Spreading Managerialism

Abstract

There are prospects that Managerialism’s chain of ideological encirclement and repression may be broken. This requires an attempt to project Managerialism’s present development and that of managerial capitalism into the future, assuming that a relatively normal capitalist evolution takes place until — a quite possible — global environmental destruction occurs. This means for theoretical purposes, temporarily neglecting the ‘real and present’ possibility of an immediate end of human civilisation through instant resource depletion and environmental destruction.²⁴⁹ On this factually rather problematic assumption, Managerialism would remain a permanent feature and so would managerial capitalism. At the same time, the latter would continue to be capable of maintaining and even marginally increasing living standards for a slowly but steadily declining part of the global population. This might be possible for a limited time in spite of and through intensified production accompanied by environmental destruction as well as the systematic waste of resources and natural and human faculties. The capability to increase living standards has asserted itself in spite of and through several wars, two world wars, numerous recessions, a relative long period of peace when one discounts the so-called Cold, Korean, Vietnam, Balkan, Afghanistan, and Iraq Wars, the War on Drugs with 60,000 deaths in Mexico alone, an apparently unending War on Terrorism, and numerous other little bombings, engineered civil wars, incursions, and invasions.