Macdonald - Post-Fordism and the Flexibility Debate

Post-Fordism andthe Flexibility

DebateMARTHA MACDONALD

Like the ubiquitous prefix "post," "flexibility" has be-come a common buzzword of the 1980s in a widevariety of academic writing. The two are in fact often

connected, for the essence of this "post" period - whetherpostmodern, post-fordist, or post-industrial - is said to beflexibility - flexible specialization, flexible accumulation,'flexible firm, labour market flexibility, the "Age ofFlexibility." Essentially, the debate surrounding post-for-dism/flexibility has to do with the way firms, industriesand indeed national economies and world capitalism arerestructuring in this era of technological change, heightenedinternational competition and rapidly changing markets.Whereas the post-war period is characterized as one of massproduction/consumption, planning, control and stability, thecurrent age, it is argued, requires flexibility and rapidresponse to change by capital, and hence by labour. Thedebate is about the extent and nature of these changed con-ditions, how we can understand these processes, and whatthe implications are for political strategy.

Post-fordism, like postmodernism, is grounded in thesense of dislocation and unease brought about by the rapidchanges in the world order since the early 1970s. In scholar-ly work in political economy there has been a rush to in-terpret these developments, and an eagerness to declare a"new era," one which supersedes the extended post-warboom. While the left has flirted with both postmodernismand post-fordism, each approach has critically challengedsome aspects of left analysis and political strategy and eachhas been developed to a large extent by those working in

Studies in Political Economy 36, Fall 1991 177

Studies in Political Economy

other social science paradigms. The language used is ofdramatic reversals in business as usual, captured in wordslike restructuring, deindustrialization, and globalization.The literature is wide ranging - from overarching theoriesof the new regime of accumulation- to case studies of par-ticular firms and their labour reorganization in the 1980s.All aspects of the economy are under scrutiny - industrialorganization, labour relations, international financialmarkets, state involvement in the economy. The debate hasbeen taken up by the left and the right; by institutionalsocial scientists and marxists; by industrial relations stu-dents and business school professors; by academics writingin many languages and in different countries.

My purpose in this review is to examine the implicationsof the post-fordism and flexibility debates for politicaleconomy. What insights do they hold and what pitfalls dothey reveal? How useful are they in enhancing our way ofunderstanding the world, our concrete knowledge of thatworld, and our ability to shape it? Some see the wholeproject as reactionary and antithetical to a marxist analysis,while other political economists are in the very centre ofthe fray.

It is difficult to study a process as it unfolds and we arenot yet at the point where history can settle the debates.What we can evaluate is whether the discussion has beenfruitful in intellectual and practical terms.

Different Literatures There are at least three broad fieldswithin political economy which have been heavily engagedin some sort of flexibility debate, and among these therehave been uneven degrees of communication and cross-fer-tilization. These fields are geography, crisis theory/interna-tional capitalism, and labour process/labour studies. Thissection briefly describes the literature on post-fordism/flexibility in each of these fields, emphasizing the diversityof approaches to the issue. The next section highlights themajor issues under debate and offers a critique of the litera-ture.

178

MacDonaldlFlex Spec Debates

Labour Literature In both the labour process and labourmarket segmentation literature in the 1980s increasing at-tention was paid to "restructuring" and the search for"flexibility." In many respects these discussions were simplya continuation of ongoing themes; however, there was agradual change in tone from one of understanding stableprocesses to grappling with changes. The labour literaturealso incorporated themes raised in other fields. In Englishspeaking countries, the two works most responsible for set-ting the tone of the discussion in the labour literature wereMichael Piore and Charles Sabel's The Second IndustrialDivide and the work of John Atkinson, at the Institute forManpower Studies in England.2

Piore and Sabel coined the term "flexible specialization"to describe a system which they wished to distinguish from"mass production." Mass production is described as a sys-tem focused on stabilizing and controlling markets and sup-plies, and minimizing uncertainty and change. At the firmlevel mass production meant the large batch production ofstandardized commodities, using dedicated machinery anda detailed division of labour. This is contrasted with flexiblespecialization, a system focused on permanent innovationand "accommodation to ceaseless change rather than an ef-fort to control it."3 Flexible specialization entails adap-tability. For Piore and Sabel the key element in the successof such strategy is the ability of the firm to rely on multi-usemachines and to draw on a pool of workers with generalskills. They emphasize the importance of political factorsin determining which way companies and industries adaptto the crisis - either by flexible specialization or a revivalof mass production. Flexible specialization is seen to requirea new institutional framework, covering a broad range ofareas from labour relations to national industrial policy.Without changes in these areas, the potential of the newage to mutually benefit firms, workers and nations will notbe realized.

From the point of view of jobs and the labour process,flexible specialization held out a promise of more holisticjobs, a reversal of the increasingly detailed division oflabour - in short, the promise of more satisfying, rewarding

179


work for more people than existed under mass production.This prediction flew in the face of the labour process litera-ture, which emphasized the struggle between capital andlabour in the workplace and the continual threat of the"degradation of work" and deskilling of labour.f

Piore and Sabel were writing from an institutional tradi-tion, not a marxist one, and so the hostility the book en-gendered on the left is not surprising. Their story is drivenby technology and market demand; they portray society asfacing choices, ones which are susceptible of rational eval-uation. To a marxist, the exercise appears totally idealistic,ignoring the fundamental class dynamics of capitalism.Piore and Sabel are also criticized for down-playing theissue of the distribution of costs and benefits of the newsystem. Yet despite these criticisms the book has held re-markable sway; paper after paper sets it up as the null hy-pothesis.

Atkinson's work plays a similar role in the British andEuropean literature. Atkinson focused on the firm ratherthan the system of production, and coined the model of theflexible firm - the firm that could respond quickly to therapid changes in the international marketplace and in tech-nology. This firm achieves flexibility on three dimensionsin relation to labour costs: through "functional" flexibility,the ability to redeploy labour within the firm, requiringmulti-skilled workers; "numerical" flexibility, the ability toeasily alter the size of the workforce by methods such aspart-time work,lack of job security provisions, subcontracting,and other forms of nonstandard employment; and "financial"or "pay" flexibility, the ability to make wages more flexibleby mechanisms such as wage concessions, two-tiered wagesystems, or pay for performance.

