Managerial Capitalism: Ownership, Management and the Coming New Mode of Production

Abstract

After having become famous in recent decades, inside and outside the Marxist field, for their critical analyzes of neoliberalism, Duménil and Lévy develop in the book the controversial thesis that we are in a transition between modes of production. To support it, they continue to rely on Marx, but with modifications. One of them, explained at the beginning, is that, although the bases of the Marxian theory of history are correct, the present relations of production would not be heading towards a classless society, but towards “managerialism”: a dominated mode of production by the “managerial class” (mainly financial). This is defined as the upper layer in command of companies, the economic leadership core, and governments, the political leadership core; a group with its own interests. The current historical moment would therefore be one of hybridity, in which capitalists, managers and popular classes would coexist.