Mi- C T)i ř (D =8S Q- = = ^= 5T -------- _j -ť = = -T M S ^= n -fc. = * O = ~j— _I ^1 = =s; °> CO S = T] CO = = w en = = 0) O) ~ = s cd m = c as (D — D = O '[A] vast and ambitious work, which is inscribed in a great tradition of theoretical and critical sociology" "...This magnificent book [is] the sociology of a whole generation which capitalism caught on the wrong foot. In more than 800 pages which one devours like a great novel, the book furnishes new weapons for the renewal of the Left" 'Ambitious and fascinating" he New Spirit of Capitalism Luc Boltanski & Eve Chiapello Politická sociologie ISBN-10: l-ŮSiai-551-l 9781859845547 4240738569 PC In Ev CG Vi m of th ca th hu a w in cc Tl ch ol cc Je si tr o lif ui The subject of this book is the ideological changes that have accompanied recent transformations in capitalism. It suggests an interpretation of the dynamic that runs from the years following the events of May 1968, when the critique of capitalism was expressed loud and clear, to the 1980s when, with critique silenced, the organizational forms on which the functioning of capitalism rests were profoundly altered, right up to the faltering search for new critical foundations in the second half of the 1990s. It is not merely descriptive, but proposes, by way of this historical example, a more general theoretical framework for understanding the way in which the ideologies associated with economic activity are altered. We stipulate that the term 'ideology' is to be construed here not in the reductionist sense to which it has often been reduced in the Marxist vulgate — that is to say, a moralising discourse, intended to conceal material interests, which is constandy contradicted by practice — but as developed, for example, in the work of Louis Dumont: a set of shared beliefs, inscribed in institutions, bound up with actions, and hence anchored in reality. We shall perhaps be criticized for tackling a transformation of global scope on the basis of a local example: France in the last thirty years. We certainly do not believe that the French case single-handedly encapsulates all the transformations of capitalism. However, far from being convinced by the approximations and broad brushstrokes that make up the ordinary run of discourses on globalization, we have sought to establish the model of change presented here on the basis of analyses which are pragmatic in character -that is to say, capable of taking account of the ways in which people engage in action, their justifications, and the meaning they give to their actions. Yet the influence of national political conjunctures and traditions on the orientation of economic practices, and the ideological forms of expression accompanying them, remains so strong that such an undertaking remains practically unrealizable at a global or even continental level, essentially for lack of time and resources. No doubt this is why general approaches are often led to assign preponderant importance to explanatory factors - typically of a technological, macroeconomic or demographic kind - which are treated as forces 4 THE NEW SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM external to the human beings and nations that experience them, in the way one endures a storm. For this historical neo-Darwinism, 'mutations' are imposed on us in much the same way as they are imposed on species: we must adapt or die. But human beings do not only endure history; they make it. And we wanted to see them at work. We are not claiming that what has occurred in France is a paradigm for the rest of the world, or that the models we have established on the basis of the French situation possess a universal validity as such. Nevertheless, we have good reason to believe that rather similar processes have marked the evolution of the ideologies accompanying the redeployment of capitalism in the other developed countries, in accordance with modalities that stem in each instance from the specificities of political and social history, which only detailed regional analyses can bring out with the requisite precision. "We have sought to clarify the relations that were established between capitalism audits critiques in order to interpret certain phenomena in the ideological sphere over recent decades: the waning of critique at a time when capitalism was undergoing significant restructuring whose social impact could not go unnoticed; the new enthusiasm for enterprise, orchestrated by Socialist governments, during the 1980s and the depressive repercussions of the 1990s; the difficulties faced by attempts to reconstruct critique today on new bases and — for now — its fairly limited mobilizing power, at a time when sources of indignation are not wanting; the profound transformation in managerial discourse and justifications of the development of capitalism since the mid-1970s; and the emergence of new representations of society, of novel ways of putting people and things to the test and, therewith, of new ways of succeeding or failing. To carry out this work, the notion of spirit of capitalism rapidly became essential for us, since (as we shall see) it makes it possible to articulate the two central concepts on which our analyses are based — capitalism and critique — in a dynamic relation. Below we present the different concepts on which our construction is founded, as well as the springs of the model we have developed to account for ideological transformations as regards capitalism over the last thirty years, but which seem to us to possess a wider significance than the French situation studied in isolation. THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM A minimal definition of capitalism Of the different characterizations of capitalism (or, today frequently, capitalisms) over the last century and a half, we shall employ the minimal formula stressing an imperative to unlimited accumulation of capital by formally peaceful means. The constant reintroduction of capital into the economic circuit with a view GENERAL INTRODUCTION 5 to deriving a profit - that is to say, increasing the capital, which will in turn be reinvested - is the basic mark of capitalism, endowing it with the dynamic and transformative power that have fascinated even the most hostile of observers. Capital accumulation does not consist in amassing riches - that is to say, objects desired for their use-value, their ostentatious function, or as signs of power. The concrete forms of wealth (property, plant, commodities, money, etc.) have no interest in and of themselves and can even, by dint of their lack of liquidity, represent an obstacle to the only objective that really matters: the constant transformation of capital, plant and various purchases (raw materials, components, services, etc.) into output, of output into money, and of money into new investments.1 This detachment of capital from material forms of wealth gives it a genuinely abstract character, which helps make accumulation an interminable process. In so far as enrichment is assessed in accounting terms, the profit accumulated in a span of time being calculated as the difference between the balance-sheets of two different periods,2 there exists no limit, no possible satiation,3 contrary to when wealth is directed towards consumer needs, including luxuries. No doubt there is another reason for the insatiable character of the capitalist process, underlined by Heilbroner.4 Because capital is constantly reinvested and can expand only in circulation, the capitalist's ability to recover his outlay with a profit is under constant threat, particularly as a result of the actions of other capitalists with whom he competes for consumers' spending power. This dynamic creates constant anxiety, and offers the capitalist a very powerful self-preservation motive for continuing the accumulation process interminably. The rivalry between traders seeking to make a profit, however, does not necessarily yield a market in the classical sense, where the conflict between a multiplicity of agents taking decentralized decisions is resolved by transactions disclosing equilibrium prices. In the minimal definition employed here, capitalism is to be distinguished from market s elf-regulation based upon conventions and institutions, particularly of a legal and political character, aimed at ensuring equal terms between traders (pure, perfect competition), transparency, symmetry of information, a central bank guaranteeing a stable exchange rate for credit money, and so on. Capitalism is indeed based on transactions and contracts, but these contracts can only sustain discreet arrangements to the advantage of the parties, or contain ad hoc clauses, without publicity or competition. Following Fernand Braudel, we shall therefore distinguish between capitalism and the market economy. On the one hand, the market economy was constructed 'step by step', and predates the appearance of capitalism's norm of unlimited accumulation.5 On the other hand, capitalist accumulation cedes to market regulation only when more direct routes to profit are closed to it. Accordingly, recognition of the beneficent powers of 6 THE NEW SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM the market, and acceptance of the rules and constraints on which its 'harmonious' operation depends (free trade, prohibition of cartels and monopolies, etc.), may be regarded as pertaining to a form of self-limitation by capitalism.6 In the framework of the minimal definition of capitalism employed here, the capitalist is, in theory, anyone who possesses a surplus and invests it to make a profit that will increase the initial surplus. The archetypal example is the shareholder who puts money into a firm and expects a return. But investment does not necessarily take this legal form: think, for example, of investment in rental property, or the purchase of Treasury bonds. Small shareholders, savers who do not want their 'money to lie idle' but 'to make a litde bit on it' - as popular parlance has it - thus belong to the group of capitalists by the same token as the big property-owners who come more readily to mind under this description. In its broadest sense, the capitalist group thus encompasses all those who possess a property income7 - a group, however, that constitutes a minority only beyond a certain level of savings. Although it is difficult to estimate, given existing statistics, it can be reckoned that it represents only around 20 per cent of French households, in what is one of the wealthiest countries in the world.8 As one can easily imagine, on a world scale the percentage is much lower. In this essay, we shall nevertheless reserve the term 'capitalists' first and foremost for the main actors responsible for the accumulation and expansion of capital, who directly pressurize firms to make maximum profit. Obviously, their numbers are much smaller. They comprise not only big shareholders, private individuals who are able to affect the running of business single-handedly by virtue of their influence, but also legal entities (represented by a few influential individuals, primarily the directors of firms), which, via their shareholdings, own or control the most substantial portions of global capital (holding companies and multinationals - including banks - through the mechanism of subsidiaries and interests, investment funds, or pension funds). Major employers, the salaried directors of large firms, fund managers, or large shareholders - the influence of such people on the capitalist process, the practices of firms, and the profit rates extracted is beyond doubt, unlike that of the small shareholders mentioned above. Although they constitute a population that is itself characterized by significant asset inequalities, albeit on the basis of a very advantageous situation on average, they deserve to be called capitalists inasmuch as they make the requirement of profit maximization their own, and relay its constraints to the people and legal entities over whom they exercise controlling power. Leaving to one side for the moment the issue of the systemic constraints upon capitalists and, in particular, the question of whether the directors of firms can do anything other than conform to the rules of capitalism, we shall merely note that they do so conform, and that their action is guided largely by the pursuit of substantial profits for their own capital and that entrusted to them.9 GENERAL INTRODUCTION 7 We shall also characterize capitalism by the wage-earning class. Marx and Weber alike place this form of organizing labour at the centre of their definition of capitalism. We shall consider the wage-earning class independendy of the contractual legal forms it can assume. What matters is that part of the population - possessing little or no capital, and to whose benefit the system is not naturally geared — derives income from the sale of its labour (not the sale of the products of its labour); that it does not possess means of production, and hence depends upon the decisions of those who do in order to work (for, by virtue of property rights, the latter can refuse use of these means to them); and, finally, that in the framework of the wage relation, and in exchange for its remuneration, it surrenders all property rights over the fruits of its efforts, which are said to accrue in their entirety to the owners of capital.10 A second important feature of the wage-earning class is that the wage-earner is theoretically free to refuse to work on the terms offered by the capitalist, just as the latter is free not to offer work on the terms demanded by the worker. The upshot is that, while the relation is unequal in the sense that the worker cannot survive for long without working, it is nevertheless markedly different from forced labour or slavery, and thus always involves a certain amount of voluntary subjection. In France, as on a world scale, the wage-earning class has gone on expanding throughout the history of capitalism, to the point where today it involves an unprecedented percentage of the working population.11 On the one hand, it gradually replaces