Win-Win Competitiveness Made in Canada: How to Be Competitive Using the Consensus Approach

David Bennett is the national director of the Department of Workplace Health, Safety and Environment at the Canadian Labour Congress in Ottawa.

This book provides a recipe for a competitive economy, principally
through harmonious industrial relations, thriving communities, and
unified national policies. As a collection of associated techniques for
building consensus, the book is highly convincing. Ben Hoffman does not
argue extensively that the consensus approach does, in fact, yield more
harmony and prosperity than adversarial or authoritarian systems. Yet
there are a number of examples (from such diverse sources as Sweden,
Germany, and Japan) that could provide a convincing context for his
proposals.

The book’s flaw is just this lack of context. Hoffman does not
address the social conditions in which consensus can flourish. The chief
condition is that the majority of “social players” must reason that
they have more to gain in the longer run from attempts at consensus than
from any other social strategy. From the point of view of the
consensus-builder (and Hoffman, is, of course, less than candid about
this), the result of the consensus approach will invariably be that the
less powerful get more than their due and the more powerful get less.
But in the process there is total net benefit to all—the “win-win”
of the book’s title. The other word, “competitiveness,” is really
only a buzzword; “efficiency” or “enrichment” would have done
just as well.In terms of social conditions, the great age of consensus
has evidently passed. Governments by and large have lost the will, the
nerve, and the resources needed to shape social agendas; businesses by
and large see little need to build bridges with other interests in
society, while nongovernment organizations (NGOs), including trade
unions, bewail the endless attempts to build consensus, even deploring
them as a substitute for social change.