These three kinds of flexibility may be contradictory.Workers generally will not be functionally flexible and sup-portive of the firm's goals if they have no job security andare poorly paid. According to Atkinson the flexible firmcould attempt to solve this problem by developing a coreof stable, functionally flexible workers and could then prac-tice numerical and pay flexibility through the use of aperipheral group of workers. Essentially his model predicted

180

MacDonald/Flex Spec Debates

segmentation within the firm. Atkinson's articles generatedheated debate in Britain on the left - more so becauseAtkinson himself identified with the left and some of hiswriting appeared in Marxism Today. The issues discussedincluded whether there was evidence that this flexible firmin fact existed, and, if so, whether its existence should belauded or deplored.

Since Piore and Sabel's and Atkinson's work first ap-peared, there has been heated debate in the labour literatureabout what forms labour flexibility may have currently as-sumed, and whether this is good or bad from the point ofview of labour. Case studies at the firm and industry levelhave examined how firms are actually restructuring theirlabour processes. The positive and negative versions offlexibility are explored, both theoretically and empirically.tIn all this the labour process literature has remained ex-tremely critical of the flexibility thesis, as has much of thelabour market segmentation Iiterature.f

There is also concern manifested in the labour literaturethat too much emphasis is being placed on labour as thekey to flexibility. If firms do indeed need to be more adaptable,and if technology now allows and necessitates innovationsin production and distribution, there are other strategies toachieve this. Strategies focused on production and distribu-tion have different implications for the labour process andemployment practices. There is some confusion between thelabour-focused strategies and the derived implications forlabour of other corporate strategies. Considerations such asthese have led writers in the labour field to become moreinterested in issues of industrial organization, geographiclocation, and the international restructuring of industries andeconomies. After all, labour is a derived demand. Theseother fields in political economy have themselves engagedin the flexibility/post-fordism debate.

Crisis Theory Whereas the buzzword "flexibility" had itsorigins in the labour literature, the term "post-fordism"originated in discussions of the overall crisis of capitalismand the process of restructuring in the 1970s. There was agreat revival of "crisis theory" and interest in the possibility

181


of a major watershed in capitalism, building on a traditionof periodizing capitalist development} In the "crisis" litera-ture, the term fordism is used to describe the overall char-acter of the capitalist world order from the 1920s to the1970s. Essentially the fordist period is seen as the era ofthe dominance of mass production (economies of scale, as-sembly-line production, detailed division of labour, separa-tion of execution and control at the level of the workplace),balanced by high levels of mass consumption maintainedby institutional supports which included Keynesian demandpolicies, and an accord between business and labour. Thecrisis of fordism in the 1970s led to a new era, the currentera, which is termed post-fordist.

The French "regulation school" led the way in interpret-ing the crisis as marking the transition from one capitalistepoch to another, or to use their terminology, from oneregime of accumulation to another. Michel Aglietta, in ATheory of Capitalist Regulation, argued that the fordistregime of intensive accumulation was established in thecrisis of the great depression, and in the 1970s was besetby its own crisis - a crisis both in the production andrealization of surplus value. Aglietta explicitly focused onthe US experience. Writing in 1976, he dealt tentativelywith the new regime, and used the term "neo-fordism" ratherthan "post-fordism." This choice of terminology emphasizedhis sense of the continuity of underlying capitalist relations,even though the manifestations of those relations mightchange to meet the requirements of capital accumulationunder new conditions. While Aglietta used the term "neo-fordism" to describe what might succeed fordism, in theensuing debate post-fordism has become the more favouredterm, and discontinuity has become the dominant theme.f

Daniel Leborgne and Alain Lipietz'' sum up the Frenchregulation approach, characterizing historical patterns ofdevelopment as having a technological paradigm (thegeneral principles which govern the evolution of the or-ganization of labour), a regime of accumulation (the mac-roeconomic principle which balances production and con-sumption), and a mode of regulation (cultural and institu-tional arrangements which support the regime of accumula-

182


tion). Under fordism, the technological paradigm includedstandardization of products and procedures and Tayloristprinciples of the separation of conception and execution,which led to rapid and prolonged increases in productivity.The regime of accumulation under fordism was charac-terized by a growth in mass consumption to balance thegrowth in mass production (aided by the growth of thepublic sector and non-productive workers). The mode ofregulation included the institutional support of collectivebargaining, the hegemony of large companies, and the mas-sive role of the Keynesian state in maintaining demand.

Post-fordism in this literature is the antithesis of thesecharacteristics. Articles often include summary tables con-trasting fordist and post-fordist characteristics on dimen-sions such as the production process (mass versus batchproduction, economies of scale versus economies of scope),the labour process (single task versus multiple tasks, verticalversus horizontal organization), spatial implications (con-centration versus dispersal of industry), corporate structure(vertical integration versus network firms), consumption (massversus specialized/individualized) and the state (regulationversus deregulation, centralization versus decentralization).While there is debate on the post-fordist configuration, thereis a common conviction that a new regime of accumulationand a different mode of regulation, which will stabilize thenext round of capital accumulation on both a national andinternational scale, are being established.

