Corporations, classes, and social movements after managerialism

The much-heralded transition to a ‘new economy ’ in the United States entails two shifts that are consequential for theory about social structure. The first shift is the decline of the mass production paradigm and the organizational forms and social structures associated with it. Even among the largest manufacturers, stable ‘organizations ’ have been replaced by fluid ‘networks ’ as forms of governance. The second shift is the dominance of capital markets as the primary mechanism of corporate finance in the U.S. and, increasingly, other industrialized economies. Businesses raise funds not through personal ties to bankers but through arms-length market transactions; their owners, in turn, are not wealthy individuals but financial institutions. Theories of corporation and class suited to a ‘monopoly capitalist ’ economy prove increasingly inapplicable, and approaches to the firm in law and economics are of little help. Social movement theory provides an alternative set of constructs and mecha-nisms better suited to the contemporary economy