This paper argues that a useful way of analyzing the current moves to locate education within a decentralized framework of schools competing for educational consumers is to return to the founders of managerialism. In particular, this paper suggests that by returning to the point of production, the "mutilated rationality" (Habermas) of constructing markets and the consumer takes on a wider meaning. An awareness of the work of people like Taylor, Casson, and Sloan will illustrate how scientific management was moved from the shop floor to the corporation and eventually into the construction of the consumer. However, it is suggested that such institutionalized individualism and glorification of the Self is likely to lead to the disintegration of the social fabric. (Contains 33 references.) (Author)