self-employed labour, in the front rank of which, historically, was agriculture.12 On the other hand, the working population has itself greatiy expanded as a result of the entry into the wage-earning class of women, who perform work outside the home in growing numbers.13 The Necessity of a Spirit for Capitalism In many respects, capitalism is an absurd system: in it, wage-earners have lost ownership of the fruits of their labour and the possibility of pursuing a working life free of subordination. As for capitalists, they find themselves yoked to an interminable, insatiable process, which is utterly abstract and dissociated from the satisfaction of consumption needs, even of a luxury kind. For two such protagonists, integration into the capitalist process is singularly lacking in justifications. Now, albeit to an unequal extent depending upon the direction in which profit is sought (greater, for example, in the case of industrial than commercial or financial profits), capitalist accumulation demands the mobilization of a very large number of people whose prospects of profit are low (especially when their initial capital is small or nonexistent), and each of whom is assigned only minute responsibility - or, at any rate, responsibility that is difficult to assess - in the overall accumulation process. Consequentiy, when they are not PO 8 THE NEW SPÍRIT OF CAPITALISM 'n ' downright hostile to capitalist practices, they are not particularly motivated to ^V€ engage in them. cor Some people can invoke a material motive for participating — more obvi- ously in the case of wage-earners who need their wages in order to live than V|a in that of large property owners whose activity, above a certain threshold, is ma no longer bound up with satisfying personal needs. On its own, however, this °' does not prove much of a spur. Work psychologists have regularly empha- "the sized that pay is insufficient to induce commitment and stimulate enthusiasm caf for the task, the wage constituting at most a motive for staying in a job, not tfa for getting involved in it nie Similarly, duress is insufficient to overcome actors' hostility or indifference, ä r especially when the commitment demanded of them assumes active engage- W2 ment, initiative and voluntary sacrifices, as is ever more frequently the case not in simply with cadres but with all wage-earners. Thus, the hypothesis of 'enforced co commitment' under the threat of hunger and unemployment does not seem to us to be very plausible. For if the 'slave' factories that still exist the world Th over are unlikely to disappear in the short term, reliance on this form of setting ch people to work seems problematic, if for no other reason than that most of of the new ways of profit-making and new occupations invented in the last thirty cc years, which today generate a substantial portion of global profits, stress what Jei human resources management calls 'workforce participation', su In fact, the quality of the commitment one can expect depends upon the arguments that can be cited to bring out not only the advantages which par-ln ticipation in capitalist processes might afford on an individual basis, but also Be the collective benefits, defined in terms of the common good, which it con- tri tributes to producing for everyone. We call the ideology that justifies engagement in o\ capitalism 'spirit of capitalism'. tifi This spirit is currently undergoing a significant crisis, demonstrated by ur growing social confusion and scepticism, to the extent that safeguarding the accumulation process, which is ultimately threatened by any narrowing of its justification to a minimal argument in terms of compulsory submission to economic laws, presupposes the formation of a new, more inspiring ideological corpus. At all events, this is valid for the developed countries, which remain at the core of the accumulation process and reckon on remaining the main suppliers of skilled personnel, whose positive involvement is imperative. Capitalism must be in a position to guarantee these people a minimum of security in sheltered zones - places to live in, have a family, bring up children, and so on - like the residential quarters of the commercial cities of the northern hemisphere, shop windows of capitalist success for new arrivals from the periphery, and hence a crucial element in the global ideological mobilization of the sum total of productive forces. For Max Weber, the 'spirit of capitalism' refers to the set of ethical motivations which, although their purpose is foreign to capitalist logic, inspire GENERAL INTRODUCTION 9 entrepreneurs in activity conducive to capital accumulation.14 Given the singular, even transgressive character of the kinds of behaviour demanded by capitalism when compared with the forms of life exhibited in most human societies,15 Weber was led to defend the idea that the emergence of capitalism presupposed the establishment of a new moral relationship between human beings and their work. This was defined in the manner of a vocation, such that, regardless of its intrinsic interest and qualities, people could devote themselves to it firmly and steadily. According to Weber, it was with the Reformation that the belief became established that people performed their religious duty in the first instance by practising an occupation in the world, in temporal activities, in contrast to the extra-mundane religious life favoured by the Catholic ethos. This new conception made it possible to circumvent the question of the purpose of effort in work (boundless enrichment) at the dawn of capitalism, and thereby overcome the problem of commitment posed by the new economic practices. The conception of work as Beruf— a religious vocation demanding fulfilment - furnished a normative support for the merchants and entrepreneurs of nascent capitalism, and gave them good reasons — a 'psychological motivation', as Weber puts it16 - for devoting themselves tirelessly and conscientiously to their task; for undertaking the pitiless rationalization of their affairs, inextricably bound up with the pursuit of maximum profit; and for pursuing material gain, a sign of success in fulfilling their vocation.17 It also served them in so far as workers imbued with the same ideal proved obedient, tireless in their work, and — convinced as they were that man must perform his duty where Providence has placed him — did not seek to question the situation in which they found themselves. We shall leave to one side the importantpost-Weberian debate, essentially revolving around the actual influence of Protestantism on the development of capitalism and, more generally, of religious beliefs on economic practices, and draw above all from Weber's approach the idea that people need powerful moral reasons for rallying to capitalism.18 Albert Hirschman reformulates the Weberian question ('[h]ow then does it come about that activity which, in the most favourable case, is barely morally tolerable, becomes a "calling" in the manner practiced by Benjamin Franklin?') as follows: '[h] ow did commercial, banking, and similar money-making pursuits become honorable at some point in the modern age after having stood condemned or despised as greed, love of lucre, and avarice for centuries past?'19 Rather than appealing to psychological motives and the search by new elites for a means of guaranteeing their personal salvation, however, Hirschman evokes grounds that touched on the political sphere before impinging upon the economy. Profitable activities had been highly esteemed by elites in the eighteenth century on account of the sociopolitical benefits they anticipated from them. In Hirschman's interpretation, the secular thinking of the Enlightenment justifies profit-making activities in terms of society's common good. Hirschman PC 10 THE NEW SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM thus shows how the emergence of practices in tune with the development of capitalism was interpreted as conducive to a mellowing of manners and a perfecting of modes of government. Given the inability of religious morality to quell human passions, the powerlessness of reason to govern human beings, and the difficulty of subjugating the passions by means of sheer repression, there remained the solution of using one passion to counter the others. In this way, lucre, hitherto first-placed in the order of disorders, was awarded the privilege of being selected as the innocuous passion which the task of subjugating aggressive passions henceforth rested upon.20 Weber's works stressed capitalism's need to furnish individual reasons, whereas Hirschman's emphasize justifications in terms of the common good; For our part, we shall employ both dimensions, construing the term 'justification' in a sense that makes it possible to encompass both individual justifications (wherein a person finds grounds for engaging in capitalist enterprise) and general justifications (whereby engagement in capitalist enterprise serves the common good). The question of the moral justifications of capitalism is not only relevant historically, for shedding light on its origins or, in our day, for arriving at a better understanding of the ways in which the peoples of the periphery (developing countries and former socialist countries) are converted to capitalism. It J£ is also of the utmost importance in Western countries like France, whose Sl population is nevertheless integrated into the capitalist cosmos to an unprece- dented extent. In fact, systemic constraints on actors are insufficient on their 'r own to elicit their engagement.21 Duress must be internalized and justified; E and this is the role sociology has traditionally assigned to socialization and ide- "t! ologies. Contributing to the reproduction of the social order, they have in c particular the effect of enabling people not to find their everyday universe li uninhabitable - one of the conditions of a durable world. If, contrary to prog- *■ noses regularly heralding its collapse, capitalism has not only survived, but ceaselessly extended its empire, it is because it couid rely on a number of shared representations — capable of guiding action — and justifications, which present it as an acceptable and even desirable order of things: the only possible order, or the best of all possible orders. These justifications must be based on arguments that are sufficiendy strong to be accepted as self-evident by enough people to check, or overcome, the despair or nihilism which the capitalist order likewise constantly induces - not only in those whom it oppresses but also, on occasion, in those who have responsibility for maintaining it and, via education, transmitting its values. The spirit of capitalism is precisely the set of beliefs associated with the capitalist order that helps to justify this order and, by legitimating them, to sustain the forms of action and predispositions compatible with it. These justifications, whether general or practical, local or global, expressed in terms of virtue or justice, support the performance of more or less unpleasant tasks GENERAL INTRODUCTION 1 I and, more generally, adhesion to a lifestyle conducive to the capitalist order. In this instance, we may indeed speak of a dominant ideology, so long as we stop regarding it as a mere subterfuge by the dominant to ensure the consent of the dominated, and acknowledge that a majority of those involved — the strong as well as the weak - rely on these Schemas in order to represent to themselves the operation, benefits and constraints of the order in which they find themselves immersed.22 While, following the Weberian tradition, we put the ideologies on which-capitalism rests at the centre of our analyses, we shall employ the notion of the spirit of capitalism in a way that departs from canonical usages. In fact, in Weber the notion of spirit takes its place in an analysis of the 'types of practical rational behaviour', the 'practical incentives to action',23 which,- constitutive of a new ethos, made possible a break with traditional practices, generalization of the tendency to calculation, the lifting of moral condemnations of profit, and the switch to the process of unlimited accumulation. Our perspective - intent not upon explaining the genesis of capitalism but on understanding the conditions in which it can once again secure for itself the actors required for profit creation - will be different. We shall set aside the predispositions towards the world required to participate in capitalism as a cosmos - means-end compatibility, practical rationality, aptitude for calculation, autonomization of economic activities, an instrumental relation to nature, and so on - as well as the more general justifications of capitalism produced in the main by economic science, which we shall touch on later. Today, at least among economic actors in the Western world, they pertain to the common skills which, in accordance with institutional constraints imposed as it were from without, are constantly reproduced through processes of familial and educational socialization. They constitute the ideological platform from which historical variations can be observed, even if we cannot exclude the possibility that changes in the spirit of capitalism sometimes involve the metamorphosis of certain of its most enduring aspects. Our intention is to study observed variations, not to offer an exhaustive description of all the constituents of the spirit of capitalism. This will lead us to detach the category of spirit of capitalism from the substantial content, in terms of ethos, which it is bound up with in Weber, in order to treat it as a form that can contain different things at different points in the development of the modes of organizing firms and processes of extracting capitalist profit. We shall thus seek to integrate some very diverse historical expressions of the spirit of capitalism into a single framework, and pose the question of their transformation. We shall highlight the way in which an existence attuned to the requirements of accumulation must be marked out