File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1998/marxism-thaxis.9803, message 1008


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



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