What would happen if a company had no human bosses and no individual, including the owner, had the power to fire anyone else, and no one in the company even had a title, but absolutely everyone was equally responsible for the success of the company? You can find out here.
Could a company accomplish more with less management? Chris Rufer has answered this question with a resounding YES! Starting with one truck he has built the Morning Star Company into a business powerhouse which today harvests, processes, cans, and processes one fourth of California’s tomatoes. And he has done this without most of the standard trappings of modern American business management.
Morning Star has no bosses, no managers, no titles, and no one pompously saying, “You’re fired!” Talk about doing more with less!
Chris Rufer and the Morning Star Company is a classic example of what the Downsize DC Foundation aims to demonstrate. Progress comes not from government regulation, but from human innovation. No political legislation or bureaucratic regulation could possibly conceive of, let alone implement, what Chris Rufer and Morning Star have accomplished.
The real action, in terms of human progress, lies not in the coercive government sector, but in the voluntary sector, as demonstrated by Chris Rufer and Morning Star.
On July 9, 2005, I had the privilege of having Mr. Rufer as my guest while I hosted The Harry Browne Show. You can listen to an edited clip of the interview linked at the end of this post. We’ve even snipped out the commercials and an irritating, off-topic caller so you can get right to the meat of the story.