for a large number of actors to deem it worth the effort of being lived. We shall, however, remain faithful throughout this historical journey to the methodology of Weberian ideal types in systematizing and underlining what 12 THE NEW SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM seems to us to be specific about one epoch by comparison with those that preceded it, and in attaching more importance to variations than constants, but without ignoring the more stable features of capitalism. Thus, the persistence of capitalism, as a mode of co-ordinating action and a lived world, cannot be understood without considering the ideologies which, in justifying and conferring a meaning on it, help to elicit the good will of those on whom it is based, and ensure their engagement - including in situations where, as is the case with the developed countries, the order they are integrated into appears to rest virtually in its entirety on mechanisms congruent with capitalism. What the spirit of capitalism is composed of When it comes to lining up reasons for being in favour of capitalism, one candidate immediately presents itself: none other than economic science. From the first half of the nineteenth century down to the present, have not those in charge of capitalist insdtutions initially looked to economic science, and particularly its dominant currents - classical and neo-classical — for justifications? The strength of the arguments they found there stemmed precisely from the fact that they were presented as non-ideological, not directly dictated by moral motives, even if they involved reference to end results generally conformable to an ideal of justice for the best and of well-being for the greatest number. As Louis Dumont has shown, the development of economic science, whether classical economics or Marxism, contributed to constructing a representation of the world that is radically novel compared with traditional thinking, marking 'the radical separation of the economic aspects of the social fabric and their constitution as an autonomous domain'.24 This made it possible to impart substance to the belief that the economy is an autonomous sphere, independent of ideology and morality, which obeys positive laws, ignoring the fact that such a conviction was itself the product of an ideological endeavour, and that it could have been formed only by incorporating — and then partially masking by scientific discourse - justifications whereby the positive laws of economics are in the service of the common good.23 In particular, the view that the pursuit of individual interests serves the general interest has been the object of an enormous, incessant labour, which has been taken up and extended throughout the history of classical economics. This separation between morality and economics, and the incorporation into economics in the same gesture of a consequentialist ethics,26 based upon the calculation of utilities, made it possible to supply a moral sanction for economic activities solely by dint of the fact that they are profitable.27 If we may be allowed a rapid summary, for the purposes of explaining the development of the history of economic theory which interests us here more clearly, it can be said that the incorporation of utilitarianism into economics made it GENERAL INTRODUCTION 13 possible to regard it as self-evident that 'whatever served the individual served society. By logical analogy, whatever created a profit (and thereby served the individual capitalist) also served society.'28 In this perspective, regardless of the beneficiary, increased wealth is the sole criterion of the common good.29 In its everyday usage, and the public pronouncements of the agents mainly responsible for explaining economic activities — heads of firms, politicians, journalists, and so on — this vulgate makes it possible to combine individual (or local) profit and overall benefit, in a way that is at once sufficiently tight and sufficiently vague to circumvent demands for justification of the activities that contribute to accumulation. It regards it as self-evident that the specific - but not readily calculable — moral cost (devotion to the passion for material gain) of establishing an acquisitive society (a cost that still preoccupied Adam Smith) is amply offset by the quantifiable benefits of accumulation (material goods, health, etc.). It also allows it to be argued that the overall increase in wealth, regardless of the beneficiary, is a criterion of the common good, as is attested on a daily basis by the presentation of the health of a country's firms, measured by their profit rate, their level of activity and growth, as a criterion for measuring social well-being.30 This enormous social labour, performed in order to establish individual material advancement as a — if not the - criterion of social well-being, has allowed capitalism to wrest unprecedented legitimacy, for its designs and mainspring were thus legitimated simultaneously. Works of economic science likewise make it possible to argue that, as between two different economic organizations geared to material well-being, capitalist organization is the most efficient. Free enterprise and private property in the means of production in fact introduce competition, or a risk of competition, into the system from the outset. And from the moment it exists, competition, without even having to be pure and perfect, is the surest means for customers to benefit from the best service at the lowest cost. Likewise, although they are orientated towards capital accumulation, capitalists find themselves obliged to satisfy consumers in order to achieve their own ends. Thus it is that, by extension, competitive private enterprise is always deemed more effective and efficient than non-profit-making organizations (but this at the undisclosed price of transforming the art lover, the citizen, the student, children with respect to their teachers, from recipients of social services into ... consumers); and that the privatization and maximum commodification of all services appear to be the socially optimal solution, since they reduce the waste of resources and require anticipation of customers' expectations.31 To the themes of utility, general well-being and progress, which have been available for mobilization in virtually unchanged fashion for two centuries, and to the justification in terms of incomparable efficiency when it comes to supplying goods and services, we must obviously add the reference to the emancipatory power of capitalism and political freedom as the collateral of economic freedom. The kinds of arguments advanced here refer to the PC 14 THE NEW SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM In Ev< CO Vic mi of th< ca| th« hie a i WÍ in cc Tich of cc je, SU In Be tn oí lifi ur liberation represented by wage-earning by comparison with serfdom, the room for freedom permitted by private property, or the fact that in the modern age political liberties have only ever existed sporadically in any country which was openly and fundamentally anti-capitalist, even if they are not possessed by every capitalist country.32 Obviously, it would be unrealistic not to include these three central supporting pillars of capitalism — material progress, effectiveness and efficiency in the satisfaction of needs, and a mode of social organization conducive to the exercise of economic freedom compatible with liberal political regimes — in the spirit of capitalism. But, precisely by virtue of their very general and stable character over time, these reasons33 do not seem to us to be sufficient to engage ordinary people in the concrete circumstances of life, especially working life, or to equip them with the resources in terms of arguments that allow them to face the condemnation or criticism which might be personally addressed to them on the spot. It is not obviously the case that individual wage-earners genuinely rejoice because their labour serves to increase the nation's GDP, makes it possible to improve the well-being of consumers, or because they are part of a system that creates room for free enterprise, for buying and selling. And this, to put it no higher, is because they find it difficult to make the connection between these general benefits and the living and working conditions they, and those close to them, experience. Unless people become directly wealthy by making the most of the possibilities of free enterprise — something that is reserved for a small minority — or, thanks to a job they willingly chose, achieve sufficient financial comfort to take full advantage of the consumer opportunities offered by capitalism, too many mediations are wanting for the suggestion of engagement to fire their imagination,34 and become embodied in the deeds and gestures of everyday life. By comparison with what (paraphrasing Weber) might be called professorial capitalism, which trots out neo-liberal dogma from on high, the expressions of the spirit of capitalism of interest to us here must be integrated into descriptions that are sufficiently substantial and detailed, and contain adequate purchase, to 'sensitive' those to whom they are addressed. In other words, they must both coincide with people's moral experience of daily life and suggest models of action they can grasp. We shall see how management discourse, which aims to be formal and historical, general and local, which mixes general precepts with paradigmatic examples, today constitutes the form par excellence in which the spirit of capitalism is incorporated and received. This discourse is first and foremost addressed to cadres, whose support for capitalism is particularly indispensable for running firms and creating profits. The high level of commitment demanded of them cannot be obtained purely through duress; moreover, less subject to immediate necessity than blue-collar workers, they can mount passive resistance, engage only reluctantly, even GENERAL INTRODUCTION 15 undermine the capitalist order by criticizing it from within. There is also the risk that the offspring of the bourgeoisie, who constitute the quasi-natural breeding ground for the recruitment of cadres, will defect, to use Hirschman's term,33 heading for occupations that are less integrated into the capitalist mechanism (the liberal professions, arts and sciences, public service), or even partially withdraw from the labour market — especially since they possess various resources (educational, patrimonial and social). In the first instance, capitalism must therefore perfect its legitimating apparatus with respect to cadres or future cadres. If, in the ordinary course of working life, a majority of them are persuaded to subscribe to the capitalist system because of financial constraints (notably fear of unemployment, especially if they are in debt and responsible for a family), or the classical mechanisms of sanctions and rewards (money, various benefits, career ambitions, etc.), it is plausible to reckon that the exigencies of justification are particularly developed in periods like the present. Such periods are characterized by strong numerical growth in the category, with the arrival in firms of numerous young cadres from the education system, whose motivation is weak and who are in search of normative incentives;36 and, on the other hand, by profound developments compelling experienced cadres to retrain - something that is easier if they can give meaning to the changes of direction imposed upon them, and experience them as freely undertaken. Being simultaneously-wage-earners and spokesmen for capitalism, particularly with respect to the other members of firms, cadres are, on account of their position, privileged targets of criticism - especially from their subordinates - and are themselves often inclined to lend it an attentive ear. They cannot make do with the material benefits granted them, and must also have arguments to justify their position and, more generally, the selection procedures from which they emerged, or which they themselves employ. One of the constraints on their justification is the preservation of a culturally tolerable distance between their own condition and that of the workers whom they have to manage. (This was demonstrated, for example, at the turn of the 1970s by the reluctance of a number of young engineers from thegrandes écoles, trained in a more permissive fashion than earlier generations, to supervise unskilled and semi-skilled workers who were assigned highly repetitive tasks and subject to harsh factory discipline.) The justifications of capitalism that interest us here are thus not so much those referred to above, which capitalists or academic economists might elaborate for external consumption, particularly in the political world, but first and foremost those addressed to cadres and engineers. Now, if they are to be effective, the justifications in terms of the common good that they require must be based on localized criteria. Their judgements refer to the firm they work for and the extent to which the decisions taken in its name are defensible as regards their consequences — in the first instance, for the common good of POL 16 THE NEW SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM In tti the wage-earners it employs, and then for the common good of the geograph- Eve ical and political community it forms part of. Unlike liberal dogmas, these con1 localized justifications are subject to alteration, because they must conjugate concerns formulated in terms of justice with practices bound up with histor-Via ; ical states of capitalism, and the specific ways of making profit in any particular man period. They must at one and the same time stimulate an inclination to act of e and provide assurance that the actions thus performed are morally acceptable, the At any moment in time, the spirit of capitalism is thus expressed in a certainty capi imparted to cadres about the 'right' actions to be performed to make a profit, the and the legitimacy of these actions. hier Over and above the justifications in terms of the common good they need a ni