Thoughts on production, alienation, and ideology
These are posts on the corporate world from the blog Base and Superstructure. The corporate world is complex. It’s confusing to anyone not involved. Corporate life has its own characteristic forms, language, jargon, and mannerisms. Neoliberalism structures our politics and thought, and so this is also a major focus of these posts. The non-profit corporate sector is its own distinct mini-world. And, in particular, spending significant time involved in corporate life engenders a special form of ennui. All of these subtopics feed off of one another. Each is critical to thinking about corporate life and its role in the United States.
The corporate world thrives on turning words and concepts against themselves. Here’s one common way it does that: It begins from a participatory and democratic concept, and then it turns it into something that’s neither of those things. It works this magic on everything from social justice to work itself. Perhaps, dear reader, your boss even wants to ’empower’ you. Beware.
Let’s take a moment to talk about this wicked troll – ’empower.’
I’ve put my focus for the year in 2021 on issues in the corporate world. I’ve focused in particular on the role the business world plays in our lives. But, so far, my focus has (mostly) stayed away from education. Let’s change that a bit with a brief discussion of EdTech.
The education system relates to the tech world in lots of ways. I’ll sum this up with a quote from Noam Chomsky.
I read an article recently in Catalyst on the phenomenon of ‘NGOism.’ Here’s the basic idea: NGOs and other non-profit organizations tend to increase the influence of the private sector on social welfare systems. In addition, the internal logic of NGO orgs (501c3 status, funding methods, et al.) prevent them from seriously challenging the capitalist system. It also pushes them toward endorsing technocratic approaches to problems and prevents them from treating politics as the playing out of conflicts over class interests.
There’s not a lot here that’s new. NGOism sounds pretty familiar. People have criticized them many times along these linkes. And we know some of the other problems related to NGOism: low pay in the sector, and so on.
But after reading the article, I thought about local implications. Here’s one way NGOism plays out in my city. I serve on our city Housing and Community Development Commission. Among other tasks, we award lots of money to NGOs and non-profits.
The business world loves talking about transparency. Leaders strive for it. Consultants tell them to create a ‘culture of transparency.’ Peddlers of business trends and fads trumpet it. All of them say it’ll open up leadership decisions to more worker input, ’empower’ staff, and so on.
Readers of this blog likely know I roll my eyes at all this stuff. It’s annoying, yes, but it’s also troubling in many (often unintentional) ways. Let’s take a quick look.
I want to pick up a thread from three recent posts on the Agile business approach. This thread concerns the role of project management and project managers – two different roles, as we’ll see.
In those other posts, I pointed out – among other things – that Agile concerns product development, not product management. But I pointed out that – at a deeper level – project managers serve a role in the system of class struggle underneath Agile. Beyond that, they often serve in roles oddly parallel of those of middle managers.
Let’s ask another question along those lines: do companies really need project managers? At all? Even on their own terms (i.e., profit and loss)?
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