The Condition of Postmodernity 13 - autonomous learning

174 Political-economic capitalist transformationTable 2.6The new capitalism according to HalalThe old capitalism(Industrial paradigm)The new capitalism(Post-industrialparadigm)Frontier of progress hani growth smart growthOrganization mechanistic structure market networksDecision-makingauthoritariancommandparticipative leadershipInstitutional values financial goals multiple goalsManagement focus operational strategic managementmanagementEconomic macro- profit-centered big democratic freesystem business enterpriseWorld system capitalism hybrids ofversus socialism capitalism andsocialismSource: Halal, 1986labour process while appreciating how the regime of accumulationand its modes of regulation have shifted. In each case, of course, theopposition is used as a didactic tool to emphasize the differencesrather than the continuities, and none of the authors argue thatmatters are anywhere near as cut and dried as these schemas suggest.The schemas indicate, however, some overlaps but also some differenceswhich are instructive, since they suggest rather different mechanismsof causation. Halal appears closer to Schumpeter's theory ofentrepreneurial innovation as the driving force of capitalism, andtends to interpret Fordism and Keynesianism as an unfortunate interludein capitalist progress. Lash and Urry see the evolution in partas the collapse of the material conditions for a powerful collectiveworking-class politics, and attempt to probe the economic, cultural,and political roots of that collapse. By the very use of the terms'organized' and 'disorganized' to characterize the transition, theyemphasize more the disintegration than the coherence of contemporarycapitalism, and therefore avoid confronting the possibility of a tran-Table 2.7Contrast between organized and disorganized capitalismaccording to Lash and UrryOrganized capitalismconcentration and centralization ofindustrial banking, andcommercial capital in regulatednational marketsincreasing separation of ownershipfrom control and emergence ofcomplex managerial hierarchiesgrowth of new sectors ofmanagerial, scientific,technological intelligentsia and ofmiddle-class bureaucracygrowth of collective organizationsand bargaining within regions andnation statesclose articulation of state and largemonopoly capital interests and riseof class-based welfare statismexpansion of economic empiresand control of overseas productionand marketsincorporation of diverse classinterests within a national agendaset through negotiatedcompromises and bureaucraticregulationDisorganized capitalismde-concentration of rapidlyincreasing corporate power awayfrom national markets. Increasinginternationalization of capital andin some cases separation ofindustrial from bank capitalcontinued expansion of managerialstrata articulating their ownindividual and political agendasquite distinct from class politicsrelative/ absolute decline in bluecollarworking classdecline in effectiveness of nationalcollective bargainingincreasing independence of largemonopolies from state regulationand diverse challenges tocentralized state bureaucracy andpowerindustrialization of third worldand competitive deindustrializationof core countrieswhich turn to specialization inserVIcesoutright decline of class-basedpolitics and institutions