The Self as Enterprise

Foucault and the Spirit of 21st Century Capitalism

Peter Kelly

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9780754649632
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317016410
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Twenty first century, flexible capitalism creates new demands for those who work to acknowledge that all aspects of their lives have come to be seen as performance related, and consequently of interest to those who employ them (or fire them). At the start of the 21st century we can identify, borrowing from Max Weber, new work ethics that provide novel ethically slanted maxims for the conduct of a life, and which suggest that the cultivation of the self as an enterprise is the life-long activity that should give meaning, purpose and direction to a life. The book provides an innovative theoretical and methodological approach that draws on the problematising critique of Michel Foucault, the sociological imagination of Zygmunt Bauman and the work influenced by these authors in social theory and social research in the last three decades. The author takes seriously the ambivalence and irony that marks many people's experience of their working lives, and the demands of work at the start of the 21st century. The book makes an important contribution to the continuing debate about the nature of work related identities and the consequences of the intensification of the work regimes in which these identities are performed and regulated. In a post global financial crisis (GFC) world of sovereign debt, austerity and recession the author's analysis focuses academic and professional interest on neo-liberal injunctions to imagine ourselves as an enterprise, and to reap the rewards and carry the costs of the conduct of this enterprise.

CHAPTER 1
FROM KEVIN 07 TO KEVIN 24/7

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Previous generations of the Australian Right have been variously dominated by oldstyle conservatives or social liberals: Deakin, Menzies, Fraser, Peacock and others. All supported the welfare state as a form of social insurance and an institutional corrective against market fundamentalism. This partly explains why, in the period of Deakinite Liberalism, it was possible for a number of Right–Left alliances to be formed to secure the passage of what can be described (in the context of the times) as progressive legislation. The Harvester Judgement of 1907, which legislated a minimum wage based on Justice Henry Bourne Higgins’ determination of a living wage ‘for human beings living in a civilised community’ – defined not by market forces but rather from an entirely different values-base – is a case in point.

John Howard, though, has always wanted to overturn the Harvester Judgement (as David McKnight has noted, Howard said in 1983 that ‘the time has come to turn Mr Justice Higgins on his head’), and he was finally delivered his political dream when, following the 2004 election, his Senate majority enabled him to legislate away a century of hard-won protections for Australian families. But in doing so, Mr Howard is also in the process of unleashing new forces of market fundamentalism against youth workers; families trying to spend sufficient time together; and communities trying to negotiate with single, major employers experimenting with their newfound powers. Breadwinners are now at risk of working less predictable shifts, spread over a seven-day week, not sensitive to weekends and possibly for less take-home pay. The pressures on relationships, parenting and the cost and quality of childcare are without precedent.

Kevin Rudd (2006) Howard’s Brutopia: The Battle of Ideas in Australian Politics

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At the end of 2007 the Australian electorate voted out – after 11 years – the conservative government of John Howard (leader of a Liberal/National Party coalition). They voted to replace this conservative government with the social democratic Labor Party led by Kevin Rudd. Kevin 07 – as his marketing machine dubbed him in the lead up to the election – was seen by many commentators to be a younger, possibly more progressive, but certainly not a radically different version of the then 68-year-old Howard. For these commentators Kevin Rudd, and the government that he would lead, was best characterised as socially progressive (in areas such as the environment, indigenous affairs and education) but, significantly, economically conservative. I am not a political scientist and this book is not about this election campaign and the change of government (see Brett 2007 for an account of these events/processes). However, there are some aspects of the Labor Party’s policies and the work practices, even work ethic, of Kevin Rudd and some of his senior ministers that are of interest in terms of what I want to do in this book. Some of these issues are hinted at in the opening quote to this chapter where Rudd’s concerns about the Howard government’s industrial relations policies, and their claimed impact on working families and work–life balance issues, are situated against a tradition of conservative support for legislative protection for working people against the harshest excesses of unfettered free markets.

