The Visible hand
by Alfred D. Chandler · first published 1977
7mentions
3recommended by
5HN commenters
2016–2022first – last mentioned
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The role of large-scale business enterprise-big business and its managers- during the formative years of modern capitalism (from the 1850s until the 1920s) is delineated for the first time in this pathmarking book. Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. the distinguished historian of business, sets forth the reasons for the dominance of big business in American transportation, communication and the central sectors of production and distribution.
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…kind of funny that people believe the opposite is true, but that isn't self-evident if you come from a society where practical knowledge is valued). Btw, the defining book on this is Alfred Chandler's Visible Hand. He is probably the greatest historian of business (yep, he is from the US which is the only place where historians actually study this kind of thing en masse).
on “The Toyota Production System (2013)” ↗…the nakedness of the sun and stars. Which means it is common to have to lie and conspire in order to get ahead - and how many people are willing to for a nicer car to drive around the neighborhood! The Visible Hand by Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. is a great read corroborating the growth of agglomerated industry, and Joseph Schumpeter's Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy also has some good passages relating to this…
on “How We Institutionalized Incompetence” ↗Railroads and the need to coordinate with precision across greater distances forced the evolution of managerial practice from single site to something recognizable as today’s practice. “The Visible Hand” by Alfred Chandler is an authoritative source on the transition: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674940529
on “The Evolution of Management (2019)” ↗Sir, I disagree that shareholder value is a curse. I recommend The Visible Hand by Alfred D. Chandler Jr. who noted that over the last century there has been a shift from family-managed businesses to managerial-management which has more loyalty to themselves and abstract owners of…
on “Ask HN: Where do you find the interesting jobs?” ↗…Million BC to the Present http://delong.typepad.com/print/20061012_LRWGDP.pdf The Process of Creative Destruction by Joseph Schumpeter http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/CreativeDestruction.html The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business by Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674940529 Report of D. C. McCallum to the stockholders of the New York and…
on “Ask HN: What's your favorite tech talk?” ↗Alfred Chandler Jr notes in his book "the visible hand" how government jobs, or creation of busy work to employ people, is just 'hidden' unemployment. If they pay people to do a job that is not necessarily needed, they can provide 'welfare' via work-to-pay.
on “Four-day week trial: study finds lower stress but no cut in output” ↗…citizens own equities (almost 50%). And let's not discount the "managerial revolution" that has occurred as management:labor ratios have exploded over time (and noted by the Pulitzer Prize winning The Visible Hand by Alfred D. Chandler, Jr.)
on “Boeing cutting more than 12,000 U.S. jobs with thousands more planned” ↗