Sunday 8 May 2011

THE DON


"Already in the 1930s, the first generation of Frankfurt School theoreticians drew attention to how - at the very moment when global market relations began to exert their full domination, making the individual producer's success or failure dependent on market cycles totally beyond his control - the notion of a charismatic 'business genius' reasserted itself ... attributing the success or failure of a businessman to some mysterious je ne sais quoi he possessed. And does not the same hold true even more so today, as the abstraction of the market relations that govern our lives is pushed to an extreme point? The bookshops are overflowing with psychological manuals advising us on how to succeed, how to outdo our partner or competitor - in short, treating success as being dependent on a proper 'attitude'".