Capitalist Discipline On the orchestration of Corporate Games [Hardcover]

This book is not just about corporate strategies and stratagems: it is about the 'Faustian' pact between real and financial powers, governed by the rules of 'minimizing the costs to oneself of imposing losses upon others'. It is more than about limited rationality and irrationality: it is about unlimited rationalisations and limited accountability.PART I: THE QUEST FOR DISCIPLINE 1. When Prophesies of Coordination Fail 2. Strategy Traps 3. When Rationalities Clash 4. A Multi-level Theatre: the Inquiry 5. Organizing Questions 6. Recapitulation and Preview PART II: REVISITED: A NEW INDUSTRIAL STATE 7. Introduction: On Errant Spirits 8. Old versus New Discipline 9. The Escapist Itenary 10. The Rhetorics of 'Common' Markets 11. Some Conclusions PART III: THE MASKS OF RATIONALITY 12. Corporate Rationality: the Looking Glass-self 13. Theories of Choice and Coordination: a Broken Mirror 14. Rational Choice: Economizing on Transactions 15. Strategic Choice: Economizing on Interactions 16. Towards a New Prism 17. Summarizing, by Looking Ahead PART IV: COHABITATION 18. Introduction 19. The Protocols 20. The Front Stage 21. The Back-stage 22. Cohabitation 23. Conclusion PART V: THE FRAMING OF DISCIPLINE 24. Introduction 25. The Old Discipline 26. The Old Paradigm 27. On the Descent of Concerted Action 28. Reconsidering the Requisites of Concerted Action 29. The Lures of Simplification 30. Versus the Fragility of Robustness 31. The New Discipline 32. The New Paradigm 33. Conclusion PART VI: CONDITIONS: THE ANATOMY OF NEGOTIATION POWER 34. Introduction 35. Negotiating 36. The spectrum of Negotiation 37. Refining the Model  38. Discussion 39. Recapitulation: the Science and Art ol³7