Managerialism – A Social Order on the Rise

Introduction – A New Social Order

There is a growing awareness in recent social and cultural research of a major shift in the socioeconomic structures of the West. Sociological literature is rife with references to an epochal change. Post industrialism, post- or liquid modernity, the information and the network society are but some of the concepts commonly used in this context. Furthermore, the rise of new classes to positions of power has been noted since the 1970s (see Bruce-Briggs, 1979), and the connection between this rise and the advent of postmodernity was also discussed (Featherstone, 2007). From a broadly materialist perspective, ¹ such transformations of society, culture and class relationships signify a major realignment of socioeconomic structures. This is a cataclysmic event with repercussions across all aspects of social life – technology, business, politics, media and so on. Yet, the discussions of these multifarious aspects of contemporary society have so far failed to coalesce into a comprehensive theory of a rising new social order encompassing all of them. In particular, the epochal change is rarely associated with the emergence and proliferation of professional management in the 20th century. This paper suggests that the social dominance of managers is the common ground and driving force behind this epochal change. It signifies a general transformation of fundamental social structures and conduct in accordance with the interests, values and discourses of managerial dominance. I will refer to this process as the managerialisation of society, leading to a new socioeconomic age of managerialism. As managerialism is a commonly used term for the dominance of managers in various contexts, the designation SD-managerialism is used below to refer to the wider social dominance of managers. According to one succinct summary, ‘this order is the product of three dynamics: the seepage of managerial approaches into all facets of life; the gradual, worldwide homogenization of human organization; and the emergence of a global managerial elite straddling the public and private sectors’ (Murphy, 2007: 3).

The crucial socioeconomic fact of our times and the fundamental premise of this discussion is that we are no longer living in the property owners’ paradise. The propertied class has been the engine behind the modern era since the 17th century, and established its broadly capitalist and liberal character. And yet, a set of socioeconomic factors emerged during the final decades of the millennium indicating that property owners have lost their dominant position in the global economy and society. One of the prominent and frequently discussed features of recent economy, for example, is the growing control of institutional investors over assets in general and public equity in particular. Based on OECD data,

‘As late as in the mid-1960s, physical persons held 84% of all publicly listed stocks in the United States. Today they hold around 40%. . . In the UK the decrease in direct ownership is even more pronounced. In the last 50 years, the portion of public equity held by physical persons has decreased from 54% to only 11%’ (Çelik and Isaksson, 2013: 7).

This means that most of today’s corporations are not owned by any individual or limited group of individuals. Rather, capital is mostly owned by millions of small savers and controlled by financial corporations. These corporations form the core of an international network of ownership and control, in which corporations are the major shareholders (Duménil and Lévy, 2018). Such a global economic arrangement puts control of business effectively in the hands of the executive layer of institutional investors and other major transnational corporations and organisations (Murphy, 2007). ²

Away from the business world, similarly trained managers often head public service departments and institutions or the major NGOs, employing very similar practices to the business world. In fact, the distinction between the private, public and market spheres, so crucial in a capitalist and liberal system, is reduced in SD-managerialism to a distinction between forms of organisation headed by the same professional group. Managerialisation and the changes it generates cross over traditional liberal boundaries between the private and public sectors, between government and the market and between community and society. Instead, they all become manageable goals of various types of organisations, while the ubiquity of management has been compared to religion in the middle ages (Diefenbach, 2009).

The managerial class is showing increasingly more of the prototypical traits of a true ruling class. The share of wages in the total income of the top percentile in the USA steeply inclined from 60% to nearly 85% between 1970 and 2000. Wage inequalities climbed much faster than wealth or income inequalities, particularly at the top executive level. This is the main cause of the rising levels of social inequality at the same period (Duménil and Lévy, 2018). Top management is therefore the principal holder of income, and has immediate control of the largest asset in global economy – corporate wealth. Managers are the group with the least to lose and the most to gain in any eventuality. In the public sphere, managers are the permanent feature responsible for the execution of policy and the allocation of budgets, while elected officials face public scrutiny and must handle political manoeuvrings. In the private sphere, when organisations do well, managers are the first to take the credit as well as handsome bonuses. When organisations fail, owners and shareholders, employees and customers pay the price; management is often the last to be touched, since for as long as a department exists, it also has a manager. When organisations die, senior executives get their compensations first, and are also most likely to land a similar job. After all, apart from having previous experience (even if it led to bankruptcy), all other organisations are also run by people from the same social and professional milieu. The sub-prime crisis of 2008 makes an excellent case in point, as most of the senior executives directly responsible for the sub-prime loans occupied senior positions in the mortgage market merely 5 years after the meltdown (Wagner, 2013).