in order to respond to criticism and explain themselves to others, as Weberian was entrepreneurs cadres^ and especially young cadres^ require personal reasons for !n t| commitment. To make commitment to it worthwhile, to be attractive, capital- cog, ism must be capable of being presented to them in the form of activities which, by comparison with alternative opportunities, can be characterized as 'stimulat-T^e ing'—that is to say, very generally, and albeit in different ways in different periods, cj-,;|, as containing possibilities for self-realization and room for freedom of action. Q-J-+ However, as we shall see more clearly later, this expectation of autonomy comes up against another demand, with which it is often in tension, corresponding this time to an expectation of security. In fact, capitalism must also be able to inspire cadres with confidence about the prospects of enjoying the well-being it promises them over the long term (as long, if not longer, than the alternative social situations they have abandoned), and of guaranteeing their children access to positions that allow them to preserve the same privileges. I ■ In terms that vary greatly historically, the spirit of capitalism peculiar to rH each age must thus supply resources to assuage the anxiety provoked by the following three questions: coc Jerr sue In e Bol life un< • How is committed engagement in the processes of accumulation a source of enthusiasm, even for those who will not necessarily be the main beneficiaries of the profits that are made? • To what extent can those involved in the capitalist universe be assured of a minimum of security for themselves and their children? • How can participation in capitalist firms be justified in terms of the common good, and how, confronted with accusations of injustice, can the way that it is conducted and managed be defended? The different historical states of the spirit of capitalism The changes in the spirit of capitalism that are currently emerging, to which this book is devoted, are certainly not the first. Over and above the kind of archaeological reconstruction to be found in Weber's work of the ethos that GENERAL INTRODUCTION 17 inspired the original capitalism, we possess at least two stylized or typological descriptions of the spirit of capitalism. Each of them defines the different components identified above and indicates, for its time, what an inspiring adventure capitalism could represent: how it seemed to be the bearer of solid foundations for building the future, and of responses to expectations of a just society. It is these different combinations of autonomy, security and the common good that we shall now evoke very schematically. The first description, undertaken at the end of the nineteenth century - in novels as much as the social sciences proper — is focused on the person of the bourgeois entrepreneur and a description of bourgeois values. The image of the entrepreneur, the captain of industry, the conquistador,37 encapsulates the heroic elements of the portrait,3" stressing gambles, speculation, risk, innovation. On a broader scale, for more numerous social categories the capitalist adventure is embodied in the primarily spatial or geographical liberation made possible by the development of the means of communication and wage-labour, which allow the young to emancipate themselves from local communities, from being enslaved to the land and rooted in the family; to escape the village, the ghetto, and traditional forms of personal dependence. In return, the figure of the bourgeois and bourgeois morality afford elements of security in an original combination, combining novel economic propensities (avarice or parsimony, the spirit of saving, a tendency to rationalize daily life in all its aspects, development of capacities for book-keeping, calculation, prediction) with traditional domestic predispositions: the importance attached to the family, lineage, inheritance, the chastity of daughters in order to avoid misalliances and the squandering of capital; the familial or patriarchal nature of relations with employees39 - what will subsequently be denounced as paternalism - whose forms of subordination remained largely personal in firms that were generally small in size; the role accorded charity in relieving the sufferings of the poor.40 As for justifications aspiring to greater generality and referring to constructions of the common good, they owed less to economic liberalism, the market,41 or scientific economics, whose diffusion remained fairly limited, than to a belief in progress, the future, science, technology, and the benefits of industry. A vulgar utilitarianism was employed to justify the sacrifices required by the market in pursuit of progress. Precisely this amalgam of very different, even incompatible propensities and values - thirst for profit and moralism, avarice and charity, scientism and familial traditionalism—which is at the root of the bourgeois self-division Francois Furet refers to,42 underlay what was to be most unanimously and enduringly denounced in the bourgeois spirit: its hypocrisy. A second characterization of the spirit of capitalism was most fully developed between the 1930s and the 1960s. Here, the emphasis is less on the individual entrepreneur than on the organization. Centred on the development at the beginning of the twentieth century of the large, centralized and i-a 3r.se Jošíova Í0 ;62 Oß B S. N í 18 THE NEW SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM bureaucratized industrial firm, mesmerized by its gigantic size, its heroic figure is the manager.43 Unlike the shareholder seeking to increase his personal wealth, he is preoccupied by the desire endlessly to expand the size of the firm he is responsible for, in order to develop mass production, based on economies of scale, product standardization, the rational organization of work, and new techniques for expanding markets (marketing). Particularly 'exciting' for young graduates were the opportunities offered by organizations for attaining positions of power from which one could change the world and, for a large majority, liberation from need, the fulfilment of desires thanks to mass production and its corollary: mass consumption. In this version, the security dimension was supplied by a faith in rationality and long-term planning — the priority task for managers — and, above all, by the very gigantism of the organizations, which constituted protective environments not only offering career prospects, but also taking care of everyday life (subsidized accommodation, holiday camps, training bodies), modelled on the army (a type of organization of which IBM represented the paradigm in the 1950s and 1960s). As for the reference to a common good, it was provided in coming to terms not only with an ideal of industrial order embodied by engineers — belief in progress, hope invested in science and technology, productivity and efficiency — that was even more resonant than in the earlier version; but also with an ideal which might be described as civic in the sense that the stress fell on institutional solidarity, the socialization of production, distribution and consumption, and collaboration between large firms and the state in pursuit of social justice. The existence of salaried managers and the development of categories of technicians, 'organizers'; the construction in France of the category of cadres^ the increase in the number of owners constituted by legal entities rather than actual persons; or the limits introduced into ownership of firms with, in particular, the development of rights for wage-earners and the existence of bureaucratic rules restricting employers' prerogatives as regards workforce management — these developments were interpreted as so many indices of a profound change in capitalism, marked by an attenuation of class struggle, a separation between the ownership of capital and control of the firm, which was transferred to the 'technostructure',45 and as signs of the appearance of a new capitalism, propelled by a spirit of social justice. We shall have frequent occasion to return to the specificities of this 'second' spirit of capitalism. Changes in the spirit of capitalism thus proceed in tandem with profound alterations in the living and working conditions, and the expectations — whether for themselves or for their children — of workers, who play a role in the process of capitalist accumulation in firms, without being its privileged beneficiaries. Today, the security supplied by academic qualifications has diminished, retirement pensions are under threat, and careers are no longer guaranteed. The GENERAL INTRODUCTION 19 mobilizing power of the 'second spirit' is in question, while the forms of accumulation have once again been profoundly transformed. If our analysis is accepted, one probable ideological trend in the current situation can be identified, since it is based upon the system's capacity for survival and restricted to adjustments within the framework of the capitalist regime — from which, following the end of the communist illusion, no feasible exits exist for now - not even in theory. It is the formation in the developed countries of a spirit of capitalism that is more capable of attracting support (and hence also more directed towards justice and social well-being), with a view to seeking to regalvanize workers and, at a minimum, the middle class. The 'first' spirit of capitalism — associated, as we have seen, with the figure of the bourgeois - was in tune with the essentially familial forms of capitalism of an age when gigantic size was very rarely sought after. Owners and employers were personally known to their employees; the fate and life of the firm were closely associated with those of a family. As for the 'second' spirit, which was organized around the central figure of the director (or salaried manager) and cadres^ it was bound up with a capitalism of large firms, already sufficiently imposing for bureaucratization and the use of an abundant, increasingly academically qualified managerial staff to be a central element. But only some of them (a minority) may be characterized as multinationals. Shareholding became more impersonal, with numerous firms finding themselves detached from the name and destiny of a particular family. The 'third' spirit, in its turn, will have to be isomorphic with a 'globalized' capitalism employing new technologies, to cite only the two aspects most frequendy mentioned as characteristic of capitalism today. The way out of the ideological crisis that set in during the second half of the 1930s, with the loss of momentum of the first spirit, could not have been predicted. The same is true of the crisis we are currently experiencing. The need to restore meaning to the accumulation process, and combine it with the requirements of social justice, comes up in particular against the tension between the collective interest of capitalists as a class and their particular interests as atomized operators competing in a market.46 No market operator wants to be the first to offer a 'good life' to those he hires, since his production costs would thereby be increased, and he would be at a disadvantage in the competition pitting him against his peers. On the other hand, the capitalist class as a whole has an interest — especially where cadres are concerned — in overall measures that make it possible to retain the commitment of those on whom profit creation depends. We may thus reckon that the formation of a third spirit of capitalism, and its embodiment in various mechanisms, will depend largely upon the interest multinationals, which are currently dominant, have in the preservation of a peaceful zone at the centre of the world system, maintained as a breeding ground for cadres, where the latter can develop, raise children, and live in security. 20 THE NEW SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM The origin of the justifications incorporated into the spirit of capitalism We have mentioned how important it is for capitalism to be able to rely on a justificatory apparatus attuned to the concrete forms taken by capital accumulation in a given period, which indicates that the spirit of capitalism incorporates Schemas other than those inherited from economic theory. These Schemas, while they permit defence of the principle of accumulation in abstraction from all historical specificity,47 lack sufficient mobilizing power. But capitalism cannot find any resources within itself with which to justify grounds for commitment and, in particular, to formulate arguments directed towards a demand for justice. In fact, capitalism is doubtless the sole — or at least the main — historical form organizing collective practices to be completely detached from the moral sphere, in the sense that it identifies its purpose in itself (capital accumulation as an end in itself) and not by reference, not simply to a common good, but even to the interests of a collective entity such as a people, a state, or a social class. Justification of capitalism thus assumes reference to constructions of a different order, whence derive requirements that are quite distinct from those imposed by the pursuit of profit. To maintain its powers of attraction, capitalism therefore has to draw upon resources external to it, beliefs which, at a given moment in time, possess considerable powers of persuasion, striking ideologies, even when they are hostile to it, inscribed in the cultural context in which it is developing. The spirit sustaining the accumulation process at a given point in history is thus imbued with cultural products that are contemporaneous with it and which, for the most part, have been generated to quite different ends than justifying capitalism.48 Faced with a demand for justification, capitalism mobilizes 'already-existing' things whose legitimacy is guaranteed, to which it is going to give a new twist by combining them with the exigency of capital accumulation. Accordingly, it is pointless to search for a clear separation between impure ideological