Against the Current: Organizational Sociology and Socialism

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Abstract
The critical current in organization analysis has not only called into question the conservative assumptions of more orthodox organization theory, but also the purely cosmetic nature of what often passes for worklife reform. However, it has chosen to mount these attacks from essentialist starting points - the 'division of labour' and 'bureaucracy' - which circumscribe its theoretical critique of organizations in capitalist society. Consequently, it is difficult to couple critical organization theory to a political project which generates a confrontation with capitalism based on criteria of socio-economic re-organization, in which mutually dependent criteria of democracy and efficiency are operative. By default, it ends up endorsing functionalist fatalism.