About a decade ago, I read Plato's Republic, which is a rather long story about government and society as a whole. The story is essentially about Socrates discussing what he believes to be the perfect form of government at a dinner party, hosted by someone who opposes his point of view.
In the beginning, unbeknownst to him, the host mentions the possibility of an "accident" happening to Socrates. Gradually as the story goes on each person at the dinner party begins to agree with the logic of the philosophy being used. They are led one by one from their prejudiced viewpoints over to his way of thinking.
Socrates relates in his opinion, all of the things that must be necessary in order to have the perfect form of government and how it could never really last for any length of time. This is because it would have to be a caste based society where people were not equals and it could not be possible to ever change from one caste to another. People in the differing levels would have different amounts of creature comforts, some having little or none. Nobody would ever volunteer to live their whole lives in the lower levels of this system, especially with no hope of it ever getting better.
He goes on to say, however, that the same thoughts and ideas that go into making the perfect way to rule a city, would work perfectly fine for a man to rule himself. So while the perfect form of governing the masses cannot exist, the perfect way to rule oneself does.
Yesterday, I was talking about how countries are like large businesses and I was thinking that nearly every business has trouble with the way it is run. I eat out a lot so when thinking of business, my mind quite often turns to fast food chains. I like to find evidence to support or detract from whatever theory I am currently working on. Can a government(a business) truly not be run by the same set of rules that a man could use to perfectly govern himself?
A list started to form in my mind of all the large chains that I have eaten at over the years. McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King, Taco Bell,KFC, Dunkin' Donuts,Subway, Charlie's Steakery and Miami Subs just to name a few. And at every single one of them, I have had at least one mediocre to disastrous experience.
Owners and managers do everything they can to make their restaurant as pleasant and appealing as possible. They want your dining experience to be the best it can possibly be, so that you will continue to give them your patronage. The idea is that the employees are bright, shiny, smiling people that practically exist just to serve you and your dining needs.
But, at every single one of those places I have at one point or another encountered a person who just did not get it. Somehow the manager had failed to govern them properly. My appearance in their place of work, was apparently all that needed to happen to ruin their day. I made them suffer just by showing up. And they decided to do as little work as possible in an effort to get me to go away, so that they could go back to doing whatever it was they were doing before I arrived.
And then an exception occurred to me. I am not clear if it is the exception that proves or disproves the rule in this case though. Every single Chik-fil-A that I have every been to has been super clean. I have never seen a frown, or even a neutral face on any of the employees. They are all bright, shiny, happy people.
Maybe it's drugs. Maybe they pay $40 an hour. Maybe they all have huge orgies in the back room whenever it's not busy. I don't know what it is. But every experience I've had there has been great. The food is good quality. The waiting is short even when the lines are super long. The employees are happy to be doing what they are doing and it shows. You ARE doing them a favor when you come up and order your food. If it wasn't for customers, they wouldn't be in business. Why are they the only chain restaurant in creation that acts that way?
How many of the "rules" in Plato's Republic are actually being followed by the management of this one company? Probably none of them word for word. But, I wouldn't be surprised if the spirit were there in many of the company policies.
We know someone that used to manage one, perhaps I will go and ask him
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