The first rule of Harvard Business School is that you do not talk about Harvard Business School.

The second rule of Harvard Business School is that you do not talk about Harvard Business School.



Of course, because this is a serious book from a serious academic, we have to dress it up with a bunch of citations to Durkheim, Bourdieu, and Weber, as well as a methodological appendix on the "auto-flexive ethnographic method", but that's the heart of thesis right there. As a new associate professor at the Harvard Business School, Anteby undertook a study of the means by which 'morals' were inculcated in the faculty and students, and argues that it is a "normative silence" by which those morals are developed. By not talking about right and wrong, but by continual and routinized demonstrations of what is decent and proper, a certain kind of Harvard-certified grade A business manager is made.

Anteby describes Harvard Business School as a very special place (it is the one bit of cleverness in this book that each chapter is proceeded by a quote from a utopian novel), a community of perfect order and unity, with delicate specialization tuned towards turning out business administrators. Each class of 900 students is divided into 10 sections of 90, sitting in purpose-built amphitheaters. The famous HBS case method is orchestrated by behind the scene scripts, some timed down to the second, on how to teach each model. Class always finishes with applause.

In this auto-ethnography, the students are secondary to the professors. The Harvard Business School is a place apart from the world, with a high percentage of internal hires. Research is steered away from prior disciplines like economics or sociology, and towards the HBS's own standard of 'relevance', a protean measure under constant revision. The greatest honor is to contribute a new case study to the curriculum. In greater utopian oddity, Harvard Business School faculty are prohibited from pursuing outside grants. Research is funded by the school. Of course, faculty are expected to charge princely fees as speakers and consultants. To do anything less would be to let down the brand.

Not all is perfect. Tenure is more competitve than usual, heightened by the hidden curriculum nature of the place. One quote, which I'll reproduce in full, is a gem.

"Do you like to play Russian roulette?" A colleague once asked me. "To be here, you need to be a player. But while you usually have one chance out of six to get killed, the chances here are five out of six." She smiled. Her vivid imagery was meant to be helpful. "Only one person out of six will make tenure, so consider yourself dead on arrival. That way, being here will seem like a liberating experience!"

These are words more typical of special forces commandos, fighter pilots, or political prisoners on the way to liquidation.

As for the thesis of the book, Anteby argues that it is impossible to define and preach moral standards. The the value of normative silence is that it allows people to reach their own understanding of what is right and proper. And he may be right on this methodological point, intelligent people are resistant to preaching. Debate invites schism. Silence is often wisest.

Yet some intelligent people are ardent conformists, and the Harvard Business School is a highly normative place. In the layout of the buildings, the structure of the case discusses, the 'pastures' in which intellects can develop, there are many obvious norms about what Harvard considers proper business administration. And behind these norms are a set of moral assumptions about the nature of the world and one's place in it: Business exists to make a profit. Aggressive action without individual decision is best. The Harvard graduate is an elite, and deserves to be feted and in command.

Under many circumstances, I'd be inclined to give an academic book with a weak case study bolstered by too much theory three stars. Good scholarly work is hard. But it should also be incisive, offer at least one insight based in its thesis, theory, methods, and evidence. And this is not a case where failing to conclude leaves a gap for another scholar to fill in knowledge on riverine ecosystems, post-Soviet plumbing fixtures, or your choice of scholarly trivia. This is the Harvard Business School! This is where power goes to reproduce itself! And Anteby takes his opportunity to say nothing about the true values he's seen? When publishing in the wake of the Great Recession!?

Anteby got his tenure at Harvard, and in 2015 moved to Boston University, where he is now an associate professor. He may have done good work in the mean time. But for me, he'll always been somebody who had a chance to take a moral stand about what the most influential model for higher education in the 20th century really does, and decided to let out a stale flatulent rip of sociological theory instead.

Oh, and by the way, if this is your first night at Harvard Business School, you have to close a deal.