constructs, intended to serve capitalist accumulation, and pure, utterly uncom-promised ideas, which would make it possible to criticize it. Frequently, the same paradigms find themselves engaged in condemnation and justification of what is condemned. We can compare the process whereby ideas that were initially alien - even hostile — to capitalism were incorporated into it with the process of acculturation described by Dumont, when he shows how the dominant modern ideology of individualism was diffused by forging compromises with pre-existing cultures. From the encounter and clash between two sets of ideas-values, new representations are born that are a 'a sort of synthesis, which may be more radical or less so, a sort of alloy of the two kinds of ideas and values, the ones being of holistic inspiration, and autochthonous, the others being borrowed from the predominant individualistic configuration'. One remarkable effect of this acculturation is that 'the individualistic representations do not by any means GENERAL INTRODUCTION 21 get diluted or become less pungent as they enter into those combinations. Quite to the contrary, they become more adaptable and even stronger through these associations with their contraries.'49 If we transpose this analysis to the study of capitalism (whose principle of accumulation goes hand in glove with individualistic modernity), we shall see how the spirit that drives it possesses two aspects, one 'turned inside', as Dumont puts it - that is to say, in this context, turned towards the accumulation process, which is legitimated — and the other turned towards the ideologies with which it is imbued, which furnish it with precisely what capitalism lacks: reasons for participating in the accumulation process that are rooted in quotidian reality, and attuned to the values and concerns of those who need to be actively involved.50 In Dumont's analysis, the members of a holistic culture confronted with an individualistic culture find themselves under challenge, and feel the need to defend themselves, justify themselves, in the face of what seems to them like a critique and a challenge to their identity. In other respects, however, they can be attracted by the new values, and the prospects of individual liberation and equality afforded by these values. Out of this process of attraction-resistance—search for self-justification, new compromise representations are generated. The same observations may be made about the spirit of capitalism. It is transformed to respond to the need for justification by people who are engaged in the capitalist accumulation process at a given moment, but whose values and representations, inherited as a cultural legacy, are still associated with earlier forms of accumulation — with traditional society in the case of the birth of the 'first spirit', or with a previous spirit in the case of the transition to subsequent spirits of capitalism. What is at stalte is making the new forms of accumulation attractive to them (the exdting dimension of any spirit), while taking account of their need to justify themselves (by relying on reference to a common good), and erecting defences against those features of the new capitalist mechanisms that they perceive as threatening the survival of their social identity (the security dimension). In many respects, the 'second spirit' of capitalism, constructed at the same time as the supremacy of the large industrial firm became established, has characteristics that would have been disowned by neither communism nor fascism, which were nevertheless the most powerful movements critical of capitalism at the rime when this 'second spirit' began to be instituted.51 Economic dirigzsme, a common aspiration, was to be implemented by the welfare state and its planning bodies. Mechanisms for consistent control of the allocation of value added between capital and labour were put in place with national accounting,52 which is consistent with Marxist analyses. As for the hierarchical modus operandi in force in large, planned firms, it would long retain the stamp of a compromise with traditional domestic values -something that could only serve to reassure traditionalist reaction. Respect and PC 22 THE NEW SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM In' Evi deference in return for welfare and assistance formed part of the hierarchical co contract in its traditional forms — much more so than wages in exchange for work, which encapsulates the liberal, Anglo-American manner of conceiving Vi; the employment relation. In this way, the principle of boundless accumula- mj tion found some points of convergence with its enemies, and the resulting 0f compromise guaranteed capitalism its survival by offering hesitant populations -tht the opportunity to participate in it more enthusiastically. Cities as normative supports for constructing justifications ca| th< hie a , Inasmuch as they are subject to an imperative of justification, social arrange- w; ments tend to incorporate reference to a kind of very general convention jn directed towards a common good, and claiming universal validity, which has cc been modelled on the concept of the áty?% Capitalism is no exception to this rule. What we have called the spirit of capitalism necessarily contains reference T[ to such conventions, at least in those of its dimensions that are directed towards cj. justice. In other words, considered from a pragmatic point of view, the spirit ŕ of capitalism assumes reference to two different logical levels. The first contains an agent capable of actions conducive to profit creation, whereas the second contains an agent equipped with a greater degree of reflexivity, who judges the actions of the first in the name of universal principles. These two agents obviously denote the same actor, described as capable of engaging in operations of increasing generality. Without this competence, it would in fact be impossible for actors to understand the critiques directed at capitalism in so far as it is . ; profit-orientated, or to construct justifications to foil such critiques. , In view of the central character of the concept of the city here, we are now .-r going to go back over the work where the model of cities was presented. The concept of the city is orientated towards the question of justice. It is intended to be modelled on the kind of operations that actors engage in during disputes with one another, when they are faced with a demand for justification. This demand for justification is inextricably linked to the possibility of critique. The justification is necessary to back up the critique, or to answer it when it condemns the unjust character of some specific situation. To characterize what is meant by justice here, and in order to give ourselves the opportunity to compare seemingly very different disputes with one and \ the same notion, we shall say that disputes over justice always have as their object the ranking of status in a situation. To explain what we understand by status, let us take a trivial example — for instance, the problem of distributing the food between those who are present at a meal. The issue of the order in which the dish is offered to guests is unavoidable, and has to be settled publicly. Unless the significance of this sequence is neutralized by the introduction of a rule adjusting the temporal order to a spatial order (everyone serves themselves in turn, Vithout any fuss'), the temporal GENERAL INTRODUCTION 23 sequence lends itself to being interpreted as an order of precedence according to the comparative status of the persons, as in serving the elderly first and children last. But observance of this order can present tricky problems, and give rise to disputes when several different principles of ranking order are in opposition. If the sequence is to run smoothly, the guests must therefore be in agreement about the comparative status of people as disclosed by the order they are served in.b4 Yet this agreement on status presupposes a more fundamental agreement on & principle of equivalence, by recourse to which the status of those present can be established. Even if the principle of equivalence is not explicitly mentioned, it must be sufficiently clear and present in everyone's mind for the episode to unfold naturally. These principles of equivalence are designated by the termprinápes supérieurs communs, borrowed from Rousseau. These principles of status cannot emerge from a local, contingent arrangement. Their legitimacy depends upon their robustness — that is to say, their capacity for validity in an a priori unlimited number of particular situations, bringing together beings with the most varied qualities. That is why the principles of equivalence that have a claim to validity in a society at a given point in time are orientated, in some sense by their very structure, towards universal validity If, at a given point in time, a multiplicity of legitimate forms of status exists, their number is nevertheless not unlimited. Six logics of justification, six 'cities', have been identified in contemporary society To define them, the work we are basing ourselves on here shuttled between two types of sources. On the one hand, there were empirical data collected by fieldwork on conflicts and disputes; supplying a corpus of arguments and situational mechanisms, this guided intuition towards the kind of justifications often used in everyday life. On the other hand, there were constructions, systematically developed in political philosophy, which possess a high level of logical coherence; this allows them to be put to profitable use in the task of modelling shared competence.5^ In the inspirational city, high status pertains to the saint who achieves a state of grace, or the artist who receives inspiration. It reveals itself in the clean body prepared by ascesis, whose inspired manifestations (holiness, creativity, artistic sense, authenticity, etc.) constitute the privileged form of expression. In the domestic city, high status depends upon people's seniority in a chain of personal dependencies. In a system of subordination established on a domestic model, the political bond between beings is conceived as a generalization of the generational link, combining tradition and proximity. The 'great man' is the elder, the ancestor, the father, to whom respect and fidelity are due, and who vouchsafes protection and support. In the reputational city, high status depends exclusively on the opinion of others — that is to say, on the number of people who confer their trust and esteem. The 'great man' in the civic dty is the representative of a collective whose general will he expresses. In the commerdal dty, the 'great man' is he who enriches himself by supplying highly Vii m; of thi ca th. hic a i WÍ in cc Tich of cc jei su In Be tn of hfi ur I MANAGEMENT DISCOURSE IN THE 1990s Our intention here is to bring out the profound transformation in the spirit of capitalism over the last thirty years: the abandonment of the specific ideological features characteristic of its second embodiment, and the emergence of a new image of firms and economic processes. The aim of this transformation was to provide those whose commitment is indispensable for the expansion of capitalism — the successors to cadres — with self-evident reasons for the 'right actions' (markedly different, as we shall see, from the recommendations made in the 1960s); a discourse legitimadng these actions; encouraging prospects for individual development; the chance for people to project themselves into a future that was restructured in line with the new rules of the game; and the suggestion of new modes of reproduction for the children of the bourgeoisie, and upward social mobility for others. I. SOURCES OF INFORMATION ON THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM Management literature as prescription for capitalism In order to carry out this project, we shall use management literature addressed to cadres.1 This literature, whose main objective is to inform cadres of the latest developments in running firms and managing human beings, emerges as one of the main sites in which the spirit of capitalism is inscribed. As the dominant ideology, the spirit of capitalism theoretically has the ability to permeate the whole set of mental representations specific to a given era, infiltrating political and trade-union discourse, and furnishing legitimate representations and conceptual schemas to journalists and researchers, to the point where its presence is simultaneously diffuse and general. From among its possible expressions, we have selected management literature as a medium offering the most direct access to the representations associated with the spirit of capitalism in a given era. Within this literature we have, moreover, restricted ourselves to non-technical writings that aim to offer general new managerial mechanisms of a sort to inspire a firm's operations as a whole. We have 58 THE NEW SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM therefore excluded specialist literature dealing only, for example, with marketing, production management or accounting, in order to concern ourselves, with what might be called 'management in general', whose boundaries with the discipline of entrepreneurial policy and strategy on the one hand, and human resources management on the other, are sometimes very tenuous. Following the example of the spirit of capitalism, which presents two faces - one turned towards capital accumulation, the other towards legitimating principles - management literature can be read on two different levels. We certainly find in it a source of new methods of profit-making and novel recommendations to managers for creating firms that are more efficient and more competitive. But management literature is not purely technical. It is not composed only of practical recipes for improving the productivity of organizations as one improves the performance of a machine. It simultaneously has a high moral tone, if only because it is a normative literature stating what should be the