Permanent Reform

The common experience of rootlessness and disorientation also has a crucial institutional context. Many readers of this book will be keenly aware that our core institutions have changed a great deal in a relatively short period of time. As neoliberalism began to establish itself as an unchallengeable orthodoxy and as postmodernism worked its magic on the cultural stage, our core institutions embarked upon a process of continuous reform. This process subtly aimed to eliminate many of modernity's collectivist and universalist social conventions. These conventions were replaced with principles that emphasised individualism, isolationism and the separation of financial and economic matters from institutional culture and managerial practice. Where once core institutions seemed reasonably static, now they would be animated by an abiding commitment to constant motion. As neoliberalism moved with purpose into the 21st century, it strategically sought to soften its image in the hope of securing its continuity. The heartlessness of hardcore economic liberalism merged with cherry-picked elements of the left's cultural activism to establish the ideological framework of progressive neoliberalism.1 Unsurprisingly, the Professional Managerial Class (PMC) was handed the responsibility of leading our institutions into the new world.