Date: Wed, 02 Dec 1998 13:23:34 -0500 Subject: RE: Chapter 5: Commentary 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 But It seems more like the older metanarritives have been replaced by the dominant economic narrative of performativity.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
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