case, not what is the case. Consequently, we may legitimately pose the question of the realism of this literature, and hence how believable it is when it comes to what 'really' happens in firms. And it is true that, although they are usually packed with numerous examples and based on case studies, management texts cannot replace survey materials, whether monographs on firms or statistical surveys. They make no claim to be exhaustive. Their orientation is not constative, but prescriptive. In the manner of edifying books or manuals of moral instruction, they practise the exemplum, select the cases employed according to their demonstrative power — what is to be done as opposed to what is not to be done - and take from reality only such of its aspects as confirm the orientation to which they wish to give some impetus. But it is precisely in so far as they constitute one of the main vehicles for the diffusion and popularization of normative models in the world of enterprise that they are of interest to us here. As a public literature intended to elicit support for the precepts it states and the engagement of a large number of actors - first and foremost cadres, whose zeal and conviction are decisive in the smooth running of firms — management literature cannot be exclusively orientated towards the pursuit of profit. It must also justify the way profit is obtained, give cadres arguments with which to resist the criticisms that are bound to arise if they seek to implement its abundant recommendations, and to answer the demands for justification they will face from their subordinates or in other social arenas. Management literature must therefore demonstrate how the prescribed way of making profit might be desirable, interesting, exciting, innovative or commendable. It cannot stop at economic motives and incentives. It must also be based on normative aims, taking into account not only personal aspirations to security and autonomy, but also the way these aspirations can be attached to a more general orientation to the common good. Were it not for this, it would be impossible to understand why the transmission of operational modes for organizing firms is, in the work of MANAGEMENT DISCOURSE IN THE 1990s 59 some authors, glorified by a lyrical, even heroic style, or defended by numerous, heteroclite references to noble and ancient sources such as Buddhism, the Bible and Plato, or to contemporary moral philosophy (Habermas in particular). It is likewise important for our subject to recall that the birth of management literature coincided, at the beginning of the century,2 with the emergence of the new social body of salaried managers and administrators (later referred to by the term 'manager' or, in France, cadre). The operational management of large firms was progressively transferred to them, as owners withdrew to the role of shareholders, except where they themselves became salaried senior management.3 From the outset management was thus intended for those who, following the crisis of the 1930s, were to become the new heroes of the economy and the principal addressees of the second spirit of capitalism. Management, which is presented as the systematization of practices within firms and their inscription in general rules of behaviour, gradually enabled a professionalization of supervision. Regarded as one of the founding fathers of the discipline, Henri Fayol wanted to perfect an 'administrative doctrine' that made it possible on the one hand to claim that management was a profession with its own rules, thus consummating the break with leadership whose legitimacy derived from ownership, and on the other to pave the way for a professional education. It is not surprising that cadres recognized their own aspirations in this eulogy to professionalism and competence (against the legitimacy of patrimony that was the reference-point for the first spirit of capitalism), as in the importance assigned to education. Hence the second spirit of capitalism finds its most natural expression in management literature. Consequently, it is reasonable to suppose that such literature will likewise register changes and a trend towards other representations, or at least that it will echo the breakdown of the spirit of which it was the main vehicle. Our choice is, moreover, consistent with that of Werner Sombart or Max Weber. Sombart refers to the books of Leon Battista Alberti, whom he considers the perfect exemplar of the .bourgeois of the Quattrocento, on 'family government'.4 And Weber supplies a preliminary description of the spirit of capitalism by citing the writings of Benjamin Franklin ('Necessary Hints to Those That Would Be Rich', Advice to a Young Tradesman', 'Memoirs').5 These texts and the management literature we use belong to one and the same literary genre: works of advice and edification concerning the conduct of business (or the family economy). The choices of Weber and Sombart are also explained by the impact of the works they used, and this refers us today to the question of the impact of management literature on practice. Granted that realism is not a major feature of the texts studied - since their aim is to state what should be, not what is — it is nevertheless of some relevance to know to what extent they are read, are influential, and are thereby able to influence practices in the way intended by their authors. Failing this, they would not constitute an adequate object for 60 THE NEW SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM studying the establishment of a new dominant ideology. To do things properly, we would have to know the figures for the diffusion, reading, and utilization in teaching of the texts concerned. In the absence of institutional sources, however, this represents an extremely onerous task. We have skirted round this problem by not choosing a limited number of texts, like our illustrious predecessors, but constructing corpora with many more authors, which afford a representative panorama of the writings of a given period. Moreover, a reading of these texts discloses a high degree of homogeneity in the discourse and, in each of the periods considered, its general organization around a limited number of themes - to the extent that it might be wondered, faced with the marginal variation in the texts, whether such a profusion of texts is justified. This is doubtless the best indication of their ideological character with a vocation to become dominant. Their ideas are taken up, repeated, conveyed by various examples, pass nimbly from one relay to another (from one management journal to the next, from one author or editor to another, from management literature to the professional press for cadres, from the written word to lessons and specialist radio broadcasts). The upshot is that it is extremely difficult to attribute paternity of these bodies of rhetoric to authorial authorities. Their differences, which are often minimal, have the effect of offering various actors different ways of getting a handle on the orientations the authors seek to communicate, and identifying with them. As is no doubt the case with any body of texts that is performative in intent, particularly when the number and diversity of persons to be convinced are great, variation on a few mandatory themes constitutes a condition for effectively transmitting a message that can be broadcast only by being adjusted appropriately. We have therefore constituted two corpora comprising sixty texts each. The first corpus appeared in the 1960s (1959-69), the second in the 1990s (1989-94); and both deal, in whole or part, with the question of cadres, even if the latter are sometimes referred to by different terms {manager, directeur, chef, dirigeant, etc.). For each of the periods under consideration, these two corpora make it possible to bring out a typical image of what was recommended to firms as regards the type of cadre to employ, the way they should ideally be treated, and the kind of work that might appropriately be asked of them. Appendix 1 sets out the characteristics of the texts analysed, while Appendix 2 presents a bibliography of each corpus. The corpora thus constructed (more than a thousand pages) have been processed in two phases. In the first instance, we submitted them to a traditional analysis based on an extensive reading that aimed at an initial location of their authors' concerns, the solutions they proposed to the problems of their period, the image they offered of the inherited forms they declared to be outdated, and the various arguments advanced to effect the conversion of their readers. In a second phase, we used the analytical software Prospero@ (see Appendix 3) to corroborate our hypotheses and confirm, by means of specific indicators running through the body of texts, that our analysis did indeed reflect MANAGEMENT DISCOURSE IN THE 1990s 61 the general state of the corpus (not a personal bias with respect to certain themes that risked exaggerating their importance), and hence the general state of management literature in the relevant years. The option adopted is basically comparative. Emphasis has been placed on the differences between the two corpora, whereas constants have been paid less attention.6 Dumont observed that the comparative method is the most effective one in the study of ideologies, especially when they pertain to the world the analyst is immersed in, and their salient elements are difficult to identify without an external point of comparison.7 Here that point will be provided by historical distance. Besides, the image of their era reflected by the 1960s texts is decidedly different from what the 1990s texts have to say about it. Once again, we should not ask this kind of literature to afford us a balanced panorama of the past, since its aim is to suggest improvements, and hence to break up some of the mechanisms derived from established practices. It selects, and consequently magnifies, the factors it is rebelling against, ignoring features that might be more enduring and no less important. Analysing a change that is in the process of being effected, and in some respects remains embryonic, exposes one to the risk of being accused of naivety, even of complicity with one's object. It is true that in its modern forms - social evolutionism, prediction, futurology - prophecy has often been a powerful tool of mobilization and action. It can help to bring about what it describes (the self-fulfilling prophecy) or, in the case of certain prophecies of calamity, support reactionary opposition to reforms." From this viewpoint, one unmasks the 'ideological' character (in the sense of illusion, even deception) of some analysis of change, where those who promote it are simply taking their own desires or anxieties for reality. Positivist versions of this challenge often rely on a statistical description of reality. Descriptions of change are supposedly based on an illusion that takes the part for the whole and extrapolates from deliberately selected, unrepresentative cases, to impose a vision of the future for which serious empirical study of the current reality offers not the slightest confirmation. Thus, it will perhaps be objected that what we describe on the basis of management literature greatly exaggerates features that only marginally affect the operation of firms. The series of indicators assembled in Chapter 4, however, shows that there has already been considerable implementation of the mechanisms described in the literature. Moreover, it will be seen there that we do not possess all the requisite statistical data to bring out the relevant changes. The apparatus of statistical description rests, in fact, on equivalents that are homologous to those used in the established tests on which social selection mainly depended in the previous state. Hence — structurally, as it were - it does not constitute the most adequate tool for recording and counting the new forms of test, particularly when they are established gradually, under the impact of micro-displacements. 62 THE NEW SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM In addition, there is a mass of historical examples of descriptions of change that cannot, a posteriori, be said to have been without foundation, even though they were based on fragmentary, partial evidence - which furnished reasons for discrediting them in the name of factual realism. Thus, as Pierre Ansart has shown, Proudhon, spokesman for the artisans — who were a large majority in mid-nineteenth-century France — was statistically right against Marx, whose proletarian utopia seemed to be grounded in circumstances that were not prevalent at the time.5 Criticizing Peter Laslett for slighting the role played by the English East India Company and the Bank of England prior to the eighteenth century, Fernand Braudel writes as follows: [t]hese are familiar arguments: every time the volume of a leading sector is compared to the total volume of the whole economy, the larger picture reduces the exception to more modest or even insignificant proportions. I am not entirely convinced. The important things are those that have consequences and when these consequences amount to the modernizing of the economy, the 'business model' of the future, the accelerated pace of capital formation and the dawn of colonization, we should think more than once about them.10 When it is read for the purpose of deriving ideal types of the spirit of capitalism in the two periods, one of the striking features of management literature is a persistent concern with mobilizing and motivating personnel, especially cadres. 