These are but some indications of the rising socioeconomic dominance of managers who instate themselves at the helm of every sector of society and in control of its major assets. As mentioned, this should cause a variety of social, political and cultural transformations. In fact, I venture that all the processes that have received considerable attention as part of some post- or late- phenomenon are in all probability manifestations of the growing managerialisation of society. Demonstrating this point in any depth, however, lies beyond the scope of this paper. The focus here is rather on the ideological structures of SD-managerialism. Analysing these structures would hopefully serve two key functions. First, it would identify SD-managerialism as an alternative social arrangement contesting familiar capitalist and liberal values and ideological constructs. Second, it would hopefully serve as a nexus linking the various aspects of this new social order together as driven by the managerialisation of society.

The paper begins, therefore, with a short methodological explanation of the concept of ideology as employed here, based on post-Althusserian ideology theory. Ideologies are seen as involved in the constitution of subjects and the presentation of the socioeconomic order as in their best interest. Then management’s growing control of all social organisations is examined based on the existing discourse of managerialism. Management’s self and social perceptions can thereby be clarified, revealing their connection with the wider social dominance of managers. This sets the ground for providing a fuller picture of SD-managerialist ideology in the final sections, based on studies of management literature and practice. In particular, the SD-managerialist bid to constitute people as subjects and the managerialisation of society as in their best interest is discussed.

Methodological Note – Ideology Theory

The concept of ideology employed here relies on post-Althusserian ideology theory, in which ideologies are seen as non-coercive means of reproducing and shaping the social order:

‘The operation of ideology in human life basically involves the constitution and patterning of how human beings live their lives as conscious, reflecting initiators of acts in a structured, meaningful world. Ideology operates as discourse, addressing or, as Althusser puts it, interpellating ³ human beings as subjects’ (Therborn, 1980: 15).

In Therborn’s model, used here for the analysis of SD-managerialist ideology, interpellation has three modes: (a) the ontological mode of what human subjects are and what the world, nature, society, and social identities are; (b) the normative mode of what is good, just, enjoyable etc.; and (c) the possible mode of what to aspire, hope and fear. Bringing them together, ideologies present an image of the socioeconomic order as rational, just and conducive to human welfare – or the opposite of these in case of an oppositional ideology. This image plays a significant role in constituting subjects by configuring people’s capacities and traits, and then qualifying them for certain roles within this social order. Ideologies are therefore the semblance of coherence or discordance between human nature and social existence. ⁴

Operating as discourse, ideologies include concepts, values and modes of conduct that are consciously adopted. However, they primarily work through the largely unconscious structuring of conscious life. Interpellation takes place by means of a set of institutional apparatuses, such as the family or the education system, which are largely responsible for socialisation and identity formation. Ideologies are therefore materially instantiated by social institutions and structures which mediate and shape social action. As a dominant coalition of classes and elites gains control of major ideological apparatuses, it achieves greater influence on people’s conduct, values and goals. This is perhaps Althusser’s most enduring legacy, since it explains both how the material conditions determine ideologies and how ideologies influence the way people think and act in a social setting. However, it is not necessary to follow Althusser in assuming that ideological apparatuses belong primarily to the state. Interpellation can occur through commercial channels like the media, advertising and lifestyle industries or in the course of employment for the major corporations. It may even divaricate all the way down to the micropolitical relationships with colleagues, bosses and clients.

A study of an ideology should therefore focus on any of a variety of such apparatuses. It should investigate the manifold relationships and organisational structures and operations through which interpellation takes place. In particular, at the core of an ideology vying for a dominant social position lies a capitalised Subject who becomes central to the whole matrix of interpellations, so to speak, of a society. This Subject is the nexus of the various discourses, apparatuses and practices of an ideology. The aim of this paper will therefore be best served by locating the Subject of SD-managerialist ideology, who lies at the centre of its various interpellations. As mentioned, management’s home ground of employment relationships will be the focus of the search for its picture of the Subject.

