'I'm as much an anarchist in theory as I am in practice': Fernando Pessoa's 'Anarchist banker' in a management education context

摘要

The performance of Fernando Pessoa?s novel The Anarchist Banker serves as an example for critical management education and allows for further insights into how anarchist theories may be reflected upon and practiced in a business school context. We explore elements of an ?anarchist aesthetics? that are created through dramaturgy, narration, and collective production and reception. The Anarchist Banker fits well with arts-based education in business schools and efforts to learn lessons for leadership through the use of drama. The literary source encourages to rethink salient issues in today?s global and finance-dominated capitalism and offers opportunities to search for alternative forms of organizing society and the economy by questioning charismatic leadership and managerial rhetoric in favor of collective reasoning. Elements of an anarchist aesthetic include the deconstruction of the hero and authoritarian discourse, dialogue and polyphony, collectivity and obstructionism that are at play artistically and socially, integrating anarchist theory and practice in content and form. The topic links to new forms of resistance, with critical artists opposing the business world and academics attempting to play out the ?banker? versus the ?anarchist?.