Marxist Geography Some of the most interesting work onrestructuring and post-fordism has been done by geog-raphers in the UK, Europe and the US. Much of the concernduring the crisis of the last two decades has been with theshifting geography of capitalism. Of note are the works ofDoreen Massey, David Harvey and his former colleaguesat Johns Hopkins, and Allen Scott and Michael Storper inthe United States.l? Urban and regional planning scholarshave also contributed to this literature on deindustrialization,reindustrialization, and the spatial implications of restruc-turing.I! These writers, focusing on the crucial variable ofspace, provide a new dimension to the analysis. Space is

183


important on a number of levels - in terms of analyzingglobal shifts in the capitalist centre, and in the considerationof economies of scope and the operation of network firms.David Harvey's The Condition of Postmodemity integratesthe space/time dimension into the crisis theory/regulationistapproach to post-fordism.R A recent book by Storper andWalker has the ambitious objective of showing that "politi-cal economic processes in general are profoundly shapedby their geography"13 and trying to build a geography ofcapitalism. It is an example of one of the overarching at-tempts at a theoretical analysis that can incorporate, indeedpredict, the kinds of shifts that are loosely characterizedby post-fordism.

Harvey and Storper and Walker are right that the space/time dimension has been neglected, not only in mainstreamsocial science, but also in political economy. The importanceof these factors is blatantly obvious in the current tech-nological age and can no longer be ignored. The insightsof the geographers have provided important input into thelabour literature. Instead of beginning with the question ofwhat type of job/labour process exists, the prior questionof where jobs will be located becomes the focus. Geog-raphers thus draw attention to the location dimension ofindustrial organization.

Leborgne and Lipietz' contribution to an important col-lection of articles, mainly by geographers, provides an ex-ample of cross-fertilization of approaches from the labour,regulation, and geography literatures. They take three labourreorganization scenarios from the labour process literature(called the neo-Taylorist, Californian and saturnian way),relate them to scenarios from the industrial organization!new technology literature (the specialized firm, the networkof specialized firms, and vertical quasi-integration) and thenderive possible spatial forms. They discuss "territorially dis-integrated vertical quasi-integration," for example, whichleads to a specialized productive area like Southeast Asia,as opposed to traditional vertical integration which leadsto the proliferation of branch plants in diverse locations.'They show how this might be combined with a neo- TayloIistlabour model, creating a more polarized world, with marked

184


interregional and intraregional specialization. They arguethat the Californian model tends to be consistent with ver-tical disintegration and a territorial concentration into localproductive systems (similar to the Third Italy, for example).The saturnian way, with collective involvement of workersand negotiation, can lead to what they call a system area,where "vertical quasi-integration takes the form of a ter-ritorially integrated, diversified, multisectoral network ofspecialized firms and principal firms."14 They argue thatthe saturnian model of collective worker participation canbe taken to a system level through collective social consentand the rejection of dualism. Leborgne and Lipietz explicitlyargue that though the new technologies induce specializedfirms and vertical quasi-integration, this can be realizedthrough either territorial integration or disintegration, andthrough a variety of forms of labour relations.

Issues in the Literature Despite the many literatures wherepost-fordism is a topic, and the many levels of analysis,there are some issues which are common and recurrent sub-jects of debate. This section summarizes some of these areasof debate among people who are active participants, andconsiders the criticisms levelled at the whole undertakingby those who explicitly stand outside the literature. Some-times this is an impossible distinction to maintain, for thereare ways in which even those who write critically aboutpost-fordism contribute to the perpetuation of the concept.Writers themselves may object to being placed in the insideror outsider camp.

Origins of the Transformation - From Fordism to Post-For-dism On an intellectual level, perhaps the most fundamentalissue of debate concerns the origins of the crisis. Thoughin most accounts a variety of factors are adduced - tech-nology, markets, relations of production - one factor isusually given dominant status. The distinction could be fur-ther simplified: theories are either demand-led or supply-based, or, as political economists would put it, either therealization of surplus value or its production provides thefocus. As Leborgne and Lipietz point out, the

185


commonsense interpretation of the crisis of mass production...emphasizes the demand-side aspect: the stagnation of marketsbecause of the pressure of international competition, and thegrowing volatility of the pattern of demand.lS

Piore and Sabel certainly put forward a demand and tech-nology-led model. They argued that demand was becomingmore differentiated, mass markets were becoming saturated,and new technology created the possibility of diversifyingproduction and increased the pace of market change. In theirview, the changing balance between stable and unstablemarkets triggered the crisis in the old industrial order.

Similar themes are reiterated in the marxist literature.For example, in an account of the change from fordism toflexible accumulation, Harvey argues that it was primarilythrough geographic expansion and debt creation, which hecalls spatial and temporal displacement, that the Fordistregime of accumulation resolved the ever-present tendencyto overaccumulation during the long postwar boom.ls

The crisis of Fordism can to some degree be interpreted...asrunning out of those options .... Spatial competition inten-sified..as the capacity to resolve the overaccumulation problemthrough geographical displacement ran out.l7

Bramble and Fieldes, in a critique of marxist engagementwith post-fordism, characterize Harvey's analysis as essen-tially one of underconsumption, similar to the focus ondemand and markets of the institutionalists.w Yet otheranalyses, most notably those of the French regulationschool, and of Harrison and Bluestone», emphasize a fallin the rate of profit due to problems in the sphere of produc-tion (i.e, declining productivity, rising wages), rather thanproblems in the sphere of distribution. There is also a ques-tion in the left debate regarding the role of new technologyin the crisis and restructuring. Is it a fundamental cause ofthe crisis, or is the adoption of new technology a strategicresponse from capital to the crisis in profits?20

These are not new debates in marxist crisis theory. Giventhe multi-levelled contradictions inherent in the accumula-tion process, there are clearly many interrelated aspects ofevery crisis. Why does it matter where the emphasis is

186

~-- .. ~~~~~~------------------


placed? The main reason the causal debate in post-fordismis critical is that it so closely shapes people's thinking abouthow much, and what part, of the old system has to be over-thrown to restore profitability. For example rigidities in thelabour process, in the production technology, in marketing,in corporate bureaucracy have all been argued to be partof the problem. The limits to possible strategies and solu-tions (particularly from the point of view of workers) arevery much a function of where one places the causal em-phasis.