The Discourse of Managerialism

Management’s growing control of organisations along with the ideology that promotes it are familiar themes in business and organisational studies, often called managerialism. It figures in a variety of contexts, which tend to cluster around two major discourses. I will refer to them as first and second wave managerialism discourse respectively. Both will be briefly described in order to evaluate how they relate to the managerialisation of society.

First wave managerialism discourse is older, relying heavily on Berle and Means’ (1932) seminal work, and it became a significant approach in business studies. It is a theory of corporate governance, claiming that ownership has been severed from effective control in the modern corporation. Corporate management is left relatively free to run businesses in accordance with its interests, which focus on stable production, and often fail to coincide with those of owners and shareholders (Scott, 1997). First wave managerialism discourse is quite plausibly a theoretical response to management becoming an inseparable part of corporate business in the 20th century. Management was striving for recognition as a serious profession on the one hand and as a science on the other. Its rise was accompanied from the start by an ideological component, which presented management to both sides of the industrial conflict as the way of achieving a stable peace. To owners, management offered a science of productivity and efficiency. To workers, it offered a way to overcome the alienation of labour and influence the work process (Anthony, 1977). Yet, despite pointing out the reduced impact of owners on business, first wave managerialism discourse is firmly rooted in the capitalist and liberal social order.

This is most evident in the theories of management associated with managerialism in this sense, which helped consolidate professional management in the 20th century. These theories are based on Taylor's scientific management and Mayo's human relations approach. Taylor defined management as the scientific expertise of efficient production. He employed strict measurements and observations to find the most efficient ways to perform a task, divide it into discrete roles, and push workers to meet production standards using competitive incentives (Clegg et al., 2006). Scientific management thereby established the definitive link between the managerial concept of efficiency and expedition, with the ‘fatigue’ of the overdriven workforce being an important research focus. ⁵ Mayo’s human relations approach welded management and psychology with a lasting effect. He viewed workers’ discontent and non-compliance as a type of maladjustment and neurosis. Management’s role is to counteract it and the alienating nature of Taylorist management by using interviews and group dynamics to generate a sense of belonging and self-worth. Along with Weber’s model of bureaucracy, these theories emphasised strict formal hierarchies, rationalised productivity and efficiency, and formed the theoretical foundations of the Fordist productive regime (Clegg, 2009). They treated employees as a resource to be manipulated for the sake of results, put power and authority firmly in the hands of management, and employed a utilitarian outlook of the maximal good. Notions of participative or democratic management that came up at the time went no further than recognise workers’ desire for autonomy and responsibility as important factors of productivity (Rose, 1999). These features place the first wave of managerialism discourse firmly in the framework of neoclassical economics and liberal thought.

The separation of ownership from control and the scientific nature of management remain important features of the second wave of managerialism discourse. However, it involves wider society rather than corporate governance or the work process. It focuses on management’s expanding control of social organisations in general. Most sources regard it as concurrent with the neoliberal undermining the post-war economic consensus since the late 1970s (Doran, 2016). In the ideal type model of managerialism developed by Shepherd (2018), it primarily refers to the wider social acceptance of management as being a scientific and professional expertise in running organisations. It contains a significant ideological element, which justifies management’s control as being beneficial, just and rational. This ideology relies on the construal of management, qua scientific, as value free and as focused on a generic set of skills and practices for achieving the best performance of any organisation. This ideology has facilitated the spreading of management practices and knowledge to all types of organisations, while managers and the managerial mindset come to control them. This is felt most strongly in the public sector, and managerialism in this sense is frequently discussed in this context (e.g. Pollitt, 1990). ⁶ Some even interpreted second wave managerialism as the arm of neoliberalism responsible for reforming the public sector in accordance with neoliberal economic principles (Micocci and Di Mario, 2017).

The success of second wave managerialist ideology is evident in the unquestioning acceptance of the necessity of management for running all major organisations anywhere from academia to the popular press (Diefenbach, 2009). Little criticism of the foundations of management exists or is even considered legitimate, even if there is a growing field of critical management studies. Politicians, celebs, experts, the rich and other elites are regarded as self-interested parties. They are also frequently revealed in the press and popular culture to be unethical, irrational and unreliable – particularly the previously glorified business entrepreneurs (Scott and Hart, 1991). But management has assumed a uniquely neutral character, as though it is devoid of interests and ends of its own, and is simply the professional and rational way to run organisations (Alvesson and Willmott, 1992).

