The Condition of Postmodernity 13 - autonomous learning

24 21 18FOREIGN EXCHANGE15Hours GMT12Hours GMT24 21 18 15 12 9INTER NATIONAL SECURITIESHours GMT9 6 36 3 oTOKYO p.m.TOKYO a.m.24 2 1-, 18 r- 1 5-.-._ 1 2 -. 9 r-r-'-T 6 -;-,-, 3 r-r-'-lOFUTURES•HONG KONG a.m.4SYDNEY p.m. SYDNEY a.m.From Fordism to flexible accumulation 163what is now called 'paper entrepreneurial ism.' Tremendous emphasishas been put in recent years on finding ways other than straightproduction of goods and services to make profits. The techniques'vary from sophisticatd 'creative accounting' through careful monitoringof international markets and political conditions by multinationals,so that they can profit from relative shifts in currencyvalues or interest rates, to straight corporate raiding and asset-strippingof rival or even totally unrelated corporations. The 'merger andtakeover mania' of the 1980s was part and parcel of this emphasisupon paper entrepreneurial ism, for although there were some instanceswhere such activities could indeed be justified in terms of rationalizationor diversification of corporate interests, the thrust was moreoften than not to gain paper profits without troubling with actualproduction. Small wonder, as Robert Reich (1983) observes, that'paper entrepreneurial ism now preoccupies some of America's bestminds, attacks some of its most talented graduates, employs some ofits most creative and original thinking, and spurs some of its mostenergetic wheeling and dealing.' Over the last fifteen years, he reports,the most sought after and most lucrative jobs to be had in USbusiness lay not in the management of production but in the legaland financial spheres of corporate action.Awash with liquidity, and perturbed by an indebtedness that hasspiralled out of control since 1973, the world's financial system has,however, eluded any collective control on the part of even the mostpowerful advanced capitalist states. The formation of the so-called'Eurodollar' financial market out of surplus US dollars in the mid1960s is symptomatic of the problem. Quite uncontrolled by anynational government, this market in 'stateless' money expanded from$50 billion in 1973 to nearly $2 trillion by 1987, thus approachingthe size of the money aggregates within the United States. Thevolume of Eurodollars increased at a rate of around 25 per cent peryear in the 1970s, compared to a 10 per cent increase in moneysupply within the USA and a 4 per cent growth rate in the volume offoreign trade. The debt of third world countries likewise mushroomedout of control (see figure 2.12). It does not take muchimagination to see that such imbalances portend severe stresses andstrains within the global capitalist system. Prophets of doom (like theWall Street investment banker Felix Rohatyn) now abound, and evenThe Economist and the Wall Street] ournal sounded sombre warningsFigure 2.11 Twenty-four hour trading patterns in global financial markets(courtesy of Nigel Thrift)