Entrepreneurial Justice: The New Spirit of Capitalism in Emerging India

In their survey of management literature, Boltanski and Chiapello (2005) argue that the 1990s signal a new phase in the spirit of capitalism. We consider how these counter-cultural transformations that shaped new management thinking in Europe and North America traveled to places such as India, where neo-liberal economic reforms led to economic growth alongside unprecedented suffering. Looking across the expansive Indian media landscape, we see the growing prominence of India's own “cool capitalists” in the figures of Rajat Gupta and Aamir Khan. Khan's hit talk show Satyamev Jayate helps to popularize this new management culture establishing a new set of moral claims over the future of economic development in the global South. Our article addresses the theme of geo-politics by considering the increasingly influential role of corporate actors in shaping popular debates about the economy, economic distress, and redress.