The ideology with no name

A few days ago Quillette published a particularly interesting article by Darel E. Paul, Professor of Political Science at Williams College. It begins with diversity.

Diversity is the reigning social and political ideal of our age. It is the public ideology of the country’s most powerful state and business institutions. To many it is the essence of American national identity and, in one of the favorite phrases of President Barack Obama, ‘who we are’ as a country.

Rather than simply a recognition of difference, diversity is a cultural, economic, and political project to both generate difference and to manage it.

Unlike capitalism or socialism, managerialism is not a household word. Yet it should be thought of alongside these more famous -isms. Capitalism places the business entrepreneur at the center of society and emphasizes her role in social development. Socialism elevates the worker to this status and places labor at the foundation of society. Managerialism, too, is a coherent and complex account of society with a program for creating social order. Not surprisingly, it places the manager at the center of that order and assigns her the key role in producing it.