A crucial part in this process is played by the management theory industry, made up of management gurus and consultancies as well as relevant academic departments (Micklethwait and Wooldridge, 1996). It produces and disseminates the theories, practices and discourses that managements everywhere are quick to apply. Academia provides management with its scientific and professional credentials as well as its tools, which are often borrowed from psychology, sociology, decision theory and so forth. Furthermore, the management theory industry is the basis of management’s claim to be a rational and value-free pursuit based on scientific study and professional experience. Training, consulting and writing on management has thus become a lucrative business with some of the highest global growth rates. Various management related studies are also the fastest growing in academia in terms of student numbers and investment, diversifying into ever more fields and disciplines (Brint et al., 2012). The ever more popular personal coaching, self-help, positive thinking, mindfulness, career management and so forth testify to the growing intensity in which people are called to manage every aspect of life, personal no less than professional.

Second wave managerialism discourse is concerned with management taking over all types of organisations, the way that first wave discourse is concerned with its takeover of major companies. However, as long as management remained exclusively in the realm of business, it also ultimately prioritised the business owners. The recasting of management as the rational and just expertise in running organisations is already an integral part of the managerialisation of major social institutions in SD-managerialism. Thus, the spread of management practices beyond business is inseparable from the radical transformation of these practices themselves. Strictly defined roles, hierarchies and bureaucratic systems, celebrated in first wave discourse as crucial for the modern corporation, came to be seen as anything from inefficient to outright unethical. They have been extensively dissolved in favour of nonauthoritarian, informal and flexible working environments and post-bureaucratic networks and teams (du Gay, 2005). Consequently, the ostensible demarcation between management and professional workers disappears along with much of middle management (Grey, 1999). At the same time, management becomes more powerful and pervasive than ever, using ongoing change as a mode of control. Corporations become lean and flexible as they are driven by the management theory industry to perpetual self-evaluation and reengineering of the organisational structure and work process (Micklethwait and Wooldridge, 1996). Professionals who have traditionally enjoyed a level of autonomy and self-regulation increasingly succumb to managerial techniques and performance evaluations (Misztal, 2013). Employees must therefore constantly rely on management to understand the organisational system and even how to do their job. They become as functionally dependent on management as Taylor’s unskilled labour, except they are now required to adopt managerial theories, roles and mindsets themselves. This gives rise to a homogenised layer of managerial knowledge workers, for whom regular employment at the corporate offices is largely reserved, following extensive downsizing and outsourcing policies (Parker, 2002). ⁷ This transformation of the nature of organisations leads to a dramatic rise in the levels of indeterminacy and uncertainty, the maximisation of product and service turnover and a sharp increase in the amount of time, effort and personal investment at work (Frank, 2001). SD-managerialism generates constant busyness in all facets of life, at bottom, because it is when people are busy, anxious and pressed for time that they most require careful management.

The SD-managerialist ideological construal of management is equally more fundamental than second wave managerialism discourse would allow, and concerns the foundations of social existence. Management is not merely presented as good, just and rational in order to support its expansion beyond the business realm. Rather, SD-managerialism lays claim to define what is widely considered as good, just and rational, in a manner that facilitates managers’ social dominance. Management casts control as a science and a technology, incorporating the control of things, people and of the very process of control itself. This justifies giving management control of all major social institutions and goals (Parker, 2002) (Table 1).

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Table 1.

Summary of the Different Senses of Managerialism.

