Ökonomischer Liberalismus, postmodernes Diversity Management in Unternehmen und der Geist des Kapitalismus

The present article introduces the concept of Diversity Management, which has its roots in the USA. The latter regards the workforce’s diversity, inequality, differentness and individuality as an essential contribution to a company’s success. Against the backdrop of the hegemonial waves in the world system and the related cultural cycles, the argument is being launched that an organizational change from fordism to post-fordism has taken place in the framework of the USA’s hegemonial downturn and the emergence of post-modernism as a cultural pattern. In this context, “diversity” has been able to make its way as an issue. On the one hand, this development attempts to carry out even more the “modern” ideas of “individualism” and “social equality of opportunities” also on an entrepreneurial level; on the other hand, the industrial-capitalist differentiation of labor, person and lifeworld is being demarcated in a “post-modernistic” way and is even more strongly tied into the logic of capital.