The Condition of Postmodernity 13 - autonomous learning

Table 2.3 Different forms of labour process and productionorganizationType of Form Basis of Politics ofproduction exploitation productionSelf-employed consul tan ts, exchange of individualist andartisans and goods and market-led antiinformalsector serVIces monopoly orstate regulationCo-operative collectives internal negOtiatIonand agreementsco-operatives externalexchangePatriarchy small family firms kinship based kitchen(sweatshops) on age and sex politicsCommunal large domestic commumty politics of facepaternalism firms (sweated based on norms, and statuslabour) customs, andforceBureaucratic corporate and calculating career ladder andpaternalism state managerial rationality, competitionsystems loyalty, and withinseniority orgamzauonsPatrimonial hierarchically power relations bargaining,ordered empires and exchange mutual gain, andin production, of favours dynastic strugglestrade, or finance (traditionalprivilege)ProletarianSource: after Deyo, 1987capitalist firm and buying and selling market competifactorysystem of labour power tion, collectiveand control over action, bargaining,labour process and class struggleand means ofproductionFrom Fordism to flexible accumulation 155example of a practice that has become widespread in many of the lessdeveloped and newly-industrializing countries (the Philippines, SouthKorea, Brazil, etc.). The transition to flexible accumulation has infact been marked by a revolution (by no means progressive) in therole of women in labour markets and labour processes during aperiod when the women's movement has fought for both greaterawareness and improved conditions for what is now more than 40per cent of the labour force in many of the advanced capitalistcountries.New techniques and organizational forms in production havespelled danger for traditionally organized businesses, sparking a waveof bankruptcies, plant closures, deindustrialization, and restructuring,that has put even the most powerful corporations at risk. The organizationalform and managerial technique appropriate to high volume,standardized mass production were not always easy to convert toflexible system production with its emphasis upon problem solving,rapid and often highly specialized responses, and adaptability of skills tospecial purposes. Where production could be standardized, it provedhard to stop its moving to take advantage of low-paid labour powerin the third world, creating there what Lipietz (1986) calls 'peripheralFordism.' The Penn Central bankruptcy of 1976 and the Chryslerbail-out of 1981 indicated the seriousness of the problem in theUnited States. Not only did the list of the Fortune 500 top corporationsin that country undergo considerable modification, their rolein the economy also changed - their global employment remainedstationary after 1970 (with a net loss in the United States) comparedto the doubling of employment that had occurred in their plantsfrom 1954 to 1970. On the other hand, new business formation inthe United States picked up dramatically, doubling in the periodbetween 1975 and 1981 (a deep recession year). Many of the new smallbusinesses inserted themselves into the matrix of sub-contractingskilled tasks or consultancy.The economies of scale sought under Fordist mass productionhave, it seems, been countered by an increasing capacity to manufacturea variety of goods cheaply in small batches. Economies of scopehave beaten out economies of scale. By 1983, for example, Fortunereported that 'seventy-five per cent of all machine parts today areproduced in batches of fifty or less.' Fordist enterprises could, ofcourse, adopt the new technologies and labour processes (a practicedubbed 'neo-Fordist' by some), but in many instances competitivepressures and the struggle for better labour control led either to therise of entirely new industrial forms or to the integration of Fordismwith a whole network of sub-contracting and 'outsourcing' to give