26 SITUATING HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
ownership of the means of production from the capitalists to the workers.
Marx’s notion that a revolutionary transfer of ownership from capital to
labour would lead to the demise of politics and the power of the state proved
unfounded, and modified radical theories developed, arguing for the trans-
fer of ownership, not to an amorphous ‘people’ but to the government or
nation state, which was seen to be ‘neutral’ between the different economic
interests. Socialist and state socialist theories developed. They sought to end
the exploitation they believed was inherent in private property rights and
capitalist employment relationships. Their solution to the major discrepancies
in social power caused by private ownership was nationalization, and the
transfer of the employer role from private entrepreneurs to governments and
the state.
Modern HRM is now practised in both privately owned and government-
owned organizations, and experience has taught that state ownership does
not significantly alter employment relationships, or guarantee radically dif-
ferent employment conditions. The question of ownership is no longer placed
at the centre of debates about the development of fair and ethical working
relationships in a society. However, the history of these nineteenth and early
twentieth century concerns have had their influence on different legal systems.
It is the history and power of these ideas that explains the more managed
economies of central Europe, compared with the more liberal economy of the
USA (Whitley 1999). And although the ownership of resources is no longer
given the same theoretical significance (except perhaps for Russian oil and
gas), the role of government in a plural economy and state is still a significant
issue.
Most recent debates about relationships in employment have rested, not so
much on unitary or radical theories, as on notions of how to deal with an
inevitable and unavoidable plurality of interests at work.
Before turning to pluralist theories, it is worth noting that at the turn of
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, moral concerns about the nature of
emerging capitalism were raised by religious as well as communist and socialist
thinkers. In a classic article, Child (1964) notes that the Quaker businessmen
who developed the confectionery industry in the UK came under moral attack
from their colleagues in the Society of Friends, because the role of employer
was seen to contradict four fundamental Quaker moral prescriptions. These
Quaker values were: (a) a prohibition of exploitation and profit at the expense
of others; (b) the importance of service, stressing hard work, and renuncia-
tion in the service of others; (c) egalitarianism and the need for democratic
relations between people; and (d) abhorrence of social conflict. From 1902 to
1922 Quaker employers came under considerable pressure from the Society
of Friends to renounce property rights and the profit motive and establish
democratically run businesses, based on moral rather than material objectives.
Child describes the Quaker employers’ response to this pressure. They devel-
oped an ideology which could be accommodated with commercial activities