The Condition of Postmodernity 13 - autonomous learning

158 Political-economic capitalist transformationcustom-markets has not necessarily led, however, to any diminutionof corporate power. Indeed, to the degree that information and theability to make swift decisions in a highly uncertain, ephemeral, andcompetitive environment become crucial to profits, the well orga izedcorporation has marked competitive advantages over small busmess.'Deregulation' (another of the political buzz-words of the era offlexible accumulation) has often meant increased monopolization(after a phase of intensified competition) in sectors such as airlines,energy, and financial services. At one end of the business scale,flexible accumulation has been conducive to massive mergers andcorporate diversifications. US companies spent $22 billion acquiringeach other in 1977, but by 1981 that had risen to $82 billion, crestingin 1985 at an extraordinary $180 billion. Though mergers and acquisitionsdeclined in 1987, in part as a response to the stock marketcrash, the total value still stood at $165.8 billion for 2,052 transactions(according to W.T. Grimm, a merger consultant group). Yet in 1988the merger mania kept going. In the United States merger dealsworth than $198 billion were completed in the first three-quarters ofthe year, while in Europe, de Benedetti of Olivetti's attempt to takeover the Union Generale of Belgium, a bank which controlled aboutone third of that country's productive assets indicated the globalspread of merger mania. Most of those employed by the Fortune 500top companies in the USA now work in lines of activity that havenothing to do with the primary line of business with which theircompany is identified. 'The duty of management is to make money,not steel' announced James Roderick, Chairman of US Steel, in 1979,and he promptly launched into a campaign of acquisitions and expansionsto diversify that company's activities. At the other end ofthe scale, small businesses, patriarchal and artisanal organizationalstructures have also flourished. Even self-employment, which haddeclined steadily in the United States after 1950, underwent,according to Reich's (1983) account, substantial revival after 1972,expanding by more than 25 per cent in less than a decade (a trendwhich encompassed everything from casual work by the unemployedto highly paid consultants, designers, craft workers and specialists).New systems of co-ordination have been put in place either throughan intricate variety of sub-contracting arrangements (that connectsmall firms to large-scale, often multinational, operations) throughthe formation of new production ensembles in which agglomerationeconomies have become of increased significance, or through thedomination and integration of small businesses under the aegis ofpowerful financial or marketing organizations (Benetton, for example,engages in no production directly, but simply operates as a powerfulFrom Fordism to flexible accumulationmarketing machine, which transmits commands to a wide array ofindependent producers).. Wlat tis uggests is that the tension that has always prevailedWithm capItalIsm between monopoly and competition, between centraliationand decentralization of economic power, is being workedout m fundament lly .ne ways. This does not necessarily imply,however, that capItalIsm IS becoming more 'disorganized' as Offe(1985) and Lash an? Ur : ;, (! 987) sugg st. For what is most interestingabout the cu rent sItuatlo IS the way m which capitalism is becominge;r r more tlgh tly orgamzed through dispersal, geographical mo­.bIlIty, and fleXIble responses in labour markets, labour processes,and consumer markets, all accompanied by hefty doses of institutional,product, and technological innovation.The tihter organization and imploding centralization have in factbeen a hIeved by two parallel developments of the greatest importance.FIrst, accu.r ate and up-to-date information is now a very highlyvued commodIty . .Access .to, and control over, information, coupledWIth a strong capacIty for mstant data analysis, have become essentialto the ce tralized .co-ordination of far-flung corporate interests.The ca pa Ity for mstantaneous response to changes in exchangerates, fashIOns and tastes, and moves by competitors is more essentialto orporate .survival than it ever was under Fordism. The emphasison nformatl n has also spawned a wide array of highly specializedb smess .serVIces .and consultancies capable of providing up-to-themmutemformatIOn on market trends and the kind of instant dataa aly es seful n corporate decision-making. It has also created aSItuatIOn m whIch vast profits stand to be made on the basis ofprivileged a cess to information, particularly in financial and currencymarkets (WItness the proliferating 'insider trading' scandals of the1980s that struck both New York and London). But this is, in a ense, o ly the illegal tip of an iceberg where privileged access tomformatIon of any sort (such as scientific and technical know-how,government policies, and political shifts) becomes an essential aspectof successful and profitable decision-making.Access to scientific and technical know-how has always been importantin the competitive struggle, but here, too, we can see arenew .al of interest and emphasis, because in a world of quickchangmgta tes and needs and flexible production systems (as opposedto the relatIvely stable world of standardized Fordism), access to theates technique ? :e lates producṭ, the latest scientific discoveryImplIes the p '0sslbllIty of selzmg an Important competitive advantage.Knowledge Itself becomes a key commodity, to be produced andsold to the highest bidder, under conditions that are themselves159