'How can we give work in firms some meaning?' is one of the central questions for the two generations, albeit in different ways. This signal fact is all we need to confirm us in our choice of sources for identifying transformations in the spirit of capitalism. Texts focused on the mobilization of cadres In the 1960s, what concerned our authors was motivating cadres, whereas in the 1990s, knowing how to engage them is treated as only one particular instance of the problems involved in mobilizing all employees. In the 1960s, there were various grounds for anxiety about the engagement of cadres. People wondered how the finest offspring of the bourgeoisie were to be enrolled in the service of capitalism: for example, the directors of business schools expressed concern over the 'weak attraction of business to elites', states Marvin Bower, director of the consultancy firm McKinsey and former president of the Harvard Business School (Bower, 1966). There was also a desire to obtain their unqualified positive involvement,1 or to avoid i 'You can buy someone's time, you can buy their physical presence in a given place, you can even buy a certain number of muscular movements an hour or a day. But you cannot buy loyalty — the devotion of hearts and minds. These things have to be earned', explains Fernand Borne (1966). MANAGEMENT DISCOURSE INTHE 1990s 63 people of 'talent' and 'great value' resigning to go to other firms that satisfied their aspirations better. A majority of the management texts dealing with cadres in the 1960s seeks solutions to involving the personnel whom 'the value of firms' consists in. It is said that their aspirations are not satisfied,11 that they 'expect more from their work', that 'through their work they want to play a useful role in society, to develop, to progress', and that 'the question is whether firms, with their traditional managerial style, are responding properly to these aspirations, and whether cadres feel that they can make a success of their life and not waste it' (Froissart, 1969). The pervasiveness in the texts of the time of works on motivation by the human relations school (with such mascot authors as Maslow, Herzberg or McClelland) bears witness to this general concern. Thirty years later, it seems that the problems have not changed much ('[e]very organization is in competition for its most essential resource: qualified, knowledgeable people': Drucker, 1992). But the problems of mobilization have increased as a result of redundancies or restructurings that are painful for the workforce.111 In both periods, it is recognized that profit is not a very inspiring goal.lv Cadres initially, in the 1960s, and then the workforce as a whole in the 1990s, wanted 'genuine reasons' for engaged commitment. 'If it is to attract high-caliber men from the colleges and graduate schools — let alone develop them into productive executives - every business leader must somehow demonstrate that his company and others do contribute to society — that business does more than just make money', we can read in Bower's work of 1966. In 1990, it is noted that '[i]n contrast to previous generations, [people] feel that a salary alone is small compensation if they have a sense that their work isn't contributing to the greater good' (Waterman, 1990). Thus, the firm must be 'a site for creating meaning, for shared goals, where everyone can simultaneously develop their personal autonomy and contribute to the collective project' (Genelot, 1992). For 'as Jean Giono said, "the main thing isn't to live, but to have a reason for living". However, he added: "and that isn't easy'" (BeHenger, 1992). ii 'The role they want to play exceeds what they are offered. ... This factual discrepancy, perhaps this time lag between declaration and aspiration, this ambiguity and discrepancy would appear to explain the discomfort of their current situation. ... Hence the difficulties currently being experienced by management: cadres are a problem' (Aumont, 1963). iii 'The attempt to reduce the workforce through productivity increases, the outsourcing of jobs and the relocation of manpower lead to a social fragmentation of economic actors and the risk of a rupture in the traditional socio-affective relationship between a firm and its wage-earners' (HEC, 1994). 'The same strategies excecuted unwisely and without concern for the organizational and human consequences will not produce continuing business benefits - especially if people withhold effort and commitment for fear of being displaced or to hedge their own bets against change' (Moss Kanter, 1992). iv 'It no longer goes without saying, for example, that the workforce conceives profit as the legitimate goal of the organization' (Blake and Mouton, 1964). 64 THE NEW SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM Thus giving a meaning to wage-labour, a spirit to capitalism, does indeed constitute an important concern on the part of management authors. We shall now examine what they proposed by way of response in each period. 2. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MANAGEMENT PROBLEMATIC FROM THE 1960S TO THE 1990S To bring out the changes in the spirit of capitalism over the last thirty years, we shall tackle the following points for each period in turn: (a) What problems do the authors pose? These indicate the way that problems are broached and analysed in a given period, and the implicit a prions that underly them, (b) What responses and solutions do they offer? (c) What aspects of the situation they are dealing with do they reject? In fact, the imposition of a new managerial norm is nearly always accompanied by criticism of a prior state of capitalism and a previous way of making profit, both of which must be abandoned to make way for a new model. We shall thus see that the management texts of the 1960s explicitly or implicitiy criticize familial capitalism, whereas the principal foil of the 1990s texts is large, bierarchized, planned organizations. Criticism of the old savoir faire and habits, which are presented as outmoded, is the way in which the relation between past and present functions in this literature bereft of historical memory. The 1960s: Pleas for target management In the management literature of the 1960s, two problems are tackled as a matter of priority: on the one hand, strong dissatisfaction on the part of cadres; and on the other, managerial problems bound up with the giant si^e of firms. Cadres, who (it is tirelessly repeated) are what a firm's value consists in, are not happy confined to the roles they play: first, that of technical expert — the typical cadre of the period was an engineer - and second, that of management relay, transmitting orders from above and taking up problems from below. They aspire to share decision-making power, to be more autonomous, to understand managerial policies, to be informed of the progress of business. This theme is present in numerous 1960s texts/ v 'Recognized in their role as a technical relay, cadres demand much more ... they feel unduly inserted into a rigid context: they feel that they are regimented and that they are suffocating ... they often complain about the narrowness of their room for initiarive; they find it difficult to tolerate not being extended broad trust' (Aumont, 1963). 'Cadres aspire more to "co-management". ... They suffer from not "knowing more about the situations on the basis of which objectives are fixed" and from not having "more real contact with the employer'. ... They think that the authority of their [bosses] would remain intact and even be strengthened if, rather than operating mysteriously, they acted in such a way as to elicit from their subordinates the maximum number of "voluntary acts conducive to the execution of decisions taken at the top'" (Bloch-Lainé, 1963). MANAGEMENT DISCOURSE IN THE 1990s 65 The history narrated to us refers to the emergence of cadres as a new social body accompanying the growth of firms. The separation of ownership and management was a veritable commonplace at the time, but there is still a need to refer to it, whereas the theme would be completely absent thirty7 years later. This was also because the desire for a detachment from family capitalism had been fulfilled by then, and it was no longer necessary to define what, by comparison with the owner-manager, was the still relatively novel category in postwar France of salaried managers. In the 1960s, cadres have a sense of embodying modernity, but feel cramped — especially the young, more academically qualified among them — by structures that have developed without a change in the centralized, quasi-autocratic managerial mode characteristic of small and medium-sized firms. Managers have simply added further levels of hierarchy, without conceding one iota of power. This analysis explains why the demand for autonomy by cadres is often accompanied by a description of the perverse effects of large bureaucratic machines." In addition, large firms inspire fear. They are presented as an enclave threatening freedom in democratic countries. If the rule of the small firm could seem like the realm of freedom, observers ponder the effects of bureaucratization on the distinctive value of the West in contrast to the communist bloc.™ From this point of view, the capitalist firm seems to share the same drawbacks as the collectivized or fascist firm."11 The solutions to such problems are termed decentralisation, meritocracy and management by objectives. The essential goal of the battle conducted by the 1960s vi 'In large firms, the boss maintains contact with departmental heads, but loses contact with those who carry out orders: his orders follow the hierarchical route; they are communicated and recommunicated many times, and are sometimes distorted in the process — or get held up, at any rate. Since individual initiative is not welcome, orders from on high must be numerous and detailed: paper rules.... The attritude of the workforce becomes passive. ... The individual is now only a cog in an anonymous whole, subject not to human beings but to regulations' {Borne, 1966). 'Gigantism always entails greater formality in relationships, from regulated formulas to a profusion of printed forms. It is even the case in some departments that individuals are known, represented and handled only via the numbered and encoded punched holes of a rectangle of cardboard. ... At this point, it obviously becomes difficult for them to keep their eyes fixed on the firm's ultimate goal' (Colin, 1964). vii 'As our business organizations have grown in size, limitations on individual freedom have become a matter of national concern. As John Garner says: "Ever;' thoughtful man today worries about the novel and subtle restraints placed on the individual by modern large-scale organization. ... A modern societ;' is — and must be — characterized by complex otganization. It is not a matter of choice. We must cope as best we can with the pressures that large-scale organization places on the individual'" (Bower, 1966). viü "But all these methods are merely "techniques" that have litde effect if they are not inspired by a "democratic" mentality on the part of managers. Moreover, this serious problem is as prevalent in collectivist-style firms as in capitalist firms' (Borne, 1966). 'These financial, mechanical and productivist mentalities have been reproduced in different doctrines by different political regimes. I do not need to remind you of national sodaKsm, or refer you to Stakhanovism, for you to recognize in Berlin or Moscow what Detroit, with Ford, had already taught' (Devaux, 1959). 66 THE NEW SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM authors is to impose these new managerial methods. Management by objectives emerges as an especially effective mechanism for giving cadres the autonomy they desire, and for decentralizing decision-making in such a way as to limit the disadvantages of bureaucratic gigantism, since decisions will then be taken close to those concerned. All cadres find themselves granted autonomy, but this remains firmly controlled: on the one hand, by job descriptions that permit detailed specification of the margin of autonomy conceded; on the other, by fixing targets for them in line with the firm's general policy. Cadres will henceforth be appraised by their realization of these targets — that is to say, by the degree of success in their work, not by kowtowing to superiors. They will be given a certain autonomy in organization, resources will be allocated to them, and they will be monitored on the basis not of each individual decision, but of the overall outcome. Thanks to this ingenious mechanism, employers retain control while implementing the reforms deemed necessary by consultants. Cadres thereby gain autonomy, and firms will be able to profit from a workforce that is motivated once again.'* Management by objectives has the further advantage of furnishing clear and reliable criteria for measuring performance, on which career management can then be based. Promotion will be given to those who meet their targets -that is to say, are effective — and not according to 'subjective criteria' that are deemed unjust. Management literature in the 1960s wants to sound the death knell of arbitrariness in personnel management. This is bound to motivate cadres, who will feel that they are being treated fairly.x The subsequent extension of management by objectives in large firms, and the wealth of detail and practical advice given by management authors, indicate that the stylized images and models of excellence that feature in management literature cannot be reduced to ideology, in the sense of a merely superficial discourse aiming — in order, for example, to satisfy the expectations of a new public - to present a mode of organization and management in a new light, while concealing its reproduction in identical form. The new managerial norm accompanies a set of measures intended to establish new mechanisms in firms. Even though, at the time these texts were written, such mechanisms were not as prevalent as some of their authors claimed, they were nevertheless in place, to varying degrees, in enough enterprises, and represented a sufficient break with old habits, to make this intense effort to ix 'There is presumably no business executive who works harder or more effectively than the successful individual proprietor of his own business in a free enterprise economy. He works with zest and determination. ... The payoff comes in accomplishment, not in effort... the challenge to large-scale enterprise is to create the work situation that puts every executive on his own as much as possible ... the most successful companies achieve this by making every executive responsible and accountable for his own decisions and actions' (Bower, 1966). x 'The system of sanctions must help to instil a rational order in firms, by ensuring that the fate of the efficient person differs from that of the inefficient one. This difference of treatment plays a key role in creating and maintaining efforts towards good administration, the motivation to manage things well' (Gélinier, 1966). MANAGEMENT DISCOURSE IN THE 1990s 67 explain and justify them necessary. As expressed in this literature, the spirit of capitalism is thus in a dialectical relationship with mechanisms whose implementation it accompanies and facilitates. The operating models and styles that serve as foils in the 1960s all pertain, to varying extents, to the logic of the 'domestic world'. What is rejected is consideration of 'personal judgements' - an open invitation to nepotism - in decisions about promotion, in favour of impersonal judgement' on the basis of results.