Capitalism and business education: possibilities for resistance and building alternatives

Abstract

Capitalism is, perpetually, in crisis. Business schools may not seem a compelling focus of attention or strategy. Discussions in critical management studies about the role of business education in perpetuating/transforming capitalism (i.e. Grey, 2004) suggest “critical management education” (CME) can create awareness of the effects of managerial capitalism and of the need for alternatives. This paper draws on experience in a public business school in the United States as the basis for analysis of the failures of business education and for proposals for changes in teaching and institutional activity. It is proposed here that although business schools and business academics have been complicit in the worst of capitalism’s transgressions (current and past) they have the potential, despite formidable obstacles, to serve as centers for fostering more sustainable economic and social organization