Suggesting that an expressive ideology has arisen within the workplace public sphere around the theme of 'competence', this book explores the hegemony of global finance and the fetishism of the new economy, exposing the dilemmas of the competence agenda, and illustrating how competence is played out in the workplace public sphere.

Autorentext
JOHN MICHAEL ROBERTS is Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Communication at Brunel University, UK. He has researched and written about the public sphere, free speech, voluntary activity and social theory. His previous publications include The Aesthetics of Free Speech: Rethinking the Public Sphere; Realism, Discourse and Deconstruction (co-edited) and After Habermas: New Perspectives on the Public Sphere (co-edited).

Inhalt
Introducing Competence and the Public Sphere The New Economy The New Economy as the Fetish of Financialisation The Competent Public Sphere of the New Economy Democracy and Participation in the Competent Public Sphere Silencing the Thematic Utterances of Workers Trade Unions, Participation, and the Proletarian Public Sphere Conclusion: Towards a Socialist Public Sphere