For example, Schoenberger argues that

the rigidity and eventual vulnerability of the fordist regime liesas much in the way the nature of interfirm competition is struc-tured under fordism as in the limits of the production apparatusitself. This...bears in particular on the question of how the newtechnologies of production need to be used by firms in orderto restore their competitiveness and profitability.Jt

In this view, the restructuring of competitive strategies isat least as important as the reorganization of production.

An emphasis on technology or on the market tends togenerate a sense of determinism and limited options. Par-ticularly in terms of labour strategies, it has been easy tobe overwhelmed by the argument that our whole labour rela-tions framework is part of the problem, and that labourmust buy into a restructuring agenda set not by capital, butby "technology," or "markets," or "competition." It is easyfor the discussion to take on racist (us versus third worldlabour) and nationalistic (us versus the Japanese) under-tones.

The debate about causes has generated interestinganalyses of how the fordist regime actually functioned, aswell as what caused its apparent breakdown. As Pam Rosen-thal recently put it,

This new vocabulary is Janus-faced, simultaneously projectingus forward into a confusing new moment and implying newtakes on a recent past we had thought we understood.22

There is considerable rewriting of history. To have post-fordism, we have to have had fordism, and there is debate

187


on what that meant, globally and in particular national andsectoral contexts.P Of particular interest is how the inter-nationalization of production and competition under fordismfunctioned. The very features that were earlier interpretedas indicative of the relentless momentum of capitalist ex-pansion and US hegemony are now analyzed as being thesource of the inevitable downfall of fordism. In the regulationschool approach, the fact that the export of mass productionto the third world was not matched by an equivalent risein mass consumption helped undermine the critical balancebetween production and consumption which was the key tothe fordist system. However, as Schoenbergers' points out,the fordist system went international precisely because theoveraccumulation problem could never be dealt with inter-nally.

While hindsight provides a very interesting perspectiveon the analysis of fordism, the determination to entirelyrewrite our recent political economy should raise doubtsabout the value of the focus on regimes of accumulation.What such a focus tends to create is a pendulum perspective:we alternate between seeing the system as monolithic andstable when we are in the middle of one epoch (witnessliterature in the 1960s on multinational/US dominance ofthe world), and seeing it only in terms of change when weare in transition (witness the flexibility literature). The un-derlying continuity of the system is lost. The literature tendsto get bogged down in polarities, to get lost in what isdifferent rather than to look for what is the same.

This emphasis on dramatic change rather than continuityhas been at the heart of the criticism of the flexibility litera-ture. For example, in the labour literature, while Piore andSabel were developing their thesis of industrial divides, themore radical segmentation writers, the labour processscholars, and the Cambridge school were also studying chan-ges in workplace and labour market structure. Their workfocused on continuity through change, rather than rupturewith the past. Wilkinson's 1981 collection on The Dynamicsof Labour Market Segmentation is a good example of thiswork.25 The authors focused on the ongoing shifting oflabour markets and labour relations and strategies, without

188


recourse to industrial divides. For these writers, flexibilityis an old theme, whose connotations are not positive fromthe point of view of labour, not a term for some new era.Most of these writers have continued to explore labourmarket dynamics and restructuring, engaging in aspects ofthe flexibility debate, but avoiding the more dramatic claimsof the post-fordism construction.26 The trend in the labourprocess literature in the 1980s was to develop less deter-ministic accounts of the labour process, emphasizing resis-tance, consent/coercion interactions, and the myriad tem-porary configurations of the capital/labour conflict thatcould arise. Work began to more fully integrate changes inproduct market conditions and technological change, incor-porating new developments into the literature as obviousextensions of past work. The labour process writers, par-ticularly in Britain, have been especially resistant to theclaims of post-fordism and have expended enormous energydisputing those claims.s?

Evidence Another major aspect of debate in the flexibility/post-fordism literature concerns evidence. How is changedemonstrated? What standard is used for proving/disprovingpositions? The main approach is to document changes inindustrial organization, location and labour process and toargue how the changes support (or dispute) one or anotherversion or aspect of post-fordism. Analyses tend to be oftwo types - detailed case studies at the firm or industrylevel,28 or more sweeping investigations of restructuringfocused on the national or international level, which attemptto interpret aggregate data (i.e. on employment trends) oruse more anecdotal methods.

The case study approach yields a lot of insight, but be-comes problematic when generalizations are made on thebasis of a specific case. Like the story of the blind peopleand the elephant, each person describes a different part ofthe "elephant" and forms a view of restructuring based onthat partial reading. People who study the auto industryhave a different version of how the world is unfolding thanthose who study textiles, or the food industry, or services.29

And if you do not find evidence of behaviour consistent

189


with a post-fordist model, perhaps you are studying a firmor industry or country that has failed to successfully adaptlWhile the case study literature has certainly demonstratedthat restructuring is occurring in industry after industry, itis less convincing in terms of how important "flexibility"is as a theme, or what form flexibility takes. There arevarious examples of flexibility, and there are examples ofmore fordist adaptation. Whether that variation proves ordisproves the general notion of a post-fordist age is a subjectof continuing debate.

In the early stages of the debate researchers were lookingfor particular kinds of behaviour - use of nonstandardemployment, flexible reorganization of the labour process,adoption of flexible machinery, use of just-in-time production.Evidence was sought of economies of scope, reorganizationof corporate structures, growth of network firms. Yet theevidence on this was mixed. For every example there wasa counterexample, and often the same evidence was usedto prove conflicting points.

The evidence on all specific aspects of flexibilization iscontroversial - whether it be the use of non-standard em-ployment, existence of the core/periphery firm, the issue ofdeskilling versus reskilling, the decline in mass markets andmass production.t? The range of firm restructuring strategiesthat the recent literature documents raises serious questionsabout the grand generalizations that have been made. Evenwhere a consistent trend toward "flexibility" could be de-monstrated - for example, the network firms of the ThirdItaly - the larger question of whether this indeed couldbe said to constitute a new regime of accumulation was lefthanging.

