Financialized Labor and the Fissured Workplace: An Institutionalist Understanding of Distribution Under Money Manager Capitalism

This article examines how changing economic structures and the development of the financialized business enterprise has affected labor relations and distribution under the stage of money manager capitalism as described by Hyman Minsky and Charles Whalen. Key to this transformation, I argue, is the development of what David Weil refers to as the fissured workplace and what David Peetz calls "not there capitalism." In this context, the business enterprise operates as a network, with commands emanating from the center to be carried out by the periphery. Labor, then, contracts with these peripheral nodes, separating them from key economic decision-making processes. This reduction in power has significant implications for distribution. Using Christopher Brown's power-based approach to the institutional theory of distribution, I then examine these impacts, especially as it pertains to workers in the gig economy before concluding with an overview of potential policy recommendations to correct these issues.