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Copyright of Agora (0211-6642) is the property of Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Servicio de Publicaciones and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

At a time when corporate sponsorship of contemporary art has become increasingly widespread, allowing sponsors to enhance their brands and receive return on investment in the shape of tax breaks and publicity, business has maximized this association by also capitalizing on what it perceives as the work ethic and entrepreneurial skills of the art world. The art world has indeed become a benchmark of production and management for the business world which praises its ever-youthful energy, its inventiveness, hipness, and sense of freedom, its flexible working hours and short-term or zero-hour contracts. Following the success of the creative industries, private companies have been keen to embrace this post-Fordist work model and link it to the global neoliberal market economy. This article looks into the way different performance artists have engaged with a corporate environment, but also more generally at the way art has navigated new relations with its economic context in recent years. And since performance management is largely the result of the export of American business models to Western Europe since World War II, it makes sense to look for the roots of this phenomenon on that side of the Atlantic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The presented paper deals with the basic issues, dilemmas and social and cultural contradictions in the Polish transformation process against the background of Central and Eastern Europe, the processes of the establishment and development of new states and nations as well as the new markets. The author views these problems through the light of the emergence of a broad class of subcontractors in a turbulent environment and the new modes of production, which are a result of changes in the structure of human labour introduced by post-Fordism (in its final stage, lean management) and postmodernity. The author also analyzes the social change as a consequence of social relations resulting from exchanging the life chances of the actors for the class-conditioned market opportunities in the existing social and political situation (conjoncture) and at the present stage of transformation at the moment when the emergent markets get shaped and mature. The study makes use of the hermeneutic method, which is finding out the essence of the present phase of transformation through the light of new concepts against the background of the historical-comparative analysis. The present article is not aimed at ordering reality but it is an inspiration for studies and for approaching transformation in accordance with a new conceptual apparatus of social sciences, sociology, management and political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though work is important for people's self-esteem and recognition, the sociology of work pays little attention to the meaning of work. This reflects that work in capitalist societies tends to be alienated. But empirical findings show that employees nevertheless try to appropriate their work by asking for its meaning. They claim for a meaningful work and for the possibility to execute work in a meaningful way. If they have to carry out work they feel to be meaningless they can suffer psychological strain. Meaning has not only an individual dimension but it refers to the meaning for society and other people and there are social institutionalizations of recognized meanings of work. Fordism and flexible capitalism are connected to different forms of alienation and difficulties to appropriate work as meaningful. Therefore, meaningful work is embedded in relations of collegiality and cooperation and can be damaged by the fragmentation of work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The collective work The Formation of a Welfare State and the Prospects of a Social State in Russia: Realities and Projects, prepared by the Center for the Study of Sociocultural Change (CSSCC) of the RAS Institute of Philosophy under the general editorship of RAS Corresponding Member N.I. Lapin, is discussed. The relevance of this work is emphasized. Theoretical innovations, including the introduction of new concepts in scientific and philosophical discourse, are noted, and the theoretical and empirical value of many of its chapters is shown. At the same time, in the opinion of the reviewer, some conceptual statements of the authors need more thorough substantiation, in particular, the idea of transition from a welfare state to a social state. The analysis of the deficiencies of the welfare state from the standpoint of critical social theory, carried out in some chapters, seems insufficiently reasoned. At the same time, in the opinion of the reviewer, the reasoning on modernization as the main prerequisite for the formation of a social state in Russia appears convincing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Shaping one's life artistically' implies the principle 'I live as an artist when all my actions, and my expression in general, in connection with any content whatever, remain for me a mere show and assume a shape which is wholly within my power' (Hegel). Drawing on Hegel, the 'young' Marx advocated 'production in accordance with the laws of Beauty' ('artistic work/life'), as a kind of work which, inasmuch as it was 'free', provided a model for the elucidation of the presupposition of human emancipation. 'True Art' appears to be work performed under the umbrella of a 'free community', where the division between masters and slaves, working class and capitalists, emancipators and emancipated, is abolished. Does the conception of 'living artistically' (still) have a critical emancipatory value, and how can it be formulated under the conditions of a global market economy and post-Fordism, where every critical act, event and activity is appropriated? