In many theories of post-Fordism an epochal transition in capitalist societies is envisioned in which the industrial paradigm of mass production is replaced by flexible specialization. Often conjoined with this new model of industrial development are a post-Marxist politics and a postmodern culture, creating the impression of a grand economic and social realignment. It is argued that these holistic representations of industrialized social formations obscure the role of both capitalist and noncapitalist class processes in constituting contemporary societies and narrow the scope for political contestation and change.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AnnunziatoF, 1989, “Gorillas, peasants and proletarians: Fordism, yesterday and today”, unpublished paper, Labor Center, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT.
2.
BestM, 1990The New Competition: Institutions of Industrial Restructuring (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA).
3.
BowlesSGordonD MWeisskopfT E, 1983Beyond the Wasteland: A Democratic Alternative to Economic Decline (Anchor Books, Garden City, NY).
4.
BoyerR, 1990The Regulation School: A Critical Introduction translated by CharneyC, (Columbia University Press, New York).
5.
ChristophersonC, 1989, “Flexibility in the US service economy and the emerging spatial division of labour”Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series14131–143.
6.
DunfordM, 1990, “Theories of regulation”Environment and Planning D: Society and Space8297–321.
7.
FraadHResnickS AWolffR D, 1989, “For every knight in shining armor, there's a castle waiting to be cleaned: A Marxist-feminist analysis of the household”Rethinking Marxism2(4) 10–69.
8.
GabrielS, 1990, “Ancients: A Marxian theory of self-exploitation”Rethinking Marxism3(1) 85–106.
9.
GertlerM, 1988, “The limits to flexibility: Comments on the post-Fordist vision of production and its geography”Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series13419–432.
10.
GrahamJ, 1990, “Theory and essentialism in Marxist geography”Antipode2253–66.
11.
GrahamJ, 1991, “Fordism/post-Fordism, Marxism/post-Marxism: The second cultural divide?”Rethinking Marxism4(1) 39–58.
12.
GrahamJ, 1992, “Anti-essentialism and overdetermination—a response to Dick Peet”Antipode24141–156.
13.
GrahamJSt MartinK, 1990, “Knowledge and the ‘localities’ debate; meditations on a theme by Cox and Mair”Antipode22168–174.
14.
HallSJacquesM, (Eds), 1989aNew Times: The Changing Face of Politics in the 1990s (Lawrence and Wishart, London).
15.
HallSJacquesM, 1989b, “Introduction”, in New Times: The Changing Face of Politics in the 1990s Eds HallSJacquesM, (Lawrence and Wishart, London) pp 11–20.
16.
HartmannH, 1987, “Changes in women's economic and family roles in post-world war II United States”, in Women, Households and the Economy Eds BenariaLStimpsonC, (Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ) pp 33–64.
17.
HarveyD, 1989The Condition of Postmodernity (Basil Blackwell, Oxford).
18.
JamesonF, 1984, “Postmodernism, or the cultural logic of late capitalism”New Left Review number 146, 53–92.
19.
JensonJ, 1989, “‘Different’ but not ‘exceptional’: Canada's permeable Fordism”Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology2669–94.
20.
JensonJ, 1990, “Different but not exceptional: The feminism of permeable Fordism”New Left Review number 184, 58–68.
21.
JessopB, 1990, “Regulation theories in retrospect and prospect”Economy and Society19153–216.
22.
LaclauEMouffeC, 1985Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (Verso, London).
23.
LashSUrryJ, 1987The End of Organized Capitalism (University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI).
24.
LeborgneDLipietzA, 1988, “New technologies, new modes of regulation: Some spatial implications”Environment and Planning D: Society and Space6263–280.
25.
LeborgneDLipietzA, 1990, “Fallacies and open issues about post-Fordism”, paper 9009, CEPREMAP, 142 rue de Chevaleret, 75013 Paris.
26.
LipietzA, 1987, “An alternative design for the twenty-first century”, paper 8738, CEPREMAP, 142 rue de Chevaleret, 75013 Paris.
27.
LipietzA, 1988, “Building an alternative movement in France”Rethinking Marxism1(3) 80–99.
28.
LyndS, 1987, “The genesis of the idea of a community right to industrial property in Youngstown and Pittsburgh, 1977–1987”The Journal of American History74926–958.
29.
McDowellL, 1990, “Gender divisions in a post-Fordist era—new contradictions or the same old story?”, unpublished paper, Faculty of Social Sciences, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes.
30.
MandelE, 1975Late Capitalism (Verso, London).
31.
MarxK, 1967Capital 3 volumes (International Publishers, New York).
32.
MilbergW, 1991, “Marxism, poststructuralism, and the discourse of economists”Rethinking Marxism4(2) 93–104.
33.
MurrayR, 1988, “Life after Henry (Ford)”Marxism Today6 (October) 8–13.
34.
PeckJTickellA, 1991, “Regulation theory and the geographies of flexible accumulation: Transitions in capitalism, transitions in theory”, Spatial Policy Analysis WP-12, School of Geography, University of Manchester, Manchester.
35.
PioreMSabelC, 1984The Second Industrial Divide: Possibilities for Prosperity (Basic Books, New York).
36.
PollertA, 1988, “Dismantling flexibility”Capital and Class number 34, 42–75.
37.
ResnickS AWolffR D, 1987Knowledge and Class (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL).
38.
RossG, 1991, “Turning technocratic: Euro-socialists and 1992”Socialist Review21133–157.
39.
RuccioD, 1989, “Fordism on a world scale: International dimensions of regulation”Review of Radical Political Economics21(4) 33–53.
40.
SchoenbergerE, 1989, “Thinking about flexibility: A response to Gertler”Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series1498–108.
41.
StorperMScottA J, 1989, “The geographical foundations and social regulation of flexible production complexes”, in The Power of Geography Eds WolchJ RDearM J, (Unwin Hyman, Winchester, MA) pp 21–40.
