of their working lives under central control. This tendency has led to an increasing demand for democracy in industry. But it is difficult to see how an employee can have a greater share of control in an undertaking in which he is a producer, or distributor, without diminishing proportionately the control he exercises over it as a consumer. In short in a free society, industrial democracy is a contradiction in terms. It is a question of whether the individual should exercise that democratic control by virtue of his function as a participant or of his function as a consumer. The modern chief executive in a large corporation is the center of a network of interdependent and interacting social groups.