The Condition of Postmodernity 13 - autonomous learning
The Condition of Postmodernity 13 - autonomous learning The Condition of Postmodernity 13 - autonomous learning
186 Political-economic capitalist transformationoveraccumulation problem through geographical displacement ranout. The crisis of Fordism was, therefore, as much a geographicaland geopolitical crisis as it was a crisis of indebtedness, class struggle,or corporate stagnation within any particular nation state. It wassimply that the mechanisms evolved for controlling crisis tendencieswere finally overwhelmed by the power of the underlying contradictionsof capitalism. There seemed to be no option except to fallback into devaluation of the sort that occurred in the period 1973-5or 1980-2 as the primary means of dealing with the tendency towardsoveraccumulation. Unless, that is, some other and superior regime ofcapitalist production could be created which would assure a solidbasis for further accumulation on a global scale.Flexible accumulation here seems to fit as a simple recombinationof the two basic strategies which Marx defined for procuring profit(surplus value). The first, termed absolute surplus value, rests on theextension of the working day relative to the wage needed to guaranteeworking-class reproduction at a given standard of living. The shifttowards longer working hours coupled with an overall reduction inthe standard of living either by erosion of the real wage or by theshift of corporate capital from high-wage to low-wage regions capturesone facet of flexible capital accumulation.Many of the standardized production systems built up underFordism have, for this reason, shifted to the periphery, creating'peripheral Fordism.' Even the new production systems have tendedto shift, once standardized, from their innovative hearths to thirdworld locations (Atari's 1984 move from Silicon Valley to SouthEast Asia's low-wage labour power is a case in point). Under thesecond strategy, termed relative surplus value, organizational andtechnological change is set in motion to gain temporary profits forinnovative firms and more generalized profits as costs of goods thatdefine the standard of living of labour are reduced. Here, too, theproliferating violence of investments, which cut employment andlabour costs in every industry from coal mining and steel productionto banking and financial services, has been a highly visible aspect ofcapital accumulation in the 1980s. Yet reliance on this strategy bringsto the fore the significance of highly skilled labour powers with thecapacity to understand, implement, and manage the new but muchmore flexible patterns of technological innovation and market orientation.A highly privileged, and to some degree empowered, stratumwithin the labour force emerges as capitalism depends more andmore on mobilizing the powers of intellectual labour as a vehicle forfurther accumulation.In the end, of course, it is the particular manner in which absoluteTheorizing the transition 187and relative strategies combine and feed off each other that counts.Interestingly, the deployment of new technologies has so freed surpluses? f labour power as to make the revival of absolute strategies forprocur ng surplu value more feasible even in the advanced capitalistcountnes. at IS, perhaps, more unexpected is the way in whichnew production technologies and co-ordinating forms of organizationhave permitted the revival of domestic, familial, and paternalisticlabour systems, which Marx tended to assume would either bedriven out of business or reduced to such conditions of gross exploitationand dehumanizing toil as to be intolerable under advancedcapitalism. The revival of the sweatshops in New York and LosAngeles, of home work and 'telecommuting', as well as the burgeoninggrowth of informal sector labour practices throughout thea? : anced captalst ;vorld, does indeed represent a rather soberingV1SlOn of capltaltsm s supposedly progressive history. Under conditionsof flexible accumulation, it seems as if alternative laboursystems can xis : side by side within the same space in such a way asto enable capltaltst entrepreneurs to choose at will between them (seetable 2.3). The same shirt designs can be produced by large-scalefactoris in India, co-operative production in the 'Third Italy,' sweatshopsIII Ne ,; : or and London, .or family labour systems in HongKong. EclecticIsm m labour practIces seem almost as marked in thesetimes as the eclecticism of postmodern philosophies and tastes.Yet there is, in spite of the difference of context and the specificitiesof the example used, something quite compelling and relevant aboutMarx's account of the logic of capitalist organization and accumulation.Re-reading his account in Capital strikes home with a certainjolt of recognition. We there read of the ways in which the factorysystem can intersect with domestic, workshop, and artisanal systemsof manufacture, of how an industrial reserve army is