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The right to be human and human rights: Maslow, McCarthyism and the death of humanist theories of management

University Management School, Lancaster, b.cooke{at}lancaster.ac.uk

Albert J. Mills

Saint Mary's University, albert.mills{at}smu.ca

This article is constructed around the counterfactual of Abraham Maslow being made to testify before a McCarthy-type investigation in the US ColdWar era. We set out the extent to which Maslow was, factually, engaged with the internal US Cold War and note his surveillance by the FBI. This lends plausibility to our counterfactual case: there were episodes in Maslow's life and work which rendered him vulnerable to McCarthyite inquisition.Two sets of consequences for humanism in management history of this initial counterfactual event are explored, depending on whether he would or would not have testified. Concluding, we argue that while we counterfactualize Maslow's life, we cannot logically do so for Maslow's hierarchy. That hierarchy's deceitfulness is revealed by its naturalization of a narrative of sequential social/individual betterment, in which the factual social evil of McCarthyism is unrepresentable.

Management & Organizational History, Vol. 3, No. 1, 27-47 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/1744935908090996


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