Management's critical turn: a critique of Adler's "paleo-marxism"

Authors

James Reveley, University of WollongongFollow

RIS ID

37889

Publication Details

Reveley, J. (2011). Management's critical turn: a critique of Adler's "paleo-marxism". Science and Society: a journal of marxist thought and analysis, 75 (3), 325-347.

Abstract

Originated by Paul Adler, paleo-Marxism represents the fullest engagement with Marx's work by a management scholar in the American milieu. As the pinnacle of Marxist thinking within Critical Management Studies, paleo-Marxism merits critical attention. By focusing on technological change, Adler aims to overcome contemporary poststructuralist labor process theory's subjectivism. When subjected to a fine-grained analysis, however, paleo-Marxism is revealed to be equally deficient. Adler compounds the labor process theorists' neglect of Marx's discoveries about how capital is valorized; he prioritizes the subjective matter of recognition at the expense of redistribution; and he fails to explain adequately the crisis potential of technical progress. Only a wholly new Marxist version of Critical Management Studies, one with a ¿crisis sites¿ model at its core, can surmount paleo-Marxism's inherent weaknesses.