In the current literature, there seems to be an implicitacceptance that we have entered a new age. Any form ofrestructuring is argued to be consistent with a new regimeof accumulation. Some who earlier were critical of post-fordism as a concept are now directing their energies toshowing the varied forms which firm behaviour can takein the new age. The defining lines are blurring. We havemoved from notions of vertical disintegration to verticalquasi-integration or diagonal integration; flexible special-

190


ization has been matched by flexible mass production. Thisis partly an issue of theory, but it is also an empirical issue,as each piece of contradictory evidence becomes incor-porated into a revised version of post-fordism. For thosecritical of the whole construct, it is a moving target. Manyhave reluctantly agreed to come on side, by redefining whatpost-fordism is. Others argue that the variety of responsesundermines the usefulness of the post-fordist conceptualiza-tion. The data are consistent with other characterizationsof economic behaviour.

Implications of Post-Fordism In addition to debates aboutcauses and evidence, another issue in the literature concernsthe implications of post-fordism. Considerable debatefocuses on the labour process. There are positive and nega-tive versions of flexibility. Workers have been devastatedby some attempts of firms to recover (wage concessions,nonstandard employment, speed-ups). The positive visionsof flexible specialization emphasized by Piore and Sabelare suspect. Work teams, quality circles, the revival of theworker as craftsperson, the involvement of workers in con-ception which they advocate for big business (mimickingthe Japanese model) are attacked as intensifying work andcoopting labour.t! The version of flexible specialization thatsees a renewal of the small business sector and a moredecentralized economy and labour market is criticized asantithetical to the interests of organized labour.

There is considerable debate over whether so-calledTaylorist methods of labour control are indeed incompatiblewith the new environment - concern that the case against"fordist production" has been overstated. This is evident inthe debate carried on in the pages of Industrial Relationsin 1986 between Piore and Shaiken et al, where the latterargue that work reorganization and technology continue tobe primarily used to increase managerial control, often witha rhetoric of flexibility (the need to enhance the firm'sability to respond to the market and to increase both produc-tivity and quality).32 Both positions are taken on by Kelley,who has done detailed survey work on the introduction ofprogrammable technology in the US machining industry.33

191


She has attempted to test a three-fold typology of alternativeforms of organizing programming tasks: worker-centredcontrol (a la Piore), Taylorist control (a la Shaiken), andshared control. Her evidence shows that shared control isthe dominant form, with worker-centred organization beingthe least common. She also argues that the technologicalfactors are less important than institutional factors in deter-mining the form of work organization. Clarke, in a critiqueof both fordism and post-fordism, puts the point succinctlywhen he says "post-fordist technologies can no more liberatethe working class than could the technology of fordism,because the working class is not exploited and oppressedby technology but by capitalism.t'H

The implications for industrial organization and geo-graphic location are also controversial. Changes in industrialorganization affect whether jobs will tend to be concentratedin a few large plants or dispersed among smaller productionsites. One argument put forward within the flexibility litera-ture is that new technology has eroded past economies ofscale and undermined the advantages of large capital; thishas been reinforced by changes in markets (also partly re-lated to technological innovations) which have createdmarket niches for small firms that are able to react quicklyto changes. Still other writers emphasize the way recon-centration will occur and the way large corporations canbecome more flexible. The search for flexibility may resultin changes in corporate structure without necessarily de-creasing the concentration of power and control in an in-dustry or in the economy as a whole (as in Japan). Harrisonargues that the big firms are returning "to the centre of theplaying field. Both alone and in all manner of partnershipswith one another ... every country's largest companies areshowing new signs of vitality. "35

The forms which concentrated economic power takes arechanging (reflected in terms like vertical quasi-integration),but the vision of economic growth led by small firms, withits promise of geographic decentralization, is increasinglyunder attack. The distinguishing feature of the marxist ver-sion of post-fordism is that it emphasizes the tension in theaccumulation process between the forces of competition and

192


concentration, while retaining the notion that there is a basictendency towards concentration of capital and economicpower. As Harvey writes, "flexibility has little or nothingto do with decentralizing either political or economic powerand everything to do with maintaining highly centralizedcontrol through decentralizing tactics. "36

Some of the most emotional debate has been around thedistribution of the costs and benefits of flexibilization.Gender and race issues are increasingly important in thesediscussions. A very fundamental criticism is that much ofthe literature suffers from gender blindness, or male bias.37

Writers point out that the current restructuring, whateverone calls it, is gendered, and the models used to capture itare gendered. They note that a strategy of functional flexi-bility typically uses male workers. The harsher consequen-ces of flexibility are borne by female workers. Anna Pollertemphasizes that this is nothing new, pointing to earlier workon labour market segmentation.Jf

Walby, in a critique of Atkinson's model, emphasizes thatthe "rounds of gender restructuring" are fundamental to un-derstanding modern capitalism and argues that this dimen-sion is lost in the flexibility model.t? She maintains that itis not as straightforward as simply identifying "flexibiliza-tion" with "feminization" of the labour force, nor of recog-nizing a "male core" and a "female periphery." Jane Jenson,in her critique of Piore and Sabel, emphasizes the genderingof the concept of "skill" and the gendering of technclogy.F'Flexible specialization reinforces this privileging of"skilled" (male) work, further reinforcing the invisibilityof the real skill of women in the so-called "unskilled" jobs.Rubery and the Cambridge Labour Studies Group have alsorepeatedly emphasized that the divisions in the labour force,including divisions by gender, reflect power differenceswhich are then socially constructed as skill differences.f!The homeworkers who sew for the network firms in thetextile industry of the Third Italy are as skilled as the"flexibly specialized" men in the formal sector of that in-dustry. The concern is that the flexibility literature, par-ticularly that part which focuses on labour market processes,

193


is buying into the politics of fragmentation and reinforcingunequal gender relations.

