• Stable Strategies for Middle Management: A subjugation of the Middle Class

    Eileen Gunn's “Stable Strategies for Middle Management” provides us with a powerful critique about the role and mentality of the working class in a capitalist society. Between the notion of bioengineering itself and the various forms that the character models take throughout the story it becomes quite apparent that the middle class is kept in check by giving them meaningless opportunities to “advance” at what is great personal cost.

    The title of the story, “Stable Strategies for Middle Management” must certainly be addressed in order to properly look at the relationship between the character models and the capitalist system. The very word, “stable” provides two ways of looking at the title. The first way is when one takes stable to mean that the situation won't become explosive, or out of control. Reading it like that and the title comes out with a sense that these strategies for middle management are designed to keep the workers complacent with the situation they are stuck in. The second way is to take stable as a place where one keeps animals. The very notion of a stable is very similar to a work environment where the employees are separated into tiny cubicles. Gunn takes this analogy a step farther and merges the two concepts by having the characters undergo bioengineering to turn them into animal-human hybrids.

    Bioengineering, or B-E, plays another important aspect to the critique on capitalism. B-E is not an exact process. The only conscious choice one makes when undergoing it is a generalized area such as, “primate adaption, B-E Option No. 4” (707). From there the specifics of the evolution are unconsciously developed with some assistance from the “B-E Staff” (707). This means that the models become what they are as a matter of their own social values and not because they are forced to. As Tom put it, “you can truly be anything you want to be” (707). Thus, because they are indoctrinated into the capitalist system, their eventual outcomes are all a result of the values that are naturally instilled into someone raised in a capitalist system.

    The surface level of Bioengineering provides a more direct critique on capitalism. Bioengineering itself has been created as a commodity itself. It is largely billeted as a means to make a character model more successful in the corporate world. As Margaret states from the catalog, “The No. 2. Insect Option is supposed to make me into a successful competitor for a middle-management niche, with triggerable responses that can be useful in gaining entry into upper hierarchical levels” (711). B-E is a commodity which one buys in order to become more successful within the capitalist system. This creates the inherit catch-22 that is so pervasive in the capitalist system. The proletariat can't afford B-E and as such they can't move up the corporate ladder and are stuck in their class because of it. It only serves to alienate the middle and working class from each other as well as from the upper classes, and makes success just that much more expensive to achieve.

    The corporations have seized on the Bioengineering commodity as a way to control their workers as well. By paying “half the cost,” (711) they get to allow the corporate B-E staff to “mold you into a more useful corporate organism” (709). The choice of the word “organism” would seem to imply that the corporation itself is also a living entity in which there exists on the surface a symbiotic relationship between the worker and the company. Examining this relationship paints a much different picture. The corporations reveal themselves to be highly parasitic in nature. In the story the company would have the character models pay for B-E (which they have to work for the company to afford in the first place). The B-E strips away their human form causes the models to lose themselves to their subconscious desires created by the system, such as Margaret decapitating her boss. It is not even mentioned in the story what returns the models get from undergoing such a life-stealing procedure, suggesting that the returns aren't even that noticeable outside of the climbing of the corporate ladder.

    Margaret's model represents an extreme of the system. Her dedication is to the company and climbing the corporate ladder. Appropriate to her model, the first insect she becomes is a mosquito, a solitary insect that survives by sucking the blood of others. This level is played out in her interaction with Harry's model which is based upon that of primates which work together in a group to further themselves. Margaret's model felt that it “reflected badly” on her because she “didn't join in and spew forth a random selection of promotional suggestions” (707). Her model gave her two choices on how to deal with Harry's model. She could “force him to accept a situation that would work,” which would be best for the company as they would get a solution that wouldn't cost them money (707). It wouldn't, however, destroy Harry's model, but in fact play into it. Or she could, “yes him to death, making sure everybody understood it was his idea” (707). This option, which she went with, would as Margaret put it, hurtle Harry's model to “an evolutionary dead end” (707).

