Annihilating social change

pp. 45-57

in: Thomas Klikauer, Managerialism, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013

Abstract

The classical Marxian theory envisaged the "capitalism→socialism" transition as a revolution when a proletariat destroys the apparatus of capitalism but retains the organisational apparatus while subjecting it to socialisation. There is continuity in the revolution because certain organisational rationalities, freed from irrational restrictions and destructions, can be sustained in post-managerial societies. This is of fundamental significance for the notion of post-Managerialism as a specific negation of managerial capitalism. Although the present developments in management are subject to the commandments of Managerialism, they do not, like other factors, end with the cessation of these directives. Even in the process of revolution when unsustainable relations of production are overcome, technology remains. Once subordinated to post-managerial thinking, a new post-managerial formation of human and environmental sustainability continues to develop — perhaps with extra momentum. Contrary to an ideological misbelief, technology does not develop through leaps but by a gradual accumulation of elements of a new quality, thereby replacing previous technologies.