“Two meanings of command? Command in the Instrumental Organisation versus Coercive Command”
Studies in Emergent Order, Vol. 3 (2010)
Abstract
This paper seeks to use Turner‟s (2005) precise analysis of the different power mechanisms that exist in social behaviour to argue that coordination in instrumental organisations can occur without coercive command. This may mean that individuals who function in instrumental organisations (like the business firm) feel a more fundamental difference between that order and the larger market order than actually exists. This possible error may result in a preference for trying to impose what appears, but may not be, the coordination mechanism within instrumental organisations to the market. It may also mean that the coercive nature of the socialist or interventionist state may appear attractive because „command‟ there, coercion, may be mistaken for the familiar „command‟, articulation of rules that have been voluntarily committed to, within the organisation.
Studies in Emergent Order 