Economic Barbarism and Managerialism

by David S. Pena

Overview

Challenging the view that managerialism is a form of capitalism and that capitalism has eclipsed socialism, Pena shows that the managerial or new class is an exploiting class. The work of Thorstein Veblen, James Burbanham, John Kenneth Galbraith, and Kevin Phillips, he suggests, forms a little-known century-long tradition of reflection on the managerial revolution as well as on the conflux of values and socioeconomic practices that Pena dubs economic barbarism. Building on the work of these thinkers, he argues that industrial barbarism and the managerial revolution led to the decline of U.S. capitalism and its replacement by managerialism, a form of nationalistic socialism in which educated white-collar personnel employed by the state and corporate bureaucracies have become a new exploiting class that receives the bulk of the national wealth. Thus managerialism replaced industrial barbarism with a new form of economic barbarism.

This managerial barbarism has fostered an unequal distribution of wealth that has penalized the middle and lower classes with stagnant or declining incomes, growing job insecurity, unemployment, and underemployment. Unless managerialism can find a way out of persistent poverty and declining living-wage job opportunities, these problems are likely to continue afflicting a sizable portion of the population. If managers put an end to economic barbarism, they have a chance to create a society characterized by generalized prosperity, leisure, and opportunity. It is more likely, however, that economic barbarism will continue to be an integral part of managerialism and, consequently, managerialism will face a sudden social upheaval or a gradual decline.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313314698
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	11/30/2000
Series:	Contributions in Economics and Economic History , #221
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.56(d)

About the Author

DAVID S. PENA is an independent scholar and adjunct philosophy instructor at Florida Atlantic University./e His research interests lie at the intersection of philosophy, economics, and history.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Thorstein Veblen on Industrial Barbarism
James Burbanham on the Decline of Industrial Barbarism and Rise of Managerialism
John Kenneth Galbraith on the Planning System Morass
Kevin Phillips on Economic Barbarism in the 1980s and 1990s
Managerialism's Greatest Challenge
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

Pena (philosophy, Atlantic Florida U.) works mostly at the frontiers between philosophy, economics, and history. Here he argues that the socioeconomic phenomenon he calls economic barbarism plagues managerial society as thoroughly as it did capitalism before managerialism replaced it. He warns that if it continues to destabilize society, managers will be forced to replace the present connection between employment and income with principles of distribution that rely on nonmarket methods. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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