mobilized as acounter-weight to workers' power with respect to both labour controland wage rates, of the ways in which intellectual powers andnew technologies are deployed to disrupt the organized power of theworking class, of how capitalists try to foster the spirit of competitionamongst workers, while all the time demanding flexibility of disposition,of location, and of approach to tasks. We are also forced toconsider how all of this creates opportunities as well as dangers anddifficulties for working-class people precisely because education,flexibility, and geographical mobility, once acquired, become harderfor capitalists to control.Even though present conditions are very different in many respects,it is not hard to see how the invariant elements and relations thatMarx defined as fundamental to any capitalist mode of production
188 Political-economic capitalist transformationstill shine through, and in many instances with an even greaterluminosity than before, all the surface froth and evanescence .socharacteristic of flexible accumulation. Is the latter, then, anythmgmore than a jazzed-up version of the same old story of capital .is asusual? That would be too simple a judgement. It treats of capItalIsma-historically, as a non-dynamic mode of producti n, when ll .theevidence (including that explicitly laid .out by Ma ) IS that capItalIsmis a constantly revolutionary force m world hIstory ?a force thatperpetually re-shapes the world intọ new and often quite unexpectedconfigurations. Flexible accumulation appears, at leasṭ, .to ?e a ne :vconfiguration and, as such, it requires hat we scr tIlllze ItS malllfestationswith the requisite care and senousness, usmg, nevertheless,the theoretical tools that Marx devised.11Flexible accumulation - solidtransformation or temporary fix?I have argued that there has certainly been a sea-change in thesurface appearance of capitalism since 1973, even though the underlyinglogic of capitalist accumulation and its crisis-tendencies remainthe same. We need to consider, however, whether the shifts insurface appearance betoken the birth of a new regime of accumulation,capable of containing the contradictions of capitalism for the nextgeneration, or whether they betoken a series of temporary fixes, thusconstituting a transitional moment of grumbling crisis in the configurationof late twentieth-century capitalism. The question of flexibilityhas already been the focus of some debate. Three broad positionsseem now to be emerging.The first position, primarily espoused by Piore and Sabel (1984)and accepted in principle by several subsequent writers, is that thenew technologies open up the possibility for a reconstitution oflabour relations and of production systems on an entirely differentsocial, economic, and geographical basis. Piore and Sabel see a parallelbetween the current conjuncture and the missed opportunity of themid-nineteenth century, when large-scale and eventually monopolycapital ousted the small firm and the innumerable small-scale cooperativeventures that had the potential to solve the problem ofindustrial organization along decentralized and democratically controlledlines (the figure of Proudhon's anarchism looms large). Muchis made of the 'Third Italy' as an example of these new forms ofworker-co-operative organizations which, armed with new decentralizedtechnologies of command and control, can successfully integratewith, and even subvert, the dominant and repressive forms oflabour organization characteristic of corporate and multinationalcapital. Not everyone shares this rosy vision of the forms of industrialorganization (see, for example, Murray, 1987). There is much thatis regressive and repressive about the new practices. Nevertheless,
- Page 47 and 48: Postmodernism in the city 85Here we
- Page 49 and 50: 88 The passage from modernity to po
- Page 51 and 52: 92 The passage from modernity to po
- Page 53 and 54: 96 The passage from modernity to po
- Page 55 and 56: 100 The passage from modernity to p
- Page 57 and 58: 104 The passage from modernity to p
- Page 59 and 60: 108 The passage from modernity to p
- Page 61 and 62: 112 The passage from modernity to p
- Page 63 and 64: 116 The passage from modernity to p
- Page 65 and 66: 7IntroductionIf there has been some
- Page 67 and 68: 124 Political-economic capitalist t
- Page 69 and 70: 128 Political-economic capitalist t
- Page 71 and 72: 132 Political-economic capitalist t
- Page 73 and 74: 136 Political-economic capitalist t
- Page 75 and 76: 140 Political-economic capitalist t
- Page 77 and 78: From Fordism to flexible accumulati
- Page 79 and 80: 12 10Ql+-'l:'+-' 8CQlE>E 6Cl.EQlC4Q
- Page 81 and 82: 152 political-economic capitalist t
- Page 83 and 84: 156 Political-economic capitalist t
- Page 85 and 86: 160 Political-economic capitalist t
- Page 87 and 88: 164 Political-economic capitalist t
- Page 89 and 90: 168 Political-economic capitalist t
- Page 91 and 92: 172 Political-economic capitalist t
- Page 93 and 94: 176 Political-economic capitalist t
- Page 95 and 96: 180 Political-economic capitalist t
- Page 97: 184 Political-economic capitalist t
- Page 101 and 102: 192 Political-economic capitalist t
- Page 103 and 104: 196 Political-economic capitalist t
- Page 105 and 106: 12IntroductionMarshall Berman (1982
- Page 107 and 108: 204 The experience of space and tim
- Page 109 and 110: 208 The experience of space and tim
- Page 111 and 112: 212tThe experience of space and tim
- Page 113 and 114: 216 The experience of space and tim
- Page 115 and 116: Table 3.1 A 'grid' of spatial pract
- Page 117 and 118: TypeEnduringtimeDeceptivetimeErrati
- Page 119 and 120: I228 The experience of space and ti
- Page 121 and 122: 232 The experience of space and tim
- Page 123 and 124: 236 The experience of space and tim
- Page 125 and 126: 15The time and space of theEnlighte
- Page 127 and 128: 244 The experience of space and tim
- Page 129 and 130: Plate 3 5 Dynasty versus the map: t
- Page 131 and 132: 252 The experience of space and tim
- Page 133 and 134: Time and space of the Enlightenment
- Page 135 and 136: The rise of modernism as a cultural
- Page 137 and 138: 264 The experience of space and tim
- Page 139 and 140: 268 The experience of space and tim
- Page 141 and 142: 272 The experience of space and tim
- Page 143 and 144: 276 The experience of space and tim
- Page 145 and 146: 280 The experience of space and tim
- Page 147 and 148: 17Time-space compresson and thepost
188 Political-economic capitalist transformationstill shine through, and in many instances with an even greaterluminosity than before, all the surface froth and evanescence .socharacteristic <strong>of</strong> flexible accumulation. Is the latter, then, anythmgmore than a jazzed-up version <strong>of</strong> the same old story <strong>of</strong> capital .is asusual? That would be too simple a judgement. It treats <strong>of</strong> capItalIsma-historically, as a non-dynamic mode <strong>of</strong> producti n, when ll .theevidence (including that explicitly laid .out by Ma ) IS that capItalIsmis a constantly revolutionary force m world hIstory ?a force thatperpetually re-shapes the world intọ new and <strong>of</strong>ten quite unexpectedconfigurations. Flexible accumulation appears, at leasṭ, .to ?e a ne :vconfiguration and, as such, it requires hat we scr tIlllze ItS malllfestationswith the requisite care and senousness, usmg, nevertheless,the theoretical tools that Marx devised.11Flexible accumulation - solidtransformation or temporary fix?I have argued that there has certainly been a sea-change in thesurface appearance <strong>of</strong> capitalism since 1973, even though the underlyinglogic <strong>of</strong> capitalist accumulation and its crisis-tendencies remainthe same. We need to consider, however, whether the shifts insurface appearance betoken the birth <strong>of</strong> a new regime <strong>of</strong> accumulation,capable <strong>of</strong> containing the contradictions <strong>of</strong> capitalism for the nextgeneration, or whether they betoken a series <strong>of</strong> temporary fixes, thusconstituting a transitional moment <strong>of</strong> grumbling crisis in the configuration<strong>of</strong> late twentieth-century capitalism. <strong>The</strong> question <strong>of</strong> flexibilityhas already been the focus <strong>of</strong> some debate. Three broad positionsseem now to be emerging.<strong>The</strong> first position, primarily espoused by Piore and Sabel (1984)and accepted in principle by several subsequent writers, is that thenew technologies open up the possibility for a reconstitution <strong>of</strong>labour relations and <strong>of</strong> production systems on an entirely differentsocial, economic, and geographical basis. Piore and Sabel see a parallelbetween the current conjuncture and the missed opportunity <strong>of</strong> themid-nineteenth century, when large-scale and eventually monopolycapital ousted the small firm and the innumerable small-scale cooperativeventures that had the potential to solve the problem <strong>of</strong>industrial organization along decentralized and democratically controlledlines (the figure <strong>of</strong> Proudhon's anarchism looms large). Muchis made <strong>of</strong> the 'Third Italy' as an example <strong>of</strong> these new forms <strong>of</strong>worker-co-operative organizations which, armed with new decentralizedtechnologies <strong>of</strong> command and control, can successfully integratewith, and even subvert, the dominant and repressive forms <strong>of</strong>labour organization characteristic <strong>of</strong> corporate and multinationalcapital. Not everyone shares this rosy vision <strong>of</strong> the forms <strong>of</strong> industrialorganization (see, for example, Murray, 1987). <strong>The</strong>re is much thatis regressive and repressive about the new practices. Nevertheless,
Change language