What price people?

Human resource management (HRM) may be construed either as the beginning of a new wave of authoritarianism — the Pharoahs presumably managed massive human resources in constructing the pyramids — or as part of a growing world‐wide movement expressing a reaction against ‘object‐level’ thinking about persons. On the one hand we are all increasingly documented, classified, tabulated and quantified to the extent that invasion of privacy is questioned; on the other hand there are indications of growing concern for the development of more complex ‘persons‐in‐relation’ models of man, emphasising interdependence and recognising subjectivity and quality as well as objectivity and quantity. People of all ages question in ‘future‐shock’ terms the validity of the object‐growth quantitative thinking which has tended to dominate western industrial civilisation. Realization of the rate of change tends to generate change‐resistant behaviour patterns or alternative technologies designed to reinstate persons above systems.