*1 The new appraisal systems equally aim to abolish preferment on grounds of seniority, which rewards only loyalty - domestic value^r excellence - not efficiency, and also to reduce the (unjust) role played by social relationships in career success.™ Moreover, it is with these themes that discussion of the Trench case' becomes most specific. The elimination of forms of behaviour pertaining to a domestic logic is an urgent task in old Europe - particularly in France, which is still imbued with a feudal past of allegiances and privileges. Survivals of the Ancien Regime are ubiquitous, and the coup de grace must be adniinistered forthwith, emulating the example of the United States: the latter had the good fortune never to experience such constraints, and had been constructed as a society of equals from the outset. The adoption of American methods, which are more democratic but also more efficient, is felt to be a matter of survival in France, for the power of the United States is such that French authors fear being unable to resist an economic invasion (achieving 'American efficiency', but 'without colonization' [Froissart, 1969]. See also Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber's 1967 work, Le défi américain, which is entirely given over to this theme) .^ xi 'In fact, it is too often the case that judgements of this kind are more a reflection of the idea one has of someone than an assessment of their results. And the great weakness of this formula lies in an absence of performance criteria linked to job responsibilities ... cadres are repelled by being treated on the basis of their superiors' opinion of them. They start off by suspecting them of favouritism and end up asking for their results to be measured by more tangible criteria and by quantifiable goals that are plausible and trustworthy' (Patton and Starcher, 1965). 'Potential review is particularly susceptible to the "halo effect" where the boss, sometimes quite unconsciously, overestimates a man's qualities because they have common interests, or "He's always been a good chap"'(Humble, 1968). xii Tn France, a certain conservatism has long governed the pace of advance according to seniority, loyalty and, it must be said, social relationships (in which birth and class opinions weigh more than character)' (Bleton, 1967). xiii 'This accounts for the difference in attitude between European and American workers. In a young society like that of the United States, the weight of traditions and "hereditary" privileges is less than in Europe. ... In an old society like Europe, social barriers are important, the persistence of privileges greater, and class conflict deeper' (De Woot, 1968). At this level, we observe in most traditional societies a tendency ... to classify human beings in stable categories (social or mandarin castes), to revere stability, to make each person's destiny dependent upon those of his characteristics that are deemed essential, rather than on his practical adaptation to efficient action' (Gélinier, 1966). 'Compared with European businesses, most American companies already have a large element of self-government. Perhaps this is because, as [Clement] Greenwalt indicated, our business methods incorporate in some measure the spirit of the American Revolution as reflected in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. ... In any event, European business practice typically calls for stricter control and more detailed instructions from the top' (Bower, 1966). 68 THE NEW SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM In the 1960s, the premium put on merit is coupled in those with the strongest convictions with a critique of academic qualifications when they procure lifelong advantages.3™ It must be noted that on this point at least, the reformists of the period failed, since the criticism has come down to us virtually unchanged. Even if the point is not always dealt with explicitly in management literature, legitimation of cadres has as its negative converse the delegitirnation of traditional employers, with criticism of their meanness, authoritarianism and irresponsibility. Especially denigrated ate small employers, accused of abusing their property rights, confusing the firm's interests with those of their family, incompetent members of which are put in responsible positions,1™ and endangering not only their own firm but society as a whole, by ignoring modern techniques for managing organizations and marketing products. This operation of symbolic separation between salaried cadres on the one side and patrimonial employers on the other - in conformity with the diffusion of theories of the firm opposing managers to owners — had, moreover, existed from the category's origin. Following the 1936 strikes, the first unions for cadres, derived from engineers' associations, had been compelled to exclude employers from their ranks and recognize the validity of a distinction that had hitherto been irrelevant for them. Management literature in the 1960s thus accompanies the transition from a patrimonial bourgeoisie centred on the personal firm to a bourgeoisie of managers, who are salaried, academically qualified, and integrated into large public or private managements.11 Comparison with the 1990s allows us to clarify this sketch. The 1960s project aimed at the liberation of cadres and relaxation of the bureaucracy that developed out of the centralization and growing integration of ever larger firms. The 1990s project was to present itself as a continuation of this process, taking up the themes of anti-bureaucratic struggle and autonomy. Even so, the 1960s proved respectful of the 'profession of boss'. Emancipation of cadres occurs against the background of a hierarchy that goes unchallenged. There are recommendations to clarify it,xv' not to add reactionary symbols of xiv 'In practice, we have seen that employers, lacking objective criteria for assessing the abilities of cadres, and obliged to rely on their intuition as to individuals' personal worth, assign undue importance to academic qualifications - as if having one day succeeded in a competition were irrefutable proof of a capacity to hold senior positions in the hierarchy' (Froissart, 1969). xv 'The unimpressive curriculum vitae of some employers' sons might be caricatured as follows: unexacting study - the father thinks his own case demonstrates that study is not of much use; after completing military service, the son enters Papa's firm and spends two years doing the rounds of the departments - three months in each department to see (like a tourist) what goes on there without assuming any responsibilities; then he is given an ill-defined managerial task (organization, supervision of administration), or - worse still - his father makes him take his place in his office, so as to be directly associated with management problems (whereas the young man lacks the requisite basic experience); given that his duties as a barely competent management assistant afford him free time, he is charged with various tasks representing the firm and ultimately, at the age of 35, unless he has a strong personality, he has been deformed rather than formed' (Gélinier, 1963). xvi '[It is necessary] to determine authority relationships among positions. ... This will ensure that every person knows who lůs boss is, who his subordinates are, and what type and extent of authority he is subject to and can exercise' (Bower, 1966). MANAGEMENT DISCOURSE IN THE 1990s 69 domination to it/™ to avoid bypassing subordinates by addressing their teams directly.™" But suppression or circumvention of hierarchy is never recommended. On the contrary, the point is to base it on merit and responsibility, and give it a new legitimacy by stripping it of the domestic ties that render it both inefficient and unjust. It will likewise be observed that the project of the 1960s was largely realized, since the texts from those years that we have read frequently contain forms of deference and expressions of authority pertaining to the domestic world, which have subsequently disappeared from management literature. The difficulties of extricating oneself from the domestic world, even for advocates of change, once again clearly demonstrate the anchorage of management literature in a reality whose forms are to be transformed (it is not merely a matter of manipulating signs). Moreover, they confer sincerity on the authors in their reformist desire, since they carefully, more or less unconsciously, sift out what it is advisable to preserve, what they are attached to, and what it is important to reject in their domestic heritage. Thus, for example, Octave Gélinier (1963), future director-general of the consultancy firm Cegos, where he has worked as trainer and engineering consultant since 1947, convinced liberal and tireless advocate in France of management by objectives, devotes several pages to the thorny question of 'making cadres redundant'. Ultimately, we are given to understand, it is important to make a cadre who has committed a few misappropriations, however minor, redundant, even if that cadre is competent and efficient; contrariwise, it is unjust to do the same thing to an 'old servant who has become inefficient'.5-"151 These are two infringements of the principle of efficiency - one in the name of morality, the other in the name of loyalty. Gélinier nevertheless has every opportunity to conceal them afterwards by invoking the risk of demotivating other cadres in the firm and, consequently, referring to an efficiency constraint after all: the rhetorical argument that 'ethics pays'. This was to enjoy a vogue with the business ethics movement in the 1990s (in which Gélinier himself took a very active part), and is an indirect way, frequently employed in management texts, of introducing moral references without appearing to impede the profit imperative. What makes this text of Gélinier's strikingly dated is not the nature of the dilemmas faced, which remain xvii 'The position held in the organization chart is sufficient indication of seniority ranking without such pointless symbols as different office furniture. To minimize these symbols is not to abolish the notion of hierarchical ranks, which is inherent in firms because some functions are more essential than others when it comes to realizing objectives or because some people contribute more than others to fixing these objectives' (Hughes, 1969). .xviii 'Having defined the remit and powers of his subordinates, the head must not interfere in these delegated domains' (Hugonnier, 1964). xix 'Purely and simply dismissing this old servant, who is one of the firm's founders morally speaking, rejecting him like a tool that has become useless, is to perform a bad deed which, moreover, will create a disastrous climate of insecurity among cadres: it is therefore unacceptable' (Gélinier, 1963). 70 THE NEW SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM altogether current, but the fact that he devotes several pages to diem. Making cadres redundant, which still represented a problem for this author, generally appears much more legitimate in management literature today. At the outset shocking, the 'major restructurings' of the 1980s ended up making redundancies accepted as 'normal' acts of management. And if the unemployment of cadres is present in the 1990s corpus, the question of redundancy is ignored. As another indication of the pervasiveness of the domestic world even among those who struggle to be rid of it, we shall cite Louis Allen (1964), who peppers his plea for decentralization with remarks intended to preserve managerial power. Thus, a manager inspires and encourages, but can just as legitimately have recourse to power, and cadres must not be led to believe that they can decide everything and comment on everything just because they áre permitted to 'participate'.** The 1990s: Towards a model of the firm as network Depending on the angle they are considered from, the questions posed by authors in the 1990s appear different or identical. They are identical inasmuch as they take up the critique of bureaucracy begun in the 1960s and press it to a conclusion: hierarchy is a form of co-ordination to be excluded in that it is based on domination; it is now a question of liberating not only cadres but all wage-earners. They are different in so far as new themes, such as competitive pressures and consumer demand, become central. The rejection in the 1990s of hierarchy (which, following economists of transaction costs, characterizes the 'organization' in so far as it differs from the 'market5) is all the more striking in that the readership of the authors concerned basically consists of the cadres of large groups and multinationals, which, notwithstanding all their efforts, will have difficulty dispensing with hierarchies. The grounds invoked to justify this anti-hierarchical charge are often moral in character, and partake of a more general refusal of dominant-