During the 11 years of conservative government from 1996 to 2007 the ways in which the Australian labour market was imagined and regulated were transformed by a series of legislative processes, and, as I will argue throughout this book, by cultural, technological and economic transformations that have changed the nature and meanings of work and the sorts of behaviours and dispositions imagined as being necessary for ongoing participation in paid labour. However, and at the risk of sounding repetitive so early in a book, I am not a human resources or industrial relations expert, and a history of these changes is not my chief concern here. Notwithstanding my claims about what this book is not about, a significant element of the Labor Party’s election campaign revolved around a prolonged attack on the Howard government’s Work Choices industrial relations policy, and a pledge to overturn many of the principles and practices that shaped and emerged from Work Choices. Much of this campaign came to be framed by an oft-repeated reference to Australia’s working families: a phrase, a signifier, a metaphor that was designed to hail, call out to, even interpellate, large numbers of working and middle class, mortgage holding, wage and salary earning family members who might come to recognise themselves, their circumstances, their concerns and anxieties, their aspirations in ways framed by Kevin 07, the Labor Party and their campaign strategists. One of the central concerns of working families, it was suggested, were the demands placed on families by uncaring, even hostile employers who were chiefly interested in extracting as much surplus value from wage and salary earners as possible in the pursuit of performance, productivity and profits. Such employers, it was claimed, were uninterested in family and carer responsibilities; in family members being able to spend time together in the pursuit of a variety of non-employment related activities; in the different demands different family members might have to meet that could clash with the expectations of paid employment. Women, single parents and young people were held to be especially vulnerable in these contexts. Most paid labour markets, it was suggested, still operated with the model of the ideal worker as male and unencumbered by carer/family responsibilities as a consequence of being single or having the support of a good woman (wife, mother, housekeeper).

The mythology/symbolism of working families played powerfully in the campaign: in concert with a variety of other factors it was a significant element in Labor’s victory (Brett 2007).

Fast forward to May 2008. The Labor government has been in office nearly six months and is in the middle of its first significant, prolonged policy dilemma in the context of the Global Financial Crisis, and a sharp rise in petrol prices driven by supply and demand issues and speculative activity in futures and commodities markets. At this time a number of confidential Cabinet documents were leaked to the media: these pointed, apparently, to conflicting advice and dissenting voices in relation to policy responses to these issues. Once again, my claim to a lack of expertise and interest in political science would suggest that my focus on these events lies in a different direction to any possible comment or analysis about the politics (personalities, processes, policy machinations) at play here. Indeed, my interest here – and it is one that attracted much media commentary at the time – is that these leaks allegedly came from disgruntled, even over-worked and stressed, middle ranking and senior public servants who were said to be angry at the apparently uncaring, even hostile demands by their employer to work excessive hours with little regard for their other commitments and responsibilities as members of working families: ‘From the early weeks of the new Government’s tenure, there has been complaints about workload, the demands being made on both ministerial staff and public servants, and whether the relentless pace demanded by the Prime Minister dubbed “Kevin 24/7” is sustainable’ (Grattan, 2008).

The front page of the Melbourne based The Age newspaper of 31 May 2008 features a large picture (one quarter of the broadsheet sized page) of Kevin Rudd in an unbuttoned blue shirt (sans jacket) poring over briefing documents, head resting on his left hand. He sits at a desk/table behind a place card that identifies him as Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister. In the top left hand corner of the photo is the headline that accompanies the story: It’s 24/7 if you want to work for Kevin … (Grattan, 2008). In the bottom left hand corner is a quote attributed to Rudd (extracted from the story) that says, ‘I believe that the Australian community at large expect all of us to work really hard.’ In the article itself these words are preceded by the following quote, which is also attributed to Rudd: ‘“One of the criticisms we’ve got … which I find remarkable, is that we’re working too hard … We are elected to govern … and the public service are here to support the Government … It is hard … ”.’

The article’s author, The Age’s respected political editor Michelle Grattan, begins her story with another quote from Rudd: ‘“Frankly I do believe in burning the midnight oil,” Kevin Rudd declared yesterday, in face of ever-louder groans from weary public servants. The trouble is, he also lights the burner before dawn. As one public service talk back caller told ABC radio yesterday, “Fair go, if you are on board early in the day, don’t expect them to be there late at night too”.’ Grattan – who in this article at least was sceptical of the claimed link between stressed, disgruntled, over-worked public servants and the series of cabinet leaks – nonetheless sketches and reports on an apparently gruelling, round-the-clock work cycle in particular parts of the Prime Minister’s office, and related Cabinet and media offices: a schedule that she claims has much to do with a 24/7 media cycle.

Since the time of these stories from the early days of a new government, the political landscape in Australia is much altered. Kevin Rudd was replaced as Prime Minister by a party revolt in June 2010. His replacement, one-time loyal deputy Julia Gillard, took the country to the polls in an election in August 2010, which resulted in the Labor Party forming a minority government with the support of independent and Green members of parliament.

