Coming Up Short: Knowledge Limits and the Decomposition of the Professional Managerial Class

Abstract

The failures of knowledge to assure a desired outcome, and the gains made by those who bet against it, point to a larger paradox. The rise of the professional managerial class whose specialized expertise would reign in a knowledge society has continued apace yet seen their autonomy wither and mastery fade. The formation and decomposition of this now prevailing class entwines the fate of those engaged in financial services and academic labor, where knowledge was to be formulated, instructed and applied. The question of this larger entanglement, the interdependencies and principles of association that would give the notion of class substantive meaning point to a circumstance in which knowledge cannot rule itself and the collision of knowledge claims creates a generalized condition of volatility that both disperses and binds diverse kinds of human agency. Hence, rather than treating crisis as a momentary break-down in the normal state of affairs, the antinomies of the financial logics of risk management, derivatives and securitization disclose a critical turn in the course of our social surround, the terms in which it might be evaluated, and the sense of time and space through which its changes are negotiated and contested.