Mr. Whyte’s thesis is simple: Americans, in abandoning their classic individualism (the “Protestant ethic” as Mr. Whyte calls it) in favor of “adjusting” to the demands of big organization (or following the “social ethic”), are letting themselves in for far worse neuroses than the ones they have left behind. Instead of being ravaged by “social Darwinism,” with the devil taking the hindmost, we are being drowned in benevolence. Self-assertion is out, individual excellence is out, and even elementary privacy is not to be had. We are all our brothers’ keepers, and, boy, do they get in our hair!
If all this is true—and it must be said that Mr. Whyte elaborately documents his case out of prolonged familiarity with the people who work for big organizations—then we are in a bad way. Fortunately, it is not as true as Mr. Whyte supposes; if it fired long ago by Fortune Magazine, that leading exemplar of “group journalism” which permits Mr. White to be as individualist as he pleases. Nevertheless, it is undoubtedly true enough.
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