Now it is possible that much of this story is, in truth (a nebulous concept in the 24/7 globalised, (old and new) media environment in which politics is played), a media beat-up. It is possible that the anonymous callers to talk back radio are not, in fact, disgruntled, or stressed, or over-worked, or even public servants. But in the context of the story to be told in this book the truthfulness (or otherwise) of these elements is not my concern (again!). Rather, I am interested in the ways in which Kevin 07, who so passionately and successfully – and in his own words – called out to the concerns and aspirations of working families, could, so quickly and stridently – again in his own words – be re-cast as Kevin 24/7. A re-casting that – through his own words – positioned him as a demanding, relentless, uncaring boss who, apparently, is unable to understand that his advisors may have other things to do in their life other than work or be on call 24/7: ‘“I understand … that some public servants are finding the hours a bit much … I’ve simply got news for the public service – there’ll be more … The work ethic of this government will not decrease, it will increase”’ (Grattan 2008, 1).

(NEW) WORK ETHICS?

The figure of Kevin 24/7, and the demands that are placed on those who work for such a figure, speaks directly to some of my key concerns about work, the way it is imagined, regulated and performed, and its role in many people’s lives at the start of the twenty-first century. This story of the morphing of Kevin 07 into Kevin 24/7 says something about the ways in which the concept, the idea, the symbolism of the work ethic can continue to be invoked to position your government, yourself, in a virtuous space in relation to those who apparently don’t share or exhibit this ethic. The idea of the work ethic, it would seem, is not dead. It continues to have some purchase in what might be called the popular imagination.

Such a figure also alludes, a little less directly, a little ambiguously, even ironically, to the ways in which I want to explore the issues that interest me here. This approach should become clearer as the discussion develops – particularly through the two chapters that immediately follow. My intent is to draw on existing research; on a mix of theoretical and methodological traditions; on metaphors, allusions, figures to be found in, or which shape, a variety of cultural artefacts and conversations about persons, about work, about the self in twentieth and twenty-first century capitalism. These ideas, forms of data, existing artefacts will be examined and analysed in ways that suggest that at the start of the twenty-first century we can identify new work ethics that provide novel ethically slanted maxims for the conduct of a life (Weber 2002). That at the start of the twenty-first century, in the globalised, risky labour markets of the over-developed economies, the cultivation of the self as an enterprise is the life-long activity that should give meaning, purpose and direction to a life.

From the outset such a bald or bold statement should provoke some caution, even scepticism. Much of what follows will pay heed to that caution and scepticism. Indeed, my main purpose in this book is not so much to present and analyse evidence that would establish, beyond doubt, that the cultivation of the self as enterprise is the one thing that gives meaning and purpose to life at the start of the twenty-first century. What I intend, instead, is to think of what it means to imagine the self as enterprise. How does such a formulation enable us to think about such things as the forms of personhood demanded by globalised, precarious labour markets, and the character and consequences of such things as freedom, choice, responsibility, autonomy and power in these spaces?

At the turn of the twentieth century Max Weber published his provocative and highly influential essay The Protestant Ethic and the ‘Spirit’ of Capitalism. At a very general level Weber’s purpose was to explore the particular virtues that should be seen as attaching to work, and the particular influence that certain Protestant sects had on articulating these virtues. One hundred years later it may be timely to describe and analyse the particular virtues and ethical injunctions that attach to work in twenty-first century, globalised, flexible capitalism – a context in some ways similar to the one that Weber set out to explore, but one, also, that is markedly different.

In this task I will take as my guide the work of one of the most influential thinkers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, Michel Foucault (for example, 1978, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1991a). I use the term guide with a particular purpose in mind. This purpose will be made clearer in the following chapter. A guide can provide direction, openings, suggestions and provocations without determining, in advance, each step or the point of arrival. The work of Foucault can, in different ways, open possibilities for exploring the limits of thinking about the issues I identify here, for writing about them, for imagining where and how it is that we might look at these issues.

Hence the title of this book. A title that makes reference to the provocations of individuals whose work can be seen as opening up new avenues for thinking about the ways in which we are encouraged, even compelled to imagine ourselves as workers, or as persons who want to work. In these conceptual spaces I will situate what I understand as an ethic of enterprise. This ethic provides frameworks for coming to know and understand how one should act, behave and think in relation to specific ends, and in particular, limited, fields of possibilities. These ethics are culturally and historically located; they are produced and circulated within generalised, and more specific, configurations of time and space – such as families, relationships, schools, offices, factories, communities. These frameworks function as truths in terms of the ways in which they are translatable through time and space; in the ways in which they have, and produce, significant resonances in particular times and spaces.

CHAPTER 2
NEW WORK ETHICS AND THE SELF AS ENTERPRISE

NEW WORK ORDERS?