	First wave managerialism discourse	Second wave managerialism discourse	SD-managerialism
Theme	The separation of ownership from control of corporations	Management spreading to all social organisations	The social dominance of managers
Managerial emphasis	Management autonomy in corporate governance	Management as a socially sanctioned expertise	Management as the epitome of justice and rationality
Major consequences	Management becomes a scientifically backed, credible profession, facilitating the growth of the modern corporation	Management professionals, practices and theories take over government, the public sector, sports, media etc.	The managerialisation of social institutions and values to promote managerial dominance

The role played by the scientification of management is therefore equally pervasive. As a science, management is rationally given social control of human action, just as scientific medicine was given control of the human body and mind as Foucault (1976) famously contended. The value neutrality of science not only casts management as a generic set of skills fit for running any organisation, but also as having no self-interest apart from the interests of the people it serves. As such, management is established as the best means of potentially fulfilling everyone’s goals. Furthermore, the fact that a university degree is the only formal qualification for a manager makes managerial positions appear accessible to everyone and purely based on merit and results (Diefenbach, 2009). Other systems of governance appear in comparison to be autocratic, nepotistic and accessible only to a narrow and self-interested elite (Scott and Hart, 1991). Consequently, management’s value neutrality is the basis of its claim to being uniquely ethical, fair and democratic (Parker, 2002). ⁸ On the one hand, management does not actually operate democratically, and it is crucial for it to maintain itself as a professional expertise. The scientification of control makes public opinion, discussion or voting as redundant as they are in chemistry, and the interactions between organisations are ultimately reducible to the interactions among their managers (Enteman, 1993). But on the other hand, management is seen as scientifically blind to all social differences, inherently fair and always aiming for the best for everyone concerned.

The scientific neutrality of management also explains the clandestine nature of the revolution staged by managers, in which not only were there no buildings that required storming, but it was best if people showed up for work the next morning as usual. Management cannot and need not depose any other power groups in order to gain dominance; it naturally works along with them, all the while depriving them of decision power and effective control, based on management’s scientific expertise in running organisations (Klikauer, 2015). Its neutrality requires management never to set primary organisational goals, and the only goal it intrinsically possesses is maximum activity, as mentioned. Management, therefore, needs other elites as a type of resource because it must always hand over the setting of primary goals to others, and in this sense it always “serves” others. Thus, management wrests control from any other social group by providing it with the “best service”, and uses this as an ideological “cloaking device” to deflect attention from its control of social assets (Klikauer, 2015). The first rule of managerialism is that you do not talk about managerialism.

SD-Managerialist Ideology and the Subject

The clandestine character of SD-managerialism is reflected in the rather diminished state of its theoretical discussion. Enteman (1993) was the first to posit managerialism as an alternative ideology to both capitalism and socialism, which is on the rise in the USA and elsewhere. In Enteman’s managerialism, organisations are the building blocks of society, and important decisions are taken by negotiations among managers. However, Enteman uses the concept mainly to analyse the nature and function of organisations. There is no attempt to examine how managerialism is socially legitimised or shapes current values and institutions. Diefenbach (2009) and Klikauer (2013) offer the most elaborate studies of managerialist ideology in the second wave of the discourse. Both view managerialism as justifying the power and influence of the transnational corporations and the considerable social advantages gained by managers. Both also consider the wider social ramifications of the expansion of management rhetoric and practices, resulting in a ubiquitous drive to perform. However, ideology does a lot more than the brute justification of domination. ⁹ Uncovering SD-managerialist ideology requires considering its picture of human nature and well-being, the possibilities inherent in current society and the social order that does all of them justice. In particular, the picture of the Subject at the heart of SD-managerialism should be the focus of analysis. To highlight the unique features of this Subject for the first time here, it will be compared with the prevalent ideological model of the subject in liberal thought.

In general, the dominant picture of the subject in the last few centuries in the West has clearly been as an individual. There is a consensus across disciplines that: ‘a belief in the primacy of the individual is the characteristic theme of liberal ideology. . .[and] liberalism is, in a sense, the ideology of the industrialised West. . . appearing to be indistinguishable from “Western civilisation” in general’ (Heywood, 2012: 27–28). There was never a shortage of rival alternatives to compete with individualism, and they may have even enjoyed periodical successes, but overall, individualism has been on the rise in Western civilisation at least since Ockham (Dumont, 1986). Capitalism proved itself capable of thriving in collectivist cultures like those of the far east, for example (see Turner et al., 2015 [1986]). However, of itself, capitalist thinking offers no picture of the subject except as an individual. Therefore, the individual should be the starting point of any comparison of capitalist and SD-managerialist visions of the subject.

