I knew Gerry Hanlon from my undergrad days at the University of Nottingham. I can’t remember the name of the module but I do remember it as one of my earliest introduction to many classic works I now know inside and out: Braverman’s Labour & Monopoly Capitalism, Burowoy’s Manufacturing Consent and Richard Edwards Contested Terrain amongst others. Each of these works addressed the same fundamental questions: how does capitalism reproduce itself and with what consequences? What role does capital play in embedding and perpetrating unequal power relations? How does management maintain the status-quo in strategic, tactical and/or ideological terms?
As the title suggests Hanlon is particularly interest in the last of these questions, although his argument and emphasis is interwoven with the other two. On management he makes three points; firstly, he argues that the foremost duty of management (as an aggregate entity) has been to “recast the subject,” both as a worker and consumer. Obviously nobody comes out of the womb as dutiful and obedient members of the working class, they have to be institutionalised or managed into these roles through indoctrinating mechanisms. A clear example is the overarching prominence of “human capital theory” in schools and education. This instils into young people the notion that their core duty is to ensure their acceptability to employers via competitive development of skill profiles and CVs. Such early life mechanisms are then buttressed by countless others through their careers and working lives, many falling within the domain of HRM.
Hanlon’s next point on management is that it is fundamentally a parasitic class. He makes it most convincingly through historical analysis of management’s appropriation of the skills and expertise that formerly resided in workers in the craft and gilded eras. In historical terms management is a thief whose legitimacy therefore has no historical basis. Looked at in another way, in the pre-modern era management services were effectively a free gift of skilled labour who were more than capable of self-managing. Thus there was/is no need for “modern” management, who charge a huge fee for oversight and interventions into the labour process that are often of dubious value at best. Hence it is parasitic nature, management adds nothing (i.e. everything it does was done before without the existence of an expansive and expensive management class) but takes a lot.
So if management adds no value why does it exist? The answer to this question brings to Hanlon to his 3rd point: the essence of management is class-war from above. It is a “middle class” of actors that capital has utilised to divide, conquer and enfeeble the productive class (i.e. the “working class). This leads Hanlon to argue throughout the book that neo-liberalism and management are one and the same thing, both cause and consequence of one another. As he concludes “Management uses violence against us physically, through cognition and through affect. Ultimately, it is neo-liberal class struggle from above.” (p.202)
What makes this argument significant is that it challenges the notion that neo-liberalism (unlike management) is a recent phenomenon, often seen as a project that took hold in the 80’s under the auspices of Hayek et al. For Hanlon management was a cofounding expression of neo-liberalism which is why he refers to it as “the first neo-liberal science.”
In simple terms neo-liberalism is “capitalism with the gloves off” or “capitalism on steroids.” Historical analysis makes clear that Western capitalism has never exhibited a cuddly stakeholder model but rather, has served the agenda of class war since its early inception. In relation, it is perhaps the case that management’s most impressive accomplishment is the ideological victory of convincing the world of its necessity. and value As said, In historical terms neither claim seems true and yet the value and legitimacy of management is rarely questioned, such is the overwhelming pervasiveness of cradle-to-grave indoctrination. By managing subjectivity (as discussed above) you frame perceptions of what is normal or abnormal, legitimate or illegitimate.
In summary, management is not a necessary class of actors in an economic sense according to Hanlon. In light of this it has to be seen as a cultural and ideological entity instead, charged in the first instance with doing elites’ dirty work so as to ever enhance its wealth and power resources. The profound growth of inequality in the West suggests that management has done its (real) job very effectively, and it gets a nice fat cut (executive pay, stock options, etc.) for its “contribution.” The price however is paid by society (and of course the environment – which Hanlon barely discusses), which are exponentially degraded in pursuit of marginal appropriation.
I’m not known for reading upbeat books so “The Dark Side of Management” is true to form. What it leaves me with is a profound wish that people would discover for themselves the real history of how our institutions (including management) developed and in whose interest. Sadly, as Hanlon rightly identifies, generations of managers have largely managed this type of curiosity out of existence.
Dr Martin James 