Upfront I have to say that I attended a business school myself, got an MBA, found it useless and reverted to the reasonably successful manner by which I had previously run the company, that is by using my common sense.

Young students, eyes on the  CEO’s job and untold riches, think that the way to the top is via business school.  Well, for some it is, the accountants and the financiers.  You can actually get some training if you are one of those.  And if, at twenty, you are stepping from business school straight into the top job at a company with 30,000 employees, then business strategy (as a way of thinking), can be helpful.

However, for the rest :

1.  Kids go far too early to business school.  For the young an MBA isn’t worth the paper its written on. What experience do they have?  It’s just money-grubbing by the institutions.

2.  Business schools are partly responsible for the whole lead up to the Great Recession, stressing short-term profit and helping to bid up the outrageous salaries of top executives.

This is an actual comment made in class:  “CEO salaries are high because we have to compete for talent worldwide.  If an American CEO gets $20 million a year then British CEO’s have to get the same or better.  The task of recruitment agencies and headhunters is to bid up the price to get the best.”  We have experienced the chill and the divisiveness this attitude has brought  to Western economies.

3.  Some business schools have highly experienced and knowledgeable staff, but all too often the fact is that those who can, can, and those who can’t………..you can complete the sentence yourself.  The worst are the “marketing” lecturers , who in my experience should have been in the audience keeping rather quiet.

What has this to do with Epicureanism?  A lot!  Business school is the polite end of a mindless, greedy, useless materialistic culture, which is anathema to every good follower of Epicurus.  Business is common sense!  You’ve either got it or you haven’t.  I maintain that businessmen cannot be forged in the white-hot cauldrons of the Harvard Business school; they are born, not made.   Epicureans  can safely give the business school a wary bypass.  They do not fit the ethical standards expected.