The tendency to bury gender issues is well illustrated inPiore's contribution to the 1986 Industrial Relations de-bate.42 Piore contrasts the employment flexibility debatewith the broader notion of flexibility in the managementliterature, which covers a wide range of reforms to makefirms responsive to market conditions. Piore uses the highfashion garment industry in a city like New York as anexample of the emergent structures linking small andmedium-sized firms. The account emphasizes the delicatebalance between cooperation and competition which hasbeen arrived at through the formal and informal institutionalstructures that regulate behaviour, train workers, imposework rules and so forth. In the whole sketch, which is amost compelling account of mutual self-interest, there isnot one mention of the gender aspects of employment andthe labour process. One suspects that there is a crucialgender dimension to the flexibility that is achieved - anunderside of the arrangement which is veiled.

One of the most controversial topics in the literature andin the critiques of post-fordism concerns the political im-plications - for unions and the left.43 To many, post-fordismis inextricably connected with the right wing political agen-da of deregulation, attacks on labour and a return to the"free market." The management/business version of"flexibility" calls for unfettering capital, in its dealings withlabour, resources, capital and nation states. Are there otheroptions, which respond to the same (asserted) changes incompetitive and technological conditions but which produceoutcomes more in the interest of labour?

Even Piore recognizes that there is nothing automaticabout his optimistic version of the possibilities created bythe second industrial divide. He sees that there are politicalchoices to be made, and draws interesting lessons from acomparison of the European and American versions of for-dist rigidities and how they should be altered. He is clearthat a market solution will be destructive, and a new in-stitutional framework must be created in which flexibilityfor capital can be combined with protections for workers.

194


The task is to amend the institutional framework, not aban-don employment policy.

The labour market will always have a structure, just as thebusiness finn will have a structure.The issue is what the newstructure will look like and how existing institutions can bechanged in order to create it.44

Marxists, of course, do not agree with this vision of aharmony of interests, and analyze the future options in termsof class struggle. There is serious debate on the left regard-ing the strategic implications of the post-fordist analysis.Some argue that the new economic realities require a changein the left agenda. For example, traditional social democraticprograms and strategies are deemed untenable in the newera, with more decentralized approaches to welfare calledfor to fit the new regime of accumulation. Some hold outnew options for smaller scale local worker-owned or co-managed facilities - a revised version of small is beautiful.Others see the satumian style of labour accommodation tomanagement's agenda as a valid route. The issue is to iden-tify a progressive mode of regulation that will be suited tothe new regime of accumulation.O Such thinking has beenchallenged by other marxists, giving rise to heated debate,such as the "New Times" discussion in Britain.46 DavidHarvey argues that "the challenge we face ...is to reorientthe socialist project to the conditions of the day withoutsimply drifting with every capitalist wind that blows." Herightly points out that

much of the current argumentin the socialist camp concerningnotions of 'post-fordism'...circles around whether and to whatdegree the changes now in motion have socialist potential orwhether they are so deeply subservient to capitalism that theyshould be resisted absolutely.s?

Many on the left feel strongly that the latter is true.Furthermore, many feel that it is the post-fordist con-

struction itself which is dangerous. By emphasizing theprocess of capital accumulation it often falls into the trapof trying to "fix" capitalism - trying to find the changes inthe mode of regulation which would resolve this crisis the

195


way Keynesian policies resolved the last capitalist crisis.The approach emphasizes the logic of capital, rather thanclass struggle, and does not challenge the basic principlesof capitalism. Pollert argues that the radical strategies as-sociated with it essentially involve working with capital,not against it. As she puts it, "the language of flexibilityreveals itself as the language of social integration of the1980s: how to live with insecurity and unemployment andlearn to love it. "48

Pollert also identifies another source of argument, whenshe points out the confusion in the literature between"description, prescription and prediction."49 Does it providenew opportunities for small firms/functional flexibility, orcould it provide these opportunities? Is post-fordism a con-cept or a perspective? For some it is the former, merely ashorthand for certain characteristics of the present economy,which one then interprets from an existing perspective. Forothers, it is clearly an analytical perspective, particularlyas argued in the regulation approach. Rustin says

the post-fordist hypothesis... is the nearest thing we have to aparadigm which can link widespread changes in forms ofproduction to changes in class relations, state forms and in-dividual identities.SO

The issue for Rustin and others is whether as a paradigmit misspecifies the dynamic of change within capitalism.

Much of the acrimony in the literature arises from suchconfusion of terms and interpretations. Much time has beenwasted because of the profusion of terms and the lack ofclear definitions. Writers use terms differently.51 Many whouse the term post-fordism clearly do so in a descriptiveway, to describe tendencies which are then interpreted eitherpositively or negatively. However, the post-fordism debatehas challenged political economy not as a label but as ananalysis and an agenda.

Conclusion As this review has tried to emphasize, the post-fordist conceptualization is extremely controversial. Thepost-fordism/flexibility debate is many things to manypeople. To some, for example, combining the two terms

196


would be considered unacceptable. At a most basic level,the post-fordism construction represents an effort to shakeourselves out of established modes of thought, commen-surate with the way Western capitalist economies have beenshaken out of the real or perceived complacency of the post-war boom. On the positive side, attention has been directedto new forms of corporate organization, economies of scopeand the geography of capital accumulation. Tremendousdocumentation of the impact of restructuring on specificfirms, workers, and communities has been amassed. Someof the literature is motivated by serious concern with thestrategic and political implications of current economic con-ditions for labour, for women and others.

At a simplistic level, it may be true that "we are allpost-fordists now," just as in the post-war period economistscould say "we are all Keynesians now." On one level, post-fordism has simply become a shorthand label for conditionsin the economy of the 1980s and beyond - for the obviousrestructuring that has occurred and continues to occur. Aswe have seen, many of the earlier critiques have been in-corporated into the literature, and continue as debates aboutthe specifics of the post-fordist age. It is hard to write aboutrestructuring and not have someone label your work as partof the post-fordist literature.