    This brings up an interesting comparison created by the two models. Primates are evolutionarily very similar to humans. They even show remarkable similarities socially between the way they interact in communal groups to early humans. They work together for the betterment of the group rather than to gain capital in order to buy commodities from other members of the group. It is of note that Margaret's model, the staunch believer in the capitalist system, wants to bring this system to not just an end, but an “evolutionary” end. It sends a bit of a mixed message as Harry's model is not detached from the capitalist model (he has participated in B-E and is working to gain capital and commodities), its eventually vindication in being promoted is de facto recognition for the system it is attached to. This alternative to capitalism is treated rather ambivalently and not strongly used to critique the problems created by trying to advance in the capitalist system.

    The second part of the story brings us to a change in Margaret's model as she morphs into a bee. It also brings two more models, David, who is the anti-thesis of Margaret's model, and Greg who is becoming a butterfly. This scene also brings an interesting line out of Margaret's model. “I've signed up. The changes are underway and I don't have any choice” (712). In a broader scope this line brings out another catch-22 of the capitalist system. By being born into it, or “signing up,” you're inherently stuck with it. After being brought into capitalism you can't choose to not participate. Non-participation keeps you from accessing items necessary to life (like food), because they have been turned into commodities to support somebody else in the capitalist society. You have to participate for your own well-being.

    This is what makes David's model interesting in that he doesn't conform to a model that fits with the capitalist system. As Margaret describes him, “He, however, has proved remarkably resistant to corporate blandishment. Not only has he never undertaken B-E, he hasn't even bought a three-piece suit” (710). The outlook on life between the two models is also quite drastically different. Margaret's model sees the world as a series of tests, whereas David's model views the world as “optional puzzles put there for his enjoyment” (710). The David model also was planning to take three months off. This all goes to painting the model as a rather absurd model to find, but not a direct critique on capitalism; he does after all, still work for the company and draw a paycheck for his work. The real crux of the model comes from transferring the absurdity of his model onto the capitalist system. This is brought out in the song his group is singing, “Come to Me, My Masochistic Baby” (710). The idea of masochism applies well to the capitalist system in which the workers allow themselves to be abused so that they can derive pleasure from buying commodities. The story takes this to an extreme as the models in this story allow the company to abuse them farther by changing their very humanity. It's the one thing the David model refuses or rejects. He won't allow himself to be subjected to the abuse.

    Greg's model comes from the term “social butterfly,” as he is literally turning into a butterfly. He isn't “a corporate guy” (710). Margaret's model doesn't understand why Greg would undergo B-E if “he's not even going to use it” (710). The model misses the fact that Greg's model has undergone B-E for the sign-exchange value that it confers to him as evident by his better seating at the restaurant rather than “next to the espresso machine” (711).

    Her inability to understand Greg's model also starts to show where Margaret's model is headed in her transformation into a bee. She's starting to develop a hive mentality in which the individual has no self-worth. To her model Greg and David's model's aren't conforming to the wish of the over mind, or corporate execs who would wish them to become “a termite or an ant” (709). Their two models don't conform to the eternal will of the swarm and so Margaret as a bee “quickly waxed them over,” which in theory would then allow them to undergo metamorphosis and become a functional part of the horde.

    The last stage finds Margaret's model turned into a praying mantis that “pounced on Tom and bit his head off” (715). Her model has arrived at a stage in the system were even the company is not important, only the individual and the advancement thereof is of any consequence. The last sentence, “notches on which I might fiddle a song?” sums up this stage (715). It is reminiscent of the old gunslingers who would carve a notch on their belt for every kill. In this sense each notch represents another advancement up the corporate ladder.

    As it is evident by the various stages and examples presented in the story, the capitalist system subjects the middle class to the notion that they can climb higher in the class system by ascribing to whatever means are put before them, even if such means fundamentally rob them of their status as human beings. To reject it would only ultimately cause the downfall of the individual as capitalism demands some form of participation or one will find themselves unable to accommodate the most basic needs.