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. Part 4Capital, Class, Cosmopolitanism 9Fordism, Post-Fordism and the Production ofWorld SpaceCapital is becoming more and more cosmopolitan.John Stuart Mill, Political Economy (1848).In Part 1 of this book I noted that the consolidation of the Fordist regime ofaccumulation in the United States in the immediate post-1945 period was boundup with the institution of a particular configuration of economic relationships andpolitical power.That there should be a distinct geopolitical dimension to Fordism isnot surprising when we recall the precise conditions of the regime s emergence.Aswe saw, it was the Second World War which ended a decade of world capitalistdepression by precipitating a devaluation of fixed capital so radical, prolonged andglobal in scale as to clear the way for a renewal of accumulation and therevitalisation of productivity and profitability.These achievements, moreover, werebased on the innovations of a technological revolution which was driven not somuch by private capital and economic competition as it was by state-fundedresearch and development programmes undertaken as part of the war effort(Mandel, 1978: p.146).Yet we need to examine in more detail the nature of this international andgeopolitical matrix if we are to grasp some of the spatial implications of the crisisand recomposition of the Fordist regime of accumulation.For, amongst all thedisagreement that surrounds the debate about the shift from Fordism to post-Fordism, the one area of relative consensus concerns the new kinds of economicspace, the new distributions of ownership, production and exchange, and the newlevels of global penetration and mobility achieved by capital in overspilling the limitsof the Fordist regime.These new and emergent spatial patterns have been recognisedby such now familiar formulations as the global economy , the new internationaldivision of labour , or the new international competition (Lipietz, 1987a: p.4;Harris, 1987: Chapter 4; Reich, 1991: pp.113 16; Chandler, 1990: p.606;Mandel, 1978: p.319).Whatever term is used, however, this drive for newgeographical and product markets based on the organisational capabilities of themodern industrial enterprise has, as historian of American business organisationAlfred Chandler argues, led to what may prove to be the important turning pointin the evolution of that institution.During the 1960s, intensified inter-nation andinter-industry competition began to reshape the strategies of growth, the internalorganisation of managerial enterprises, and the relationships between individualfirms and between owners and managers (Chandler, 1990: p.621).Cultural and social theorists, too, have turned their attention to globalisation,exploring its links with cultural change and relating postmodernism andpostmodernity to the rise of new, deregulated structures of international production,165 166 CAPITAL, CLASS AND TECHNOLOGY IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN CULTUREcirculation and exchange.Jean-François Lyotard, for example, has linked what hecalls the computerisation of society to the reopening of the world market, a returnto vigorous economic competition, the breakdown of the hegemony of Americancapitalism, the decline of the socialist alternative, [and] the opening of the Chinesemarket , among other factors, all of which contributed to a significant restructuringof global space at the end of the 1970s (Lyotard, 1984: p.6).Lyotard identifiedthe emergence in this space of a new, globalised culture of consumption, markedby increasing transnational homogeneity on the one hand (an effect of the logic ofcommodification), and increased differentiation on the other (an effect of thewidening of consumer choice).In postmodern culture, he famously observed, onelistens to reggae, watches a western, eats McDonald s food for lunch and localcuisine for dinner, wears Paris perfume in Tokyo and retro clothes in Hong Kong(Lyotard, 1984: p.76).We must note, though, that Lyotard s global culture isdescribed here from a particularly metropolitan point of view; the kind ofcosmopolitanism it brings to mind is that of privileged, educated and mobile elites [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]
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. Part 4Capital, Class, Cosmopolitanism 9Fordism, Post-Fordism and the Production ofWorld SpaceCapital is becoming more and more cosmopolitan.John Stuart Mill, Political Economy (1848).In Part 1 of this book I noted that the consolidation of the Fordist regime ofaccumulation in the United States in the immediate post-1945 period was boundup with the institution of a particular configuration of economic relationships andpolitical power.That there should be a distinct geopolitical dimension to Fordism isnot surprising when we recall the precise conditions of the regime s emergence.Aswe saw, it was the Second World War which ended a decade of world capitalistdepression by precipitating a devaluation of fixed capital so radical, prolonged andglobal in scale as to clear the way for a renewal of accumulation and therevitalisation of productivity and profitability.These achievements, moreover, werebased on the innovations of a technological revolution which was driven not somuch by private capital and economic competition as it was by state-fundedresearch and development programmes undertaken as part of the war effort(Mandel, 1978: p.146).Yet we need to examine in more detail the nature of this international andgeopolitical matrix if we are to grasp some of the spatial implications of the crisisand recomposition of the Fordist regime of accumulation.For, amongst all thedisagreement that surrounds the debate about the shift from Fordism to post-Fordism, the one area of relative consensus concerns the new kinds of economicspace, the new distributions of ownership, production and exchange, and the newlevels of global penetration and mobility achieved by capital in overspilling the limitsof the Fordist regime.These new and emergent spatial patterns have been recognisedby such now familiar formulations as the global economy , the new internationaldivision of labour , or the new international competition (Lipietz, 1987a: p.4;Harris, 1987: Chapter 4; Reich, 1991: pp.113 16; Chandler, 1990: p.606;Mandel, 1978: p.319).Whatever term is used, however, this drive for newgeographical and product markets based on the organisational capabilities of themodern industrial enterprise has, as historian of American business organisationAlfred Chandler argues, led to what may prove to be the important turning pointin the evolution of that institution.During the 1960s, intensified inter-nation andinter-industry competition began to reshape the strategies of growth, the internalorganisation of managerial enterprises, and the relationships between individualfirms and between owners and managers (Chandler, 1990: p.621).Cultural and social theorists, too, have turned their attention to globalisation,exploring its links with cultural change and relating postmodernism andpostmodernity to the rise of new, deregulated structures of international production,165 166 CAPITAL, CLASS AND TECHNOLOGY IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN CULTUREcirculation and exchange.Jean-François Lyotard, for example, has linked what hecalls the computerisation of society to the reopening of the world market, a returnto vigorous economic competition, the breakdown of the hegemony of Americancapitalism, the decline of the socialist alternative, [and] the opening of the Chinesemarket , among other factors, all of which contributed to a significant restructuringof global space at the end of the 1970s (Lyotard, 1984: p.6).Lyotard identifiedthe emergence in this space of a new, globalised culture of consumption, markedby increasing transnational homogeneity on the one hand (an effect of the logic ofcommodification), and increased differentiation on the other (an effect of thewidening of consumer choice).In postmodern culture, he famously observed, onelistens to reggae, watches a western, eats McDonald s food for lunch and localcuisine for dinner, wears Paris perfume in Tokyo and retro clothes in Hong Kong(Lyotard, 1984: p.76).We must note, though, that Lyotard s global culture isdescribed here from a particularly metropolitan point of view; the kind ofcosmopolitanism it brings to mind is that of privileged, educated and mobile elites [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]