We face a growing lack of accountability in both the private and the political sphere. (Facing an inquiry into an allegedly fraudulent fund? Easy: just dump all responsibility onto one relatively junior member of staff, have management retreat to the presumed safety of "the brand", and leave him to face the music essentially alone.) Meanwhile the one source of wealth that is both too big and too diffuse to speak clearly in its own defence, namely the taxpayer, is being assailed from all sides. Take the airlines, predictably seeking compensation for lost revenues as a result of the Icelandic volcano. "Governments can pay." If they used the word "taxpayers", more people might notice. Even the biggest turkey only has so many feathers. The remedy, were executives and voters alike willing to behave like grown-ups, would be to return to the sort of managerial culture cited in the Hopper brothers? magisterial study of the American economic golden age, 'The Puritan Gift'. Such a return would largely banish consultants and supposed experts from the body politic and corporate, and reintroduce the iron concept of personal responsibility. The Hopper brothers' Principle Seven for good corporate practice states unequivocally: one man, one boss. No sheltering amongst multiple co-heads and amongst collective (lack of) responsibility.