Introduction

Forty years ago, American schools, businesses, and governments all worked more or less the same way: they were rigidly controlled hierarchies. Most Americans attended boring and rigid schools that prepared them to work at boring and rigid jobs. When Americans needed government services, they got them from rigid government agencies. Schools, businesses, and governments all operated in a machinelike fashion to produce a standard outputwhether the "output" was a washing machine from a factory, a semiskilled employee from a school, or a Social Security check from the government.