But it is still true that post-fordism is a particular inter-pretation and construction of this age that needs, I think,to be viewed at best with scepticism, and at worst withalarm. The charges that it is gender-biased, technological-ly-deterministic, and that it repackages capital's interestsin the paralysing language of market forces, internationalcompetition and globalization are very serious. Fundamentalquestions of class struggle and political strategy are oftenlost in the debate.

The critics are themselves actively involved in re-searching the same issues, examining changes in the labourprocess, industrial organization and the changing interna-tional and gender division of labour. However, they feelthis is best done without recourse to constructions likeflexible specialization, or post-fordism. Their concern is thatthis construction obstructs our understanding of current

197


capitalist dynamics rather than clarifying it. This issue maybecome increasingly irrelevant, however, as the post-fordistliterature continues to amend its version of the new worldin light of the evidence of the many and varied roads torenewed profitability. As the accounts become more sophis-ticated - as we recognize that renewed Taylorism can be asuccessful source of flexibility for companies just as readilyas can flexible specialization - then post-fordism loses itsmeaning.

Generally, the emphasis on the changed face of capitalismand restructuring is misplaced. There is always a tensionin capitalism between the need for control and the need forflexibility, between the forces of competition and concentra-tion, between centralization and decentralization. The morethings change, the more they remain the same - firms con-tinue to adapt to changed market situations and to searchfor ways of maintaining profit; firms and workers continueto struggle over the terms and conditions of work; workerstry to protect their jobs; households try to make ends meet.This said, conditions for particular workers, firms, house-holds, regions, and national economies can change dramati-cally as local and international shifts occur. Concrete in-vestigation of these changes is important because throughthem we may derive political and economic strategies ap-propriate for particular workers, regions or genders, as thecase may be. Post-fordism and flexibility are important con-cepts only to the extent they can enlighten those strategicinvestigations.

Notes

1. See, for example. M. Aglietta, A Theory of Capitalist Regulation(London: 1976); Claus Offe, Disorganized Capitalism (Cambridge:1985); and S. Lash and L. Urry, The End of Organized Capitalism(Cambridge: 1987).

2. M. Piore and C. Sabel. The Second Industrial Divide (New York:1984); J. Atkinson, "Flexibility: Planning for an Uncertain Future,"Manpower Policy and Practice 1 (Summer 1985); and J. Atkinsonand D. Gregory, "A Flexible Future: Britain's Dual Labour Force,"Marxism Today 30/4 (1986).

~. Piore and Sabel, TM Second Industrial Divide ...• p. 17.

198


4. Classic works in the labour process literature include H. Bravennan,Labour and Monopoly Capital (New York: 1974); M. Buraway,Manufacturing Consent (Chicago: 1979); C. Littler, The Developmentof the Labour Process in Capitalist Societies (London: 1982); R.Edwards, Contested Terrain: The Transformation of the Workplacein Twentieth Century Capitalism (New York: 1979); and A. Friedman,Industry and Labour: Class Struggle at Work and MonopolyCapitalism (London: 1977).

5. Collections of case studies include S. Wood (00.), The Transforma-tion of Work? (London: 1989); D. Knights and H. Willmott (OOs.),New Technology and the Labour Process (London: 1988); F. Green(ed.), Restructuring of the UK. Economy (London: 1989).

6. Ongoing debate has filled recent volumes of the journals Capitaland Class, New Left Review, Cambridge Journal of Economics,Labour and Society and Work, Employment and Society. Collectionsof case studies include S. Wood (00.), The Transformation of Work?(London: 1989); D. Knights and H. Willmott (eds.), New Technologyand the Labour Process (London: 1988); F. Green, Restructuring ofthe UK. Economy (London: 1989).

7. See, for example, the attempts at periodization in D. Gordon, R.Edwards and M. Reich, Segmented Work, Divided Workers(Cambridge: 1982); P. Baran and P. Sweezy, Monopoly Capitalism(New York: 1965); and J. O'Connor, The Fiscal Crisis of the State(New York: 1973).

8. Claus Offe, for example, uses the tenn Disorganized Capitalism,and Scott and Urry call their book The End of Organized Capitalism,to contrast the new regime with the old. Harvey uses the tenn"flexible accumulation" to contrast with fordism, as does Schoen-berger. See D. Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (Oxford:1989) and E. Schoenberger, "From Fordism to Flexible Accumula-tion: Technology, Competitive Strategies and International Loca-tion," Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 6/3(September 1988). See also S. Bowles, D. Gordon and T. Weisskopf,Beyond the Wasteland (New York: 1983).

9. D. Leborgne and A. Lipietz, "New Technologies, New Modes ofRegulation: Some Spatial Implications," Environment and PlanningD: Society and Space 6/3 (September 1988).

10. See, for example, D. Massey, Spatial Divisions of Labour (London:1984); D. Massey and J. Allen, Uneven Redevelopment (London:1988); R. Martin and R. Rowthom (eds.), The Geography of Dein-dustriallzation (London: 1986); Harvey, The Condition of Postmoder-nity; Schoenberger, "From Fordism to Flexible Accumulation •..••; A.Scott and M. Storper, "High Technology Industry and RegionalDevelopment: A Theoretical Critique and Reconstruction," Interna-tional Social Science Journal 1/12 (1987); M. Storper and R. Walker,The Capitalist Imperative : Territory, Technology and IndustrialGrowth (New York: 1989).

11. See M. Castells (ed.), High Technology, Space and Society (BeverlyHills: 1985); B. Bluestone and B. Harrison, The Deindustrializatlonof America (New York: 1982) and B. Harrison and B. Bluestone,The Great U-Turn (New York: 1989); A. Saxenian, "Silicon Valley

199


and Route 128: Regional Prototypes or Historic Exceptions? ," inCastells, High Technology .....

12. Harvey. The Condition of Postmodernity,13. Storper and Walker, The Capitalist Imperative ...• p. 1.14. Leborgne and Lipietz, "New Technologies ... ," p. 277.15. Ibid. p. 267.16. Harvey. The Condition of Postmodernity, Chapter 9 and 10.17. Ibid. pp. 186-7.18. T. Bramble and D. Fie1des, "Theories of 'Post-Fordism': A Critique"

Discussion Paper 24190, Department of Economics. La Trobe Univer-sity, Bundoora. Victoria, Australia.

