Neoliberal Managerial Capitalism

The paper first documents income and wealth inequalities since World War I in the United States, a pattern in three stages, with a reduction of inequality since the Great Depression from the high predepression levels, stagnation at diminished levels up to 1980, and a dramatic restoration in neoliberalism. Underlying these three phases, we show the continuous transformation of the composition of the income of the top 1 percent to the benefit of “wages,” testifying to the progress of the managerial aspect of production relations. These trends manifest the ongoing transition toward managerialism, a postcapitalist mode of production with managers as upper class. In the hybrid social formation of managerial capitalism, a tripolar class pattern prevails, namely, capitalists, managers, and popular classes. The three subperiods are interpreted in relation to the configuration (in social orders) of class dominations and alliances, in the first financial hegemony (domination of capitalist classes in alliance with managers, to the right), the postdepression and postwar compromise (alliance between managers and popular classes, to the left), and the second financial hegemony in neoliberalism (alliance between capitalists and managers, to the right). The work of econophysicists allows for an endogenous determination of class patterns and confirms the new traits of neoliberalism.