Herbert A. Simon was one of the first neoclassicalists to raise serious challenged to classical organization theory. Simon didn.t just criticize classical theory, he attacked it. In his widely quoted 1946 Public Administration Review article “The Proverbs of Administration” (the first selection in this chapter), Simon is devastating in his criticism of the classical approach to” general principles of management,” such as those proposed by Fayol, Gulick, and others, as being inconsistent, conflicting, and inapplicable to many of the administrative situations facing managers.