ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 introduces the central themes of the book through a consideration of the main contours of organizational discourse and practice that have emerged with the neoliberalism that has come to dominate since the late 20th century. This entails an exposition of the forms of subjectivity centrally implicated in neoliberal organizations, in the form of individualism, rationality, entrepreneurship, self-confidence and competitiveness. This is contrasted with a Levinasian ethics rested on the passive subsumption of the self to the other that comes before it. It is this very disjunction between ethics and neoliberal subjectivity that will be posed as the complex and irreconcilable condition in which ethics must be brought to bear on contemporary organizations. Ethics, as practice, then comes to be understood as a navigation towards an impossible goal of being hostage to the demands of the other and the other others. This is posited as a demand that generates the possibility of ethics, yet one that can never be realized or achieved. The chapter situates the book in relation to such an ethics, focusing especially on how it can lead people to engage in political action in relation to organizations that would disturb neoliberal normalcy.
