ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the new image of workers and managers. It considers how a new social Darwinism in the social sciences, which emerged almost contemporarily to the ideology of the new paradigm, depicts the transformations in the world of work and somewhat influences management thinking. The chapter presents two conceptions related to the alleged generalization of the postbureaucratic model: the advent of meritocracy and the end of alienation. In a world increasingly dominated by corporations, as capitalism continues its expansion on a planetary scale, the ruling elite appears redeemed from its bad reputation of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Motivated, self-developer, self-managed, professional, and knowledge-friendly, the image of the worker under disorganized capitalism is quite positive, contrasting notably with the image of the ‘indolent worker’ typical of the nineteenth century. The figure of the capitalist owner, depicted as an innovating entrepreneur, receives a renewed aura of respectability.
