How the Drafting of the Clayton Antitrust Act Helped Spread the Managerial Approach to Efficiency

• Author: Sophie Agulhon,Thomas Michael Mueller
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00953997221133488
• Published date: 01 March 2023
• Date: 01 March 2023
• Subject Matter: Perspectives

https://doi.org/10.1177/00953997221133488

Administration & Society

2023, Vol. 55(3) 591 –612

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/00953997221133488

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Perspectives

How the Drafting of

the Clayton Antitrust

Act Helped Spread the

Managerial Approach

to Efficiency

Sophie Agulhon1 and Thomas Michael Mueller1

Abstract

Managerial sciences are generally considered to be the art of efficiently

running business. Their influence, though, extends far beyond the corporate

sphere, and they play an important part in public administration and in

particular in its dialog with society at large. Here, from the viewpoint of

historical institutionalism, we document one of the earliest successful

examples of the wider application of management science: the 1914 antitrust

rules (the Clayton Antitrust and Federal Trade Commission Acts) from the

perspectives of economic scholars as technical experts, the early years of the

Wilson administration, and the spheres of business and society. The societal

debate about business and efficiency and the successive implementation of

scientific managerial ideas in the administrative sphere, saw management

science permeate the whole of American society and become an almost

irrefutable aspect of everyday life and representations, thereby enabling it

to spread well beyond the boundaries of the firm.

Keywords

business regulation, management history, public debate

1Université Paris 8, Saint-Denis, France

Corresponding Author:

Thomas Michael Mueller, Université Paris 8, rue de la liberté, Saint-Denis 93526, France.

Email: thomasvismara@hotmail.com

1133488AAS0010.1177/00953997221133488Administration & SocietyAgulhon and Mueller

research-article2022

592 Administration & Society 55(3)

During the Progressive Era, management became an international movement,

extending far beyond F. Taylor’s influence (Leonard, 2017; Wren &

Greenwood, 1998). Management became a fundamental element of American

society, opening up pathways and shaping institutions that still exist today.

Taking a historical institutionalist approach to examine how management

arose “as a result of human interactions becoming habituated or reproduced

over time” (Suddaby et al., 2014, p. 111), we attempt to show the role of the

dialog between science, institutions, and society that enabled managerial

habits regarding efficiency to spread through American society.

As the history of management literature has highlighted, during the

Progressive Era, the cultural environment of the Industrial Revolution proved

a leading factor in the emergence of management science (Cummings et al.,

2017). Management was committed to the efficient use of societal resources

(a “gospel of efficiency” [see also Hays, 1999]) which was considered unat-

tainable with the market system. While efficiency referred to technical

advances in factories, it was also a source of inspiration at every level of

society (Le Goff, 2014). As has been highlighted, some admirers of F. Taylor

extended the “efficiency craze” (Tichi, 1987) to other organizational types.

For instance, Morris Llewellyn Cooke “advocate[ed] for better managed

municipalities” in Philadelphia (Wren & Bedeian, 2008, p. 153) and Gilman

(1913) promoted managerial techniques to emancipate women; efficiency

was also largely advocated in the administration and in conservation policies

(Haber, 1964). Taylor himself included psychological explanations of human

underperformances and was possibly more nuanced that is commonly

acknowledged concerning human factors (Raadschelders & Fry, 2023). We

attempt to show how this trend became massive, spreading from intellectual

circles throughout the whole of American society, including in business, eco-

nomics, politics and among the general public, and came to mean more than

the narrow idea of getting more for less in terms of values.

Newly released archival sources from the Library of Congress reveal

intriguing connections between Louis Brandeis, Woodrow Wilson, and Henry

Ford concerning market competition, scientific management, and the welfare

of society on the eve of World War I. Ford’s innovative role as a “maker”

stands out particularly (Wren & Greenwood, 1998) at a time when antitrust

law reform was making the headlines in domestic politics. We develop a the-

orized understanding of the historical particularities and contingencies sur-

rounding the drafting of the Clayton Act with which to identify and

conceptualize the development and expansion of a managerial approach to

efficiency. So we situate the emergence of management and its spread

throughout American society historically (Rowlinson & Hassard, 2014;

Üsdiken & Kipping, 2014).