The Condition of Postmodernity 13 - autonomous learning

190 Political-economic capitalist transformationmany share the sense that we are at some kind of 'second industrialdivide' (to appropriate the title of Piore and Sabel's book), and thatnew forms of labour organization and new locational principles areradically transforming the face of late twenti .eth-cent u. ry capitalis n: .The revival of interest in the role of small busIlless (a hIghly dynamIcsector since 1970), the rediscovery of sweatshops and of informalactivities of all kinds, and the recognition that these are playing animportant role in contemporary economic development even in themost advanced of industrialized countries, and the attempt to trackthe rapid geographical shifts in employment and economic fortune ,have produced a mass of information that seems to support thIsvision of a major transformation in the way late twentieth-centurycapitalism is working. A vast literature has indeed emerged, frmboth left and right ends of the political spectrum, that tends to depIctthe world as if it is in the full flood of such a radical break in allthese dimensions of socio-economic and political life that none ofthe old ways of thinking and doing apply any more.The second position sees the idea of flexibility as an 'extremelypowerful term which legitimizes an array of political practices' (ciflyreactionary and anti-worker), but without any str mg .empmcalor materialist grounding in the actual facts of orgamzatIon of latetwentieth-century capitalism. Pollert (1988), for example, factuallychallenges the idea of flexibility in labour markets and labour organization,and concludes that the 'discovery of the "flexible workforce"is part of an ideological offensive which celebrates pliability andcasualization, and makes them seem inevitable.' Gordon (1988)similarly challenges the idea of hyper- eograpical mobility fcapital as far beyond what the facts of IllternatlOnal trade (particularlybetween the advanced capitalist countries and the less developedcountries) will support. Gordon is particularly conc rned tocombat the idea of the supposed powerlessness of the nation state(and of worker movements operating within that framework) toexercise any degree of control over capital mobility. Sayer 198)likewise disputes the accounts of the new forms of accumulation IIInew industrial spaces as put forward by Scott (1988) and others onthe grounds that they emphasize relatively insignificant and peipheralchanges. Pollert, Gordon and Sa < er all argue .th .a there ISnothing new in the capitalist search for Illcresed flexlblhty or .locationaladvantage, and that the substantive eVIdence for any radIcalchange in the way capitalism is working is either weak or fa lty.Those who promote the idea of flexibility, they suggest, are eItherconsciously or inadvertently contributing to a climate of opinionan ideological condition - that renders working-class movementsless rather than more powerful.!1IFlexible accumulation 191I do not accept this position. The evidence for increased flexibility(sub-contracting, temporary and self-employment, etc.) throughoutthe capitalist world is simply too overwhelming to make Pollert'scounter-examples credible. I also find it surprising that Gordon, whoearlier made a reasonably strong case that the suburbanization ofindustry away from the city centres was in part motivated by adesire to increase labour control, should reduce the question ofgeographical mobility to a matter of volumes and directions of internationaltrade. Nevertheless, such criticisms introduce a number ofimportant correctives in the debate. The insistence that there isnothing essentially new in the push towards flexibility, and thatcapitalism has periodically taken these sorts of paths before, is certainlycorrect (a careful reading of Marx's Capital sustains the point).he .argument that there is an acute danger of exaggerating thesIgmficance of any trend towards increased flexibility and geographicalmobility, ?linding us to how strongly implanted Fordist productionsystems Ill are, deserves careful consideration. And the ideologicaland pohtIcal consequences of overemphasizing flexibility in thenarrow sense of production technique and labour relations are seriouseno t make .sober and careful evaluations of the degree offleXIbIlIty Imperative. If, after all, workers are convinced that capitalistscan move or shift to more flexible work practices even whenthey cannot, then the stomach for struggle will surely be weakened.But I think it equally dangerous to pretend that nothing has changed,when the facts of de industrialization and of plant relocation, of moreflexible manning practices and labour markets, of automation andproduct innovation, stare most workers in the face.The third position, which defines the sense in which I use the ideaof a transition from Fordism to flexible accumulation here, liessomewhere in between these two extremes. Flexible technologies andorganizational forms have not become hegemonic everywhere (butthen neither did the Fordism that preceded them). The current conjunctureis characterized by a mix of highly efficient Fordist production(often nuanced by flexible technology and output) in some sectorsand regions (like cars in the USA, Japan, or South Korea) and moretraditional production systems (such as those of Singapore, Taiwan,or Hong Kong) resting on 'artisanal,' paternalistic, or patriarchal(familial) labour relations, embodying quite different mechanismsof labour control. The latter systems have undoubtedly grown(even within the advanced capitalist countries) since 1970, often atthe expense of the Fordist factory assembly line. This shift hasimportant implications. Market coordinations (often of the subcontractingsort) have expanded at the expense of direct corporateplanning within the system of surplus value production and appro-