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This speculative paper enquires into the discourse of the 'end of labour' or 'disappearance of labour' as a result of the development of 'intelligent capitalism' clearly seen in 'intelligent manufacturing' systems that are now pursued and developed as Industry 4.0 strategy in East Asia, Germany and others parts of the world. When 'intelligent capitalism' becomes the norm rather the exception what happens to labour as a factor of production and what happens to economy and society based on capital and labour? The paper briefly reviews the sociology of labour from a Marxist view to examine conceptions of Fordist and post-Fordist capitalism, and explore the advert of 'intelligent capitalism' to pose the question concerning education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ÖZ: Dünya ekonomik sisteminin kapitalizm tarafından şekillendirildiği bilinen bir gerçektir. Dolayısıyla, ekonomik sistem içinde yer alan fordizm ve post-fordizm de kapitalizmin etkisi altında bulunmaktadır. Burada yapılan araştırmada görüldüğü gibi, fordizm modernizmi etkilemekte, daha sonra gündeme gelen post-fordizm de post-modernizmi etkilemektedir. Öte yandan, modernizm ve post-modernizm, “gelişme yazını” ve “azgelişme yazını” tarafından farklı açılardan ele alınmaktadır. Bu teorilere “azgelişmişlik” açısından bakılmadığında, toplumsal kalkınma sorununa gelişmeyi destekleyici bir çözüm getirilememektedir. O nedenle, bu makalede, ekonomik sistemleri de belirleyen üretim ilişkileri de dikkate alınarak, modernizm ve post-modernizm teorilerinin azgelişme açısından incelenmesi üzerine yoğunlaşılmaktadır. Literatür araştırmalarından elde edilen sonuçla, üretim ilişkileri temelinde modernizm ve post-modernizm gelişmiş devletlerin çıkarlarına işlemektedir. Çalışmada buradan hareketle, azgelişmiş devletlerin zararlarına olabilecek faktörler vurgulanmaya ve bu faktörlerin etkisini ortadan kaldırmaya yönelik politika önerilerinde bulunulmaya çalışılmaktadır. Anahtar Kelimeler: Azgelişme, Kapitalizm, Modernizm, Post-modernizm, Fordizm, Post-fordizm, Bağımlılık Okulu. ABSTRACT: It is a well-known reality that capitalism forms the economic system of the world. Therefore, fordism and post-fordism contained in the economic system are also under the influence of capitalism. As shown in the research, fordism affects the modernism, and in the next step dealt post-fordism influences the post-modernism. On the other hand, the modernism and post-modernism theories have been considered through different perspectives by the “development literature” and the “underdevelopment literature”. It is not possible to find a solution against the social development problem unless these theories are taken into consideration in terms of “underdevelopment” perspective. For this reason, in this article, investigation of the modernism and post-modernism theories has been concentrated in terms of underdevelopment based on production relations which determines economic systems. According to the findings acquired in literature review, modernism and post-modernism are beneficial for developed countries based on relations of production. Starting this point, this study aims to emphasize the factors that could be disadvantageous for underdeveloped countries and attempts to offer new policies intended to prevent the undesired effects of these factors. Keywords: Underdevelopment, Capitalism, Modernism, Post-modernism, Fordism, Post-fordism, School of Dependency.

Copyright of Revista de Administração is the property of Instituto de Administracao da FEA-USP and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In the historical study of modern American capitalism, labor unfreedom in agriculture has been conceptualized as an exception to liberal labor relations in the post-slavery polity, from debt peonage to the threat of deportation from workplaces populated by non-citizen migrants. At the same time, state-enforced labor compulsions and restrictions are increasingly part and parcel of what scholars call neoliberal exceptionalism. This article argues that agricultural and neoliberal exceptionalisms are related, by tracing the historical genealogy and juridical production of a restrictive work status, the deportable temporary labor migrant, across political economies in the modern United States, from imperial construction in the Panama Canal Zone, to agriculture, to the knowledge economy. Contrary to existing notions of temporary work visas as a new form of unfreedom in neoliberalized advanced capitalist states, I show how the threat of deportation is older and rooted in the rise of the liberal regulatory state in a post-slavery, yet persistently racial capitalist political economy. The import of understanding this history of government intervention increases as the liberal regulatory state's coercive logics and practices intensify and circulate in agriculture and under a post-Fordist regime of accumulation, reproducing racial capitalism in the labor process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intention of this article is to problematize global capitalism as the ‘common enemy’ of the ‘anti-globalization’ movements by placing it within the ambiguities of post-modernity. Looking at (post)-Fordism, I talk about the incompleteness of any hegemonic project. Gramscian understanding of hegemony as born in the factory may still be still valid but needs to be expanded to cover what Deleuze describes as ‘arbitrary bio-politics’. While power aims at control of minds, moods or feelings, the attempt to normalize these evades the power of any institution and contains the potentialities of its own subversion.

In this article, I examine my practice-as-research piecesWhat The Money MeantandSERVUS!in terms of how their design and delivery make visible those labour and exchange relations characteristic of late capitalism. After a brief introduction, I take the reader through theoretical debates around service work’s proliferation and existing arguments about its relationship to performance, as well as an argument for the ‘agonistic’ potential of aesthetic activity. I move on to argue that SERVUS! provides an example of how the one-to-one performance form can both reveal reification in action and rupture or speak back to its enactment, via techniques including explicit payment, over-enunciation or ‘flourish’ and what I term affective dissonance. I then demonstrate howWhat The Money Meantextends these techniques by applying them across a specific scenographic design and participatory structure.What The Money Meantinvites audience members to communicate with the performer by tipping, which I argue might be seen as a dramaturgical tactic of audience participation. I conclude by arguing that the performance of service, especially that which plays upon the one-to-one structure, can work ‘agonistically’ by both revealing the precarity of late capitalist labour and subverting its delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The British TV show Pop Star to Opera Star (2010/2011) was a contribution to a well-worn reality TV genre in which people are challenged to undertake a professional activity in which they have no prior experience. In this article I examine the way in which popular challenge programmes such as Pop Star to Opera Star, which suggest that highly skilled activities can be 'faked' with no more than a few day's training, stage what art theorist John Roberts describes as 'the generalised deskilling of labour under capitalism'. And I argue that in particular, the historical transvaluation of musical performance skills throughout the capitalist era exposes the contradictions that are inherent in both social and cultural constructions of the value of labour under capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Communication is examined in the realm of Marxist theory not as an autonomous social field, but as a component in the total social structure. It is argued that there was a shift from the initial Marxist idea of forms of communication as relations of production to communication as part of the superstructure, and that this view has prevailed in Marxist theory for a long period of time. In the work of later Marxists, we can spot a re-connection of communication with the capitalist mode of production, but not with the process of structuration and changing of relations of production. In my view, first we must connect these modifications in Marxist theory with the changes in the capitalist mode of production itself and secondly we must seek the role of communication primarily in the production process. We stress that at the end of the 19th century there was a shift from extensive to intensive forms of surplus value which was tightly interconnected with the mass (enlarged) consumption of symbolic commodities and commodities – symbols as stimulus for the intensive production. In this way capitalism was transformed to symbolic capitalism. In the ‘60s, the symbolic logic of enlarged consumption led to the need for diverse and flexible production and therefore to the deep information – symbolic changes in technology and social organization of the labour. Thus the logic of consumption became logic of production. This made possible on one hand the shrinkage of the enlarged consumption and on the other the high productivity of the economic systems. This was the rise of a new, deep symbolic capitalism, which made possible the social change without seizing the power. Therefore, the recent developments in the capitalist mode of production takes us back to the primary Marxist notion of communication forms as relations of production and make possible to change the laters by changing the first.

This article contributes to the discussions concerning immaterial labour and temporality in post-Fordism by examining how accounts of individuality intertwine with accounts of potential in the newly emerged field of work-related coaching. In producing potential individuals, coaching responds to the needs of the anticipatory economy that produces value in terms of future expectations and potentialities. In this sense, coaching is an example of immaterial production that merges subjectivity and individuality with economic value production and transforms subjects into a flexible workforce. However, examining the temporalities inherent in the production of potential in coaching also shows that orientation towards the future is not the only aspect of temporality in this kind of production. It is thus suggested that taking into account the time spent in coaching means that contrary to what is often claimed, questions concerning the measuring of time are not irrelevant to immaterial labour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines recent documentary films that have sought to narrate, record and criticise the effects on the French workplace of a shift to a new model of finance capitalism driven by ‘pure’ money. The films give representation to subjective experiences in the workplace showing how abstract economics is played out at the most intimate, personal and material level. The films seem to challenge dominant representations of finance capitalism as an order that has emancipated workers from the physical and disciplinary constraints of industrialism. The workers in these films describe the transition to a new economic order in terms of an intensification of corporeal pain. We see an economic order that pits an infinite accumulation of virtual money against the finite productive capacities of the human body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Politicas y Sociales is the property of Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Politicas y Sociales and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The essay offers information on the wages paid in the money form in contemporary post-Fordist capitalism. It analyzes interrelated characteristics and problems with these wages, including an increasing