COMPETITIVE PERSONALITY
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the larger meaning of competition. The competition in which these
new entrepreneurs engage is not so much a competition for markets
of commodities or services: it is a bright, anxious competition for
the good will of the chieftain by means of personality. The "supply
and demand" of the impersonal market does not decide the success or
failure of the new entrepreneur; his success is decided by the personal
decisions of intimately known chieftains of monopoly.
The new entrepreneur has this in common with the ordinary
white collar worker: the careers of both are administered by powerful
others. The difference is that the toadying of the white collar employee
is small scale and unimaginative; he makes up the stable corps of the
bureaucracy, and initiative is regimented out of his life. The new ul–
cered entrepreneur, running like Sammy, operates on the duplicious
edges of the several bureaucracies. He comes to the immediate atten–
tion of the men who make the big decisions as he services their fears
and eagerly encourages their anxious whims.
Part of the frenzy of the new entrepreneur is due to the fact that
in his life there are no objective criteria of success. For such types, the
last criteria are the indefinite good will of the chieftains and the shift–
ing symbols of status. Part of his frenzy may also be due to his
apprehension that his function may disappear. For many of the jobs
he has been doing for the chieftains are now a standardized part of
business enterprise and no longer require the entrepreneurial flair, but
can be performed by the cheaper and more dependable white collar
man. Besides, the new entrepreneur, with his lavish expense account;
sometimes gets into the public eye as a fixer- along with the respect–
able businessman whose work he does- and even as an upstart and a
crook. The same publics that idolize initiative become incensed when
they find a grand model of success based, quite purely, upon it.
\Ve may view the true scene of the new entrepreneur's operation as
the personality market. Like the commodity market before it, the top
levels of this market may well become an object to be administered
rather than a play of free forces driven by crafty wile and unexampled
initiative. Indeed, the new shape competition may take in this last re–
maining competitive market can already be seen. Its human meaning is
displayed lower down the hierarchy, where bureaucratized business
meets the public.
v
At this intersection, personality markets of a more stabilized sort
have arised. Three immediate conditions are needed: First, an em-
