It might be better for the British or American cubicle-dwellers if their jobs were exported. Just as Henry Ford degraded manual work by the creation of the production line in 1913 (a development so revolting to his employees that he had to double their wages), so the cognitive element has been extracted from many office jobs. In the public sector, liberalism, honourably striving to prevent abuses of power, creates standardised tests that stop teachers from teaching, or sentencing guidelines that stop judges from judging. In the private sector, it is deemed more efficient to disseminate 'knowledge systems’ than to encourage initiative, hence the zombified call-centre functionary, doomed to spend his working day reading from a script. There is also the creepy corporate culture of 'teamwork’. Authority, 'given our democratic sensibilities’, must present itself 'as something co-operative and friendly’. The upshot, Crawford says, is the smarmy, passive-aggressive boss, 'pyjama days’ or basketball hoops in the office (these last do seem to be uniquely American horrors); deep neurosis overlain by a strained political correctness.