Back to the USSR

Is it me, or is business becoming a teeny-weeny bit Stalinist? Common features include 1) Paranoia about political ideology; 2) Snitching; 3) Fatuous targets and metrics; 4) Unquestioning faith in technology; 5) Huge, economically unproductive bureaucracies; 6) Overinvestment in education; 7) Preference for theory over experience; 8) An obsession with rockets.

An acquaintance in the US has been denounced for racial insensitivity for asking whether a colleague was Jewish. (Funnily enough, I was asked this all the time when I visited New York in the 1990s. I had to explain that my curly hair originates in a country that’s the same size as Israel, and with slightly annoying neighbours, but it’s called Wales.)

Before you think ‘it is odd asking whether someone is Jewish’, let me provide the conversational context.

First party: ‘Can I leave a little early today, because it’s Passover?’

My acquaintance (who is Jewish herself): ‘Oh, are you Jewish?’

To anyone with the slightest grasp of idiom, this second question, except in a purely grammatical sense, isn’t a question at all. It is an oblique way of saying: ‘I didn’t know, but you have just told me.’ Like ‘Can I borrow your umbrella?’ ‘Oh, is it raining?’

But someone reported this exchange. To the complainant there was an iron-clad rule: you never ask about someone’s origins. To me, there is something Soviet about the idea that adherence to a rule is more important than common sense. Likewise, the act of denouncing her to the HR commissariat, like Pavlik Morozov.

Another Soviet feature is the preference for theory over observation. A CEO I know was berated by stock-market analysts for being too profitable — selling a product at a premium price which enjoyed a high market share. He was told this was not consistent with economic theory (by bankers with an iPhone in one pocket and the keys to an Audi in another).