THE ETHICS OF HRM 41rather a harmonious dovetailing of identical rational wills (such as Rousseau’s
vision of the General Will). Berlin saw this monist view as inherently liable
to abuse because, if there is a natural identity of wills among rational people,
then conflict may be seen as a symptom of immorality, unreason, or error
and inherently pathological. In Berlin’s eyes, viewing conflict as pathological
underpins all forms of totalitarianism. For Berlin, the negative view of liberty
allows for people in their acts of self-creation to make choices that, in the eyes
of a rationalist or Aristotelian, would count as bad or worthless—engaging in
‘immoral’ activities, choosing self-harming lifestyles.
The two concepts of liberty enable us to pose questions about the desirabil-
ity of collectivism per se. Collective representation may constitute a form of
positive freedom as an expression of harmoniouscollectiveself-determination
in the pursuit of the rational ends of want satisfaction, through the institution
of collective bargaining. The route to being ‘the instrument of my own, not of
other men’s, acts of will’, may be through collective organization and action, in
the spirit of ‘united we stand, divided we fall’. Collectivism may seek the ratio-
nal goal of securing for employees the ‘good life at work’. From the position of
positive liberty, what counts as good work and employment is not subjective,
but constituted by the securing of ends that rational people might agree are
good. There might be a fair measure of agreement, for example, that good
work might comprise Hackman and Oldham’s requisite task (1976) attributes
(optimizing skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feed-
back) combined with developmental opportunities for self-actualization and a
collegial organizational climate. This would roughly satisfy both Kantian and
Aristotelian principles. Good employment conditions might be defined as a
‘fair’ relationship between employee inputs (skill, effort, and time) and mate-
rial outcomes in relation to comparison others (including other employees
in the same or comparable organizations and other stakeholders) reached by
negotiation and agreement, with the organization additionally committed to
a duty of care towards the employee. This would comply with Adam’s equity
theory of satisfaction and stakeholder theory and would not be incompatible
with Rawls’ theory of justice. Hodson’s ideas (2001: 264) about what con-
stitutes ‘dignity at work’ make very similar ‘rational’ points, in identifying
the creation and enforcement of norms which provide both protection from
mismanagement and abuseandthe creation of bilateral structures of partici-
pation that provide opportunities for workers to realize their human potential
through creative, meaningful, and productive work.
Collectivism may also protect negative freedom, in so far as it protects
union members from the constraints imposed by employers’ unilateral impo-
sition of exploitative and arbitrary terms and conditions of employment. For
example, an employee’s choice and ability to live her chosen good life may
be constrained by the working of very long hours for subsistence pay (echoes
of the old union cry: ‘Not a minute on the day, not a penny offthe pay!’).