ABSTRACT
This chapter situates the work of management consultants in contemporary national class dynamics. It points out that consulting constantly creates the conditions for its own demand and highlights the autopoietic qualities of abstract labour. Kipping and Canback trace its roots to the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when US ‘experts’ in the fields of engineering, accounting and advertising first started offering independent advice to companies. During the 1930s, the Great Depression was a major driving force for American management consultancies. It had caused many corporations whose customer base was breaking away to face midterm bankruptcy, unless they drastically cut costs. The sustained involvement between consultancy firms and government entities is linked to the increasingly managerial understanding of politics on the side of US government officials. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, management consultancies began a rapid expansion to Western Europe.
