The Case for the Universal Card (Fortune Magazine , April 1954)

by Vanderleun on March 22, 2021

“The very boldness of the plan has disturbed some people. In American business, unfortunately, there are still many personnel men who have a laissez-faire attitude toward human relations, who argue that there is a large part of the employee’s life and personality that is not of concern to the corporation…

As a result of this surveillance, and such encouragements as probationary fellowships, we would ensure a constantly replenishing reservoir of potential cardholders…

At the same time, we were bringing newcomers in we would be pruning the current membership. There would be nothing static about the system, and if a man fell beneath an acceptable rating, we would revoke his card. This would be hard on the people concerned, but they would be the lone-persons, the mystics, the intellectual agitators–which is to say, the kind of people that the modern organization doesn’t really want anyway.”–“The Case for the Universal Card,” Otis Stanford Binet (pseudonym for Wm. H. Whyte, Jr.), publ. in Fortune Magazine. [Irony or Fact at Coderanc)]

As the modest proposal appeared in Fortune in 1954: