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the Flexibility
Debate
MARTHA MACDONALD
ike the ubiquitous prefix "post," "flexibility" has become a common buzzword of the 1980s in a wide
variety of academic writing. The two are in fact often
connected, for the essence of this "post" period - whether
postmodern, post-fordist, or post-industrial - is said to be
flexibility - flexible specialization, flexible accumulation,'
flexible firm, labour market flexibility, the "Age of
Flexibility." Essentially, the debate surrounding post-fordism/flexibility has to do with the way firms, industries
and indeed national economies and world capitalism are
restructuring in this era of technological change, heightened
international competition and rapidly changing markets.
Whereas the post-war period is characterized as one of mass
production/consumption, planning, control and stability, the
current age, it is argued, requires flexibility and rapid
response to change by capital, and hence by labour. The
debate is about the extent and nature of these changed conditions, how we can understand these processes, and what
the implications are for political strategy.
Post-fordism, like postmodernism, is grounded in the
sense of dislocation and unease brought about by the rapid
changes in the world order since the early 1970s. In scholarly work in political economy there has been a rush to interpret these developments, and an eagerness to declare a
"new era," one which supersedes the extended post-war
boom. While the left has flirted with both postmodernism
and post-fordism, each approach has critically challenged
some aspects of left analysis and political strategy and each
has been developed to a large extent by those working in
Studies in Political Economy 36, Fall 1991
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Piore and Sabel certainly put forward a demand and technology-led model. They argued that demand was becoming
more differentiated, mass markets were becoming saturated,
and new technology created the possibility of diversifying
production and increased the pace of market change. In their
view, the changing balance between stable and unstable
markets 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 to
flexible accumulation, Harvey argues that it was primarily
through geographic expansion and debt creation, which he
calls spatial and temporal displacement, that the Fordist
regime of accumulation resolved the ever-present tendency
to overaccumulation during the long postwar boom.ls
The crisis of Fordism can to some degree be interpreted...as
running out of those options .... Spatial competition intensified..as the capacity to resolve the overaccumulation problem
through geographical displacement ran out.l7
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There is considerable rewriting of history. To have postfordism, we have to have had fordism, and there is debate
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The task is to amend the institutional framework, not abandon employment policy.
The labour market will always have a structure, just as the
business finn will have a structure. The issue is what the new
structure will look like and how existing institutions can be
changed in order to create it.44
Marxists, of course, do not agree with this vision of a
harmony of interests, and analyze the future options in terms
of class struggle. There is serious debate on the left regarding the strategic implications of the post-fordist analysis.
Some argue that the new economic realities require a change
in the left agenda. For example, traditional social democratic
programs and strategies are deemed untenable in the new
era, with more decentralized approaches to welfare called
for to fit the new regime of accumulation. Some hold out
new options for smaller scale local worker-owned or comanaged facilities - a revised version of small is beautiful.
Others see the satumian style of labour accommodation to
management's agenda as a valid route. The issue is to identify a progressive mode of regulation that will be suited to
the new regime of accumulation.O Such thinking has been
challenged by other marxists, giving rise to heated debate,
such as the "New Times" discussion in Britain.46 David
Harvey argues that "the challenge we face ...is to reorient
the socialist project to the conditions of the day without
simply drifting with every capitalist wind that blows." He
rightly points out that
much of the current argumentin the socialist camp concerning
notions of 'post-fordism'...circles around whether and to what
degree the changes now in motion have socialist potential or
whether they are so deeply subservient to capitalism that they
should be resisted absolutely.s?
Many on the left feel strongly that the latter is true.
Furthermore, many feel that it is the post-fordist construction itself which is dangerous. By emphasizing the
process of capital accumulation it often falls into the trap
of trying to "fix" capitalism - trying to find the changes in
the mode of regulation which would resolve this crisis the
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