Both the individual and individualism have acquired a myriad of different meanings in the prolific literature surrounding these concepts. The individual was defined in terms of rights, ownership, uniqueness, autonomy and moral agency among others (Lukes, 2006 [1973]). As a brute and comprehensive representation of liberal individualism, I will use a general concept of ‘homo economicus’ (HE) – the ideal producer/consumer in the free market conditions of classical economics. HE is a prototype of the individual as it developed in liberalism in the hands of the property owners. HE is competitive, self-interested and rational, and is a single distinct locus of ownership. ¹⁰ HE is a subject constituted by the free market – a free buyer and seller making informed choices among the products, opportunities and services on offer.

Studies of management textbooks and handbooks will serve to locate the SD-managerialist picture of the subject for comparison with HE. Ample studies of these texts exist, which will provide the necessary data without studying the texts at first hand here. It is a natural choice because the management schools and gurus producing these texts are the ideological centres and idols of SD-managerialism. Furthermore, employees are, after all, the immediate responsibility of managers, and naturally, management literature is largely concerned with facilitating their optimal output. This concern is therefore commonly considered in the sociology of management as the clearest representation of the managerial spirit, and will serve here as the best approximation of how management treats people at large. ¹¹ Importantly, to uncover an ideology is to look at conjured and manipulated representations of real living conditions, not the actual conditions themselves. ¹² Therefore, the practices and ideas described in the texts may neither be fully implemented in reality nor received uncontested by employees. There is in fact significant data contradicting both assumptions. ¹³ The only purpose of the current analysis of management texts is to uncover the way they interpellate contemporary subjects.

These studies reveal a revolution in the dominant paradigms of management theory and practice during the rise of SD-managerialism in the 1980s and 90s. The new emphasis was on the subjectivity and identity of employees. Subjectivity came up beforehand in management theory mainly in the human relations schools, in the context of Mayo’s treatment of subjectivity as a potential hindrance to productivity. The point was that employee autonomy, sense of belonging and some level of discretion can go a long way towards increasing commitment and efficiency (Hanlon, 2016). New management theories require what came to be called employee engagement, the investment of a person’s complete self in the organisation. The intrinsic motivation of workers who identify with the organisation is seen as crucial to success, and work is rearranged around shared responsibility for common tasks. A range of concepts indicating emotional and personal relationships was imported into the workplace dynamics, such as community, family and friendship. ¹⁴ Therapeutic jargon was incorporated, emphasising the emotions and self-image, so as to transform the workplace into an arena for fulfilment and self-expression, and blur the distinctions between work and play, fun or leisure (Costea et al., 2008). ¹⁵ These concepts now figure in organisations’ construal of their relationship with their employees, customers and affiliates as well as society and the environment (Costas, 2012). The subjectivity revolution signifies management’s typically inconspicuous declaration of independence. On the one hand, management asserts its responsibility to employees, customers and a wide array of stakeholders as much as shareholders (Freeman, 1984). On the other, it is management’s bid to shape subjects in ways that justify its rise to social dominance. The subjectivity revolution also provides much of the theoretical impetus for the transformation of management practices described above.

Traditional managerial practices generally cast workers as HE – individuate them by dividing tasks into discrete steps, motivate them almost exclusively by financial reward, generate competition among them and so on (Hanlon, 2016). A new conception of employees arose as a result of the subjectivity revolution, which will serve here as a model for homo managerialis (HM) - the subject of SD-managerialist ideology. Three definitive qualities of HM stand out across management literature: improvability, employability and satisfaction.

Across many types of interactions and techniques, management texts present personal identity as perfectly manageable, and therefore possessing an endless potential for adaptation and self-invention. Instead of HE’s competitiveness and interest-based relationships, HM labours for the good of the team and is personally invested in organisations. Investment in the company is simultaneously HM's own personal development and self-realisation. Along this reasoning, satisfaction and well-being are expressed in being a motivated, brisk and effective employee. Failing in this regard thereby becomes a personal fault (Fleming, 2014). ¹⁶ The distinction between personal and work identity is dissolved, whether by deriving personal meaning from identification with company goals (Kunda, 2006) or by drawing on the diverse personal meanings of employees in working towards these goals (Fleming and Sturdy, 2009). Significant portions of employees’ emotional life, identity, lifestyle and so on are thus formed in the framework of the work environment.

