Visible Hand The Managerial Revolution In American Business

Alfred Chandler authored the book, “The Visible Hand the Managerial Revolution in American Business”. Many people know of the invisible hand that controls the market derived from Adam Smith. However in this book Chandler challenges the invisible hands control with the visible hand of management taking over control. The general idea of the invisible hand is the assumption that the majority of people want to better their lives by becoming wealthier. In order to become wealthier people and businesses need to constantly improve in order to be better than one another. You either keep up with the competition or you go out of business. The invisible hand suggests that as long as the people in a society strive to be better through human nature than society as whole will be better off. Also with the idea of the invisible hand it suggests government intervention is unnecessary because human nature dictates society will be at its optimal position already. Chandler’s idea of the visible hand suggests that the market is now controlled by large enterprises and middle to top management. That the economy is
Management became a country wide process. There were specific types of managers for each business, each with their own staff, who each reported back to another manager and this would be the visible hand. As large enterprises took over the economy it would make entry to the market difficult. This was managerial capitalism. It was a managerial hierarchy of managers that would run these enterprises. Managers had control over the business and became more concerned with the stability of their job than the profit of the company. The new comers would have to compete against large corporation of managers, and staff specific jobs. There prices would also have to be on the higher end due to a smaller rate of production and