Much of my interest with what I am calling new work ethics and the self as enterprise will be situated in relation to recent and continuing debates about the nature of work related identities and the consequences of the intensification of the work regimes in which these identities are produced, regulated and performed. These discussions are set against an apparently profound transformation of the world of work in economies such as the US and Canada, the UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand – which is not to suggest that in an increasingly globalised context these economies are identical in the various forms of regulation that shape participation in paid labour markets. These concerns are made explicit in a number of best selling texts, including Richard Sennett’s (1998) The Corrosion of Character and (2006) The Culture of the New Capitalism, Ulrich Beck’s (2000) The Brave New World of Work, Zygmunt Bauman’s (2001) The Individualized Society and (2005a) Work, Consumerism and the New Poor, and Jeremy Rifkin’s The End of Work (1995). These texts have in common a sense that processes of globalisation, energised and enabled by electronically enabled, microprocessor based technologies, and accompanied by radicalised narratives of competition and performance, have profoundly transformed both the material reality of paid work in many of the industrialised nations, and the ways in which those who want to work should be imagined.

In this literature reference is made to the emergence of widespread anxieties and uncertainties as individuals work away at their own Do-It-Yourself (DIY) biographical projects in increasingly globalised settings (Beck, 1992). Broadly speaking, it is suggested that a globalising risk society has restructured the demand for labour intensive manufacturing and service jobs, and witnessed the emergence of an increased demand for flexibility, casualisation, up-skilling, multiskilling, life-long learning, and core and peripheral workforces. These processes have rendered the world of paid work uncertain and risky for most, if not all, participants and those who wish to participate in various labour markets. What is more, these labour markets are segmented and shaped by age, gender, ethnicity, ability and geography – a structuring that profoundly impacts on individual and collective experiences of these labour markets. For Ulrich Beck (2000, 3) in the brave new world of work ‘one future trend is clear. For a majority of people, even in the apparently prosperous middle layers, their basic existence and lifeworld will be marked by endemic insecurity. More and more individuals are encouraged to perform as a “Me & Co.”, selling themselves on the marketplace’.

Zygmunt Bauman has been a key, and provocative (therefore controversial), contributor to these sorts of debates. Anthony Elliott (2007, 3–18) argues that Bauman ranks as ‘one of the world’s most influential social theorists and politically engaged public intellectuals’, whose theory of liquid life provides a ‘reflective reconfiguration of the institutional and personal domains for the analysis of modern societies’. Bauman’s (2000, 2003, 2004, 2005b, 2006, 2007, 2008a, 2008b) prolific, innovative and suggestive cultural sociologies of liquid life have opened up a range of possibilities for exploring the globalised social, cultural, economic and political landscapes of the twenty-first century. For Bauman (1997, 119) a cultural sociology of liquid life is informed by a sociological imagination that embraces a ‘tolerance and equanimity towards the wayward, the contingent, the not-wholly determined, the not-wholly understood and the not-wholly predictable’.

At this time it is worth sketching some of the central features of Bauman’s thesis on liquid life to situate a sense of some of the limits and possibilities, some of the ironies and ambiguities that should attach to, and frame our thinking about processes of individualisation and choice in the liquid lifeworlds (work, family, consumption) of the twenty-first century. For Bauman (2007, 7–8) we inhabit ‘an individualized, privatized version of modernity, with the burden of pattern-weaving and the responsibility for failure falling primarily on the individual’s shoulders’. In these structured and structuring spaces it is the ‘patterns of dependency and interaction whose turn to be liquefied has now come. They are now malleable to an extent unexperienced by, and unimaginable for, past generations’. However, as is the way with liquids, these patterns, relationships and interactions ‘do not keep their shape for long. Shaping them is easier than keeping them in shape’. Bauman (2000, 113–114) contrasts his ideas of liquid life with a more solid, heavy modernity: ‘the epoch of weighty and ever more cumbersome machines, of the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1 From Kevin 07 to Kevin 24/7
• Chapter 2 New Work Ethics and the Self as Enterprise
• Chapter 3 After (a) Method
• Chapter 4 Michel Foucault and the Care of a Self
• Chapter 5 Flexible Capitalism and the Brazilianisation of Work?
• Chapter 6 The Spirit of Twenty-First Century Capitalism
• Chapter 7 Better than Sex, and Toil and Drudgery
• Chapter 8 Stress and the Edge of Chaos
• Chapter 9 The Body, Mind and Soul of the Self as Enterprise
• Chapter 10 24/7 and the Problem of Work–Life Balance
• Conclusion: Le laisser-faire, c’est fini
• References
• Index