The three modes of interpellation are employability (including sociability and adaptability) as the basic ontological model of HM; satisfaction as the normative basis of what is good and just; and perpetual improvement as a constant possibility offered by management in the face of chaotic and fast changing times. Everyone can be successful in this view, as long as success is measured not only by outstanding individual performance, but predominantly by effective and satisfying teamwork, taking responsibility and "owning" the work. In return, the sociably successful HM is promised satisfaction and fulfilment in all fields of life. Along with success, satisfaction is also portrayed as perfectly manageable, and is therefore within anyone’s reach, wherever they are on the social ladder.

SD-Managerialism and Ultra-Individualism

The normative basis of the managerialisation of society, as it is reflected in management theory, may be summed up as the extension of customer prerogatives to all individuals in all fields of life. The capitalist dictum is that the customer is king, but you have to afford this status, while good will and service are rightfully reserved for those who pay. In capitalism, customer status remains a privilege, and this is increasingly seen as oppressive and unjust. Instead, SD-managerialism presents social organisations in the hands of management not only as performing their best, but as being at everyone’s service.

Thus, while there may be as many luxury brands as ever aimed exclusively for a small elite minority, they are all likely to have extensive community involvements, environmental concerns, business ethics, health and safety departments, sponsorships, philanthropies and so on. The development of all these has gone hand in hand with the rise of SD-managerialism towards the turn of the millennium. ¹⁷ They all help represent such brands as having everyone’s benefit as a prime objective. To take another example, business ethics played a purely negative role up to the 1970s. It left businesses to pursue their own interests as long as they did not violate the rights of others and common values. In the 1980s and 90s, business ethics transformed into a more positive active concern for the well-being of customers and society at large (Carroll, 1999).

The individual’s personal manageability meets the organisation’s commitment to continually improve in order to satisfy everyone involved. I call this model of the subject ultra-individualistic because it casts as a given right what the individual of liberalism must compete for. The liberal concept of rights is extended so that ultra-individuals gain the moral right to satisfaction in their social dealings, and to be well served by all organisations. Ultra-individuals need no special merit or achievement in order to be entitled to fulfilment, recognition, self-worth and so forth. Therefore, they need not struggle and compete for them. This is upheld in SD-managerialism as an ethically superior model of the subject and of justice than the property owner’s picture of the individual. The ethical dimension stands out, wherein ruthless competition and conflict become morally problematic, and the customer is set up as the next step in the empowerment of the individual. As an ultra-individual, SD-managerialist ideology offers success to the average person who is devoid of any special skills or prowess. Sociability, adaptability and commitment to the project and the organisation become the crucial factors of success, as they are what makes a valuable team player. In short, to be successful is to perform well with others on the social network.

Consequently, conflicts and zero-sum games can only be obstructive to networking and the managerial aim of satisfying everybody. As mentioned, management promoted itself early on as a solution to the industrial conflict. In SD-managerialism, this is extended potentially to every conflict. This attitude is notably different from the competitive values of HE, which from Adam Smith to Ayn Rand were always based on egoistic ruthlessness as leading to the greatest good. Managers replaced this businesslike vision with the view that the greatest good is best served by the collaborative pursuit of personal satisfaction. Conflict has thus been shown to have detrimental effects on teamwork, personal health and well-being, and it is inconclusive whether even the most careful conflict management can do more than minimise its damage (de Dreu, 2008). As a health as well as economic hazard, those who encourage conflict and aggression are treated in the same category as tobacco smokers. ¹⁸

Satisfaction, happiness and fun gain a wide social significance as marks of ethical and just treatment. People have both the duty and the entitlement to be happy, and this involves the search for wellness and satisfaction in all fields of life:

‘Today, wellness has become a moral demand – about which we are constantly and tirelessly reminded. To be a good person. . . is to constantly find new sources of pleasure. It means turning life into an exercise in wellness optimization. . .It dictates the way we work and live, how we study, and how we have sex’ (Cederström and Spicer, 2015: 9).

Wellness demonstrates the ability to improve in every aspect of life towards ever greater satisfaction. It joins extensive coaching, mindfulness and self-help in applying management techniques to ‘be the person you really want to be’ (Cederström and Spicer, 2015: 37).

