Three Dilberts

As The Nobby Works counts down in Dilberts to the publication date of Employee X's searing new book, Look before You Lean: How a Lean Transformation Goes Bad--A Cautionary Tale , it may be worth contemplating the future of America. The expression "the American experiment" gets thrown around a lot in academic circles. They see the "experiment" essentially as a test as to whether people can govern themselves. The real experiment, however, is can democracy and capitalism peacefully co-exist. It is an experiment along the lines of can oil and water mix or can lambs lie down with lions without getting eaten by morning. Currently the experiment is not going well. Capitalism is in the process of gnawing democracy to the bone because it sees democracy as weak and annoying. Employee X reports that an executive once brushed aside a suggestion of his that they conduct a survey of the workforce to gauge the progress of a grand and daring company initiative by saying, "We already know how the employees feel and we can't do anything about that." 

The future health of our democracy can be diagnosed by how much corporate America abuses the vital signs of democracy.