19. B. Harrison and B. Bluestone. "Wage Polarisation in the US andthe 'Flexibility' Debate," Cambridge Journal of Economics 14 (1990)pp.364-5.

20. A critique of the often implicit technological determinism of someof the post-fordist literature is found in M. Rustin. "The politics ofPost-Fordism: or, The Trouble with 'New Times'," New Left Review175 (May-June 1989) and S. Clarke, "New Utopias for Old: FordistDreams and Post-Fordist Fantasies," Capital and Class 42 (Winter1990).

21. Schoenberger. "From Fordism to Flexible Accumulation ... ," p. 246.22. P. Rosenthal, "Jacked In: Fordism, Cyberpunk. Marxism," Socialist

Review 21/1 (January-March 1991), p.79.23. See A. Lipietz, Mirages and Miracles: The Crisis of Global Fordism

(London: 1987) and a critique by A. Amsden. "Third World In-dustrialization: 'Global Fordism' or a New Model?," New Left Review182 (July/August 1990). On Canada. see J. Jenson. "'Different' butnot 'Exceptional': Canada's Permeable Fordism,' Canadian Reviewof Sociology and Anthropology 26/1 (February 1989).

24. Schoenberger. "From Fordism to Flexible Accumulation."25. F. Wilkinson (ed.), The Dynamics of Labour Marlcet Segmentation

(London: 1981). This collection was followed by R. Tarling and F.Wilkinson (eds.), Flexibility in Labour Markets (London: 1987).which again documented and analyzed the ongoing changes.

26. For a review see S. Rosenberg, "From Segmentation to Flexibility,"Labour and Society 14/4 (October 1989).

27. See, for example. K. Williams. T. Cutler. J. Williams and C. Haslam."The End of Mass Production?," Economy and Society 16/3 (1987).and J. Tomaney, "The Realities of Workplace Flexibility," Capitaland Class 40 (Spring 1990).

28. See Note 6 ; additional examples include M. Storper, "The Transitionto Flexible Specialization in the US Film Industry: ExternalEconomies. the Division of Labour and the Crossing of IndustrialDivides," Cambridge Journal of Economics 13 (1989); Saxenian,"Silicon Valley ...••; J. Rubery and F. Wilkinson. "Distribution.Flexibility of Production and the British Footwear Industry," Labourand Society 14/2 (April 1989).

29. See. for example. B. Neis, "From Cod Blocks to Fish Food: TheCrisis and Restructuring in the Newfoundland Fishing Industry, 1968-86" Ph.D Dissertation, University of Toronto. 1988; and C. Smith

200


"Flexible Specialization. Automation and Mass Production." Work,Employment and Society 3/2 (1989).

30. See Wood.The Transformation of Work ; and A. Pollert, "DismantlingFlexibility." Capital and Class 34 (Spring 1988); and idem "TheFlexible Finn: Fixation or Fact?," Work, Employment and Society2/3 (September 19880).

31. See H. Shaiken, S. Herzenberg and S. Kuhn. "The Work ProcessUnder More Flexible Production," Industrial Relations 25/2 (Spring1986) and Tomaney, "The Reality of Workplace Flexibility."

32. Shaiken et al, "The Work Process...••; and M. Piore, "Perspectiveson Labour Market Flexibility." Industrial Relations 24/2 (Spring1986).

33. M. R. Kelley. "Alternative Forms of Work Organization UnderProgrammable Automation." in S. Wood (ed.), The Transformationof Work?

34. Clarke. "New Utopias for Old...," p, ISO.35. B. Harrison. "The Big Firms are Coming out of the Comer: The

Resurgence of Economic Scale and Industrial Power in the 'Age ofFlexibility'," Working Paper 89-39, School of Urban and Public Af-fairs. Carnegie Mellon University. p.2.

36. D. Harvey. "Flexibility: Threat or Opportunity," Socialist Review21/2 (January 1991). p.73.

37. See Pollert, "Dismantling Flexibility...••and "The 'Flexible Finn"';J. Jenson, "The Talents of Women, the Skills of Men: FlexibleSpecialization and Women," in S. Wood. The Transformation ofWork?; S. Walby. "Flexibility and the Changing Sexual Division ofLabour." in S. Wood. The Transformation of Work?; G. Standing.Global Feminization Through Flexible Labour, Working Paper No.31, ILO (1989).

38. Pollert, "Dismantling Flexibility," p. 70-1.39. Walby, "Flexibility and the Changing Sexual Division of Labour....••40. Jenson, "The Talents of Women....••41. See. for example. J. Rubery, "Flexibility in Labour Costs in Non-

Union Firms," in Tarling and Wilkinson, Flexibility in LabourMarkets.

42. Piore, "Perspectives on Labour Market Flexibility."43. See R. Mahon, "From Fordism to...?: New Technology. Labour

Markets and Unions," Economic and Industrial Democracy 8/2(1987).

44. Ibid. p. 163.45. An interesting Canadian collection of articles is D. Drache and M.

Gertler (eds.), The New Era of Global Competition: State Powerand Market Power (Montreal and Kingston 1991).

46. See Rustin, "The Politics of Post-Fordism ...•• and Clarke, "NewUtopias for Old.;" for reviews.

47. Harvey. "Flexibility: Threat or Opportunity," p. 65-6.48. Pollert, "Dismantling Flexibility," p, 72.49. Pollert, "The 'Flexible Pirm' ...,'· pp. 298-9.SO. Rustin, "The Politics of Post-Fordism...," p. 56.51. This point is well illustrated by Stephen Wood in his critical intro-

duction to The Transformation of Work?

lO\

Macdonald - Post-Fordism and the Flexibility Debate

Documents

Transcript of Macdonald - Post-Fordism and the Flexibility Debate