Consumption was also reshaped to suit ultra-individuals, and shifted away from the model of HE as ‘sovereign consumer’ in neoclassical economics, whose rational choice is a key factor in the efficiency of the market. Consumption in the last few decades is seen as a major arena of personal fulfilment and identity formation. It figures in the constitution of the sense of self and of social identity, and is a means of investing objective reality with a personal meaning in different contexts (Sassatelli, 2007). The age-old notion of consumer satisfaction no longer concerns only the quality of the organisation’s products and services, but rather how they contribute to the consumers’ overall sense of satisfaction in life. This has become the ultimate aim of organisations and the justification for consuming their products and services. Boundaries between personal, commercial and social life dissolve, and everyone is expected to find satisfaction by means of the practices of management applied to all areas of life:

‘. . .the individual is “entitled” to anything they might require in order to be happy: endless consumption, entertainment, care, youth, privilege, life-long learning, training and development, motivation, self-actualisation, therapy, self-help. In turn, the individual has only one obligation—to “accept” the “duty to be happy”. . . to dream about the “utopia of fun”’ (Costea et al., 2005: 149).

Thus, while ultra-individuals are inherently sociable team players, this is a far cry from Enteman's envisaged negation of individualism by managerialism (Enteman, 1993). Enteman is right as far as individuals are not considered self-sufficient in this model. Individual satisfaction depends on the ability to be a valuable member of teams, networks and organisations. However, managerial social dominance is gained by positing the management of organisations as the means of satisfying all individuals equally. Everyone can be successful, everyone’s satisfaction equally counts, and customer status turns from privilege to right. Opposition to this stance is fast becoming socially and ethically unacceptable. Management thereby becomes the major form of legitimate elite. SD-managerialist ideology first denounces the meritocracy and elitism of the property owners as involving conflict, failure and suffering. It then establishes new (albeit flexible and informal) hierarchies that overcome this ethical flaw by treating everybody equally as customers. Elitism and meritocracy are thereby reaffirmed as long as they maximise the quality of service provided to everyone.

Conclusion

At the heart of SD-managerialist ideology, the ultra-individual is the capitalised Subject relative to whom personal and social identity is formed. Based on subtle criticism of the liberal picture of the individual, the ultra-individual is increasingly adopted as a better and ethically superior model of a person. The success of this model is evident in its growing prevalence as a standard of fair and just treatment in the context of work, consumption, education, politics and so forth. The successful ultra-individual is a valuable member and leader of the team and the organisation, gaining in return the right to satisfaction in every social interaction. Conflict, struggle and aggression are tolerated only as long as they are consistent with this universal satisfaction, while dominance is justified by its contribution to it. Competition is encouraged, but it is framed by two factors that make it fundamentally different from free market competition. First, the competition is primarily over the approval and satisfaction of others – superiors, team members, customers. Second, organisations aim to satisfy everybody regardless of competition. Ultra-individuals are therefore considered well treated when they are well served, and management is established as the rational pursuit of best service. Behind this ideological structure, the managerial class accumulates unprecedented levels of control of all social assets and values, and effects a comprehensive managerialisation of society, all the while extolling others as being always in charge.

SD-managerialism has an inherent disposition for the shadows, which makes it all the more important to understand and evaluate its social impact. The second wave of managerialism discourse is not currently up to the task. The casting of management as a set of skills exportable to every form of organisation does not explain the subjectivity revolution in management and the fusion of personal and professional life that has gone along with it. Within the discourse, they are mentioned at most as being more of the same in terms of tight managerial control (Diefenbach, 2009). Nor does it explain the connection between management and the ethics of satisfaction, happiness and wellness in all areas of life. The common ground of these and other significant social phenomena is SD-managerialist ideology vying to constitute contemporary subjects and their understanding of themselves, their values and their possibilities. This development calls for extensive study, encompassing its host of interconnected sociocultural manifestations. Many of these ramifications of SD-managerialism have so far been discussed separately, often involving studies of management and organisations, but without realising their SD-managerialist basis. The ultra-individual, as the SD-managerialist constitutive model the human subject and worthy existence, is the nexus of all these phenomena. Certainly, the multifarious forms in which the managerialisation of society reshapes contemporary culture, society, politics and the economy are still a vast unexplored terrain.