The cult of performance: the new model of 21st century work

Abstract

This article aims to discuss Alain Ehrenberg's concept of ‘cult of performance’ and to put him in a position of dialogue with other authors of contemporary sociology who think about the world of work, society and its dynamics of the 21st century. Through the perspective of the ‘worker-entrepreneur’ and his juxtaposition to the eighteenth-century ‘worker-fordist’ model, the purpose of this paper is to clarify the elements that make up the new model of employee and employer based on the presuppositions of entrepreneurship, the metaphor of work as a heroic sport and its main psychological consequences, among them depression and anxiety.