Subject: Re: M-TH: Fordism Still Reigns? Date: Sun, 29 Mar 98 09:46:01 -0000 From: Bill Cochrane <bc1961-AT-xtra.co.nz> Leo writes, >Are you saying that you do NOT believe that there is a major transformation >taking place in the world economy, and that industrial capitalism and its >regimes (Fordism) are NOT quickly being surpassed? I would be interested in >hearing the reasons for such a view. No I'm not saying this, I'm saying that insufficent evidence, by regulation school standards, exist to either say that a 'Post-Fordist' regime of accumulation (in the broad sense of the term) has stabilized or to specify what the dimensions of such a regime might be if and when it materializes.Tickell and Peck in particular make this point "In Social regulation after Fordism; Regulation Theory, Neo Liberalism and the Global Local nexus", Economy and Society 24:3 357-386.In this article they argue(to paraphrase their abstract) that prevailing notions of post fordism are inconsistent with the central tenents of regulation methodology, being based on a series of abstractions from changing conditions in production (that are frequently themselves only vague generalizations). This approach falls far short of the requirements of the regulation approach as it fails to specify either how the putative post fordism economy might be socially regulated or how it might be pieced together in macroeconomic terms. I personally agree with their conclusion that far from representing the basis for a renewed period of sustained accumulation and relative stability 'flexibility' and neoliberalism represent the politics and economics of continued capitalist crisis. While I agree with much of what Doug says I feel that he implies that Fordism can be reduced to a particular organisation of the labour process, which is certainly done by many theorists of fordism/post-fordism. I would reject this approach as while innovation in the organisation of production is undoubtably of great significance the regulation approach resists the reduction of social processes to questions of production, the slogan 'production and politics'being an apt description of their postion. I suppose what I'm saying here is that the organisation of production, within very wide limits, does not contain a logic from which we are able to deduce the broader outlines of a particular capitalist society.Hence any attempt to deduce post fordism from changes in the organisation of production is very likely to fail empirically, be politically dangerous and theoretically risky (our constent companions functionalism and reductionism). Bill Cochrane Ngaruawahia New Zealand --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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