File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_1998/lyotard.9812, message 38


Date: Sun, 06 Dec 1998 21:22:08 -0800
Subject: THE Metanarrative


> 
> Smith, Donald S wrote:
> >
> > Eric Salstrand WROTE:
> > <<<However, art is also limited in its effectiveness.  Business consultants
> > such as Tom Peters and Charles Handy have advocated a postmodern approach to
> > business that advocates a kind of permanent revolution in which the
> > organization is radically restructured to allow for greater innovation,
> > creativity and empowerment of workers.  This approach sounds very similar to
> > the paralogical actions which Lyotard advocates.  However, where this
> > tendency has been enacted, it has also gone hand in hand with  delayering,
> > reengineering,  downsizing and the elimination of middle management
> > positions. Lyotard foretells of this approach, so characteristic of the
> > eighties and nineties, to a certain extent.  The disturbing aspect of this
> > change, however, is the extent to which these extensions of paralogical
> > actions also resulted in a greater consolidation of power.  The plasticity
> > of capitalism is such that is able to accommodate these paralogical  actions
> > even while it extends its domination. Where is the art and politics capable
> > of challenging these relationships in a way that provides for greater
> > liberation in the workplace and the social realm?  What paralogical actions
> > are now necessary?>>>


> > Don Smith replies:
> > Liberation in the workplace is my project, or at least my interest. As a low
> > level manager with 30 years at a large corporation the following comments
> > are based on observation mixed with speculation. You are so right that
> > capitalism is able to accommodate postmodern tendencies. Not only do they
> > accommodate them, they nurture them. Large corporations increasingly depend
> > on workers having "disposable selves". As Lyotard says on page 63, "The
> > system seems to be a vanguard machine dragging humanity after it,
> > dehumanizing it in order to re-humanize it at a different level of normative
> > capacity." and on page 46, "...the goal is no longer truth but
> > performativity... the state and or company must abandon the idealist and
> > humanist narratives  of legitimation in order to justify the new goal." And
> > on page 62, in describing systems theory, "Administrative procedures should
> > make individuals "want" what the system needs in order to perform well." New
> > cultures are created and disposed of based on the vicissitudes of profit and
> > workers are expected to adapt. But It seems more like the older
> > metanarritives have been replaced by the dominant economic narrative of
> > performativity. The argument of the profit motive is so acceptable to the
> > working class that workers continually accept things that are not in their
> > interest simply because they make sense for profitability. The argument
> > goes, that unless there is continuous profit improvement there will be no
> > jobs.
> >
> > And don't be fooled by what you may read about restructuring. I see little
> > evidence that the structure is changing. The corporation is still a class
> > system with the power at the top. However there does seem to be a
> > technologically driven need for more cross functional organizing and
> > corporations are struggling with how to keep control of the changing
> > landscape.
> >
> > I would say that there are possibilities for parology to be used by workers
> > to gain more control but it is unlikely. It amazes me that new business
> > culture imperatives such as quality teams or empowered work groups that
> > encourage management free activities are not realized by workers as power
> > shifting possibilities but it just isn't happening.
> >
> > Don

-AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT-
 
Don et. al.,
 
The profit motive, the bottom line, the free trade line, globalization,
etc. ad nauseam constitute THE metanarrative, which, with communications
technology and concentration of wealth, displaces functioning third 
world agricultural societies, turning their countries into rural slums 
and urban shantytowns.  Corporate agribusiness, mines, etc. pay piddling
wages to a few natives and export products for profit.
 
In the post-cold war world, only ten years old, military force is in the
background, for old-fashioned conquest of a neighbor state's territory
has given way to financial conquest of the entire Globe under
commericial management.

Docile and compliant citizens of the world's richest nations have been
taught and sincerely believe it is all for their own good. 

Capital  is sent abroad.  

At home, jobs are exported, crime proliferates, prisons are a growth
industry, infastructure, schools, and inner cities rot.
 
Instead of the "global village", with community and justice for all, the
world is becoming a "company town", dominated, as the new
millenium approaches, by about 500 billionaire corporations, and global
business is controlled by about 500 billionaires.
 
Not exactly a global village, but a very exclusive neighborhood. 
Fortune Magazine reported the top ten global companies harvested $1.3
trillion
or about $200 per capita if related to the world population of 6
billion.
 
If small, democratically governed communities consisting of
worker-owned and controlled industrial plants, homes, utilities and
shopping centers were dictated by a capitalist metanarrative, we would
find a way to build such communities.
 
In the meantime, let us hope the gods of financial conquest, like the
gods of earthquakes, hurricanes, fire, flood and famine, will spare us.

Hugh Bone


   

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