Managerialism vs innovation

Chris Dillow writes about Managerialism vs innovation.

If this is the case, then perhaps secular stagnation is not so much an aberrant feature of hierarchical capitalism as its logical consequence. I've said that stagnation might be the result of firms' wising up to the fact that a lot of innovation doesn't pay. But it might also be due to managerialism squeezing out the slack space in which innovation can occur.

Perhaps, then, Marx was right: whereas for a long time capitalism promoted growth, it no longer does so. As he put it:

At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or — this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms — with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters.

I say all this to endorse a point made by Mariana Mazzucato - that the Labour party can no longer assume that the economy will grow nicely but must instead put in place the policies and institutions that generate such growth. How compatible such institutions are with managerialist capitalism is, however, an open question — and one which Labour isn't even asking.

Emphasis Mine

In other words, the current structure of Capitalism is strangling itself through choosing control over innovation. The Capitalists are afraid of losing control as they have run out of ideas. The historic mission of Capitalism has reached its conclusion.

Capitalism is a spent force. Control is the only thing left. To maintain control, Capitalism must give birth to Fascism so the Capitalist class rules through naked force rather than the prosmise of ever-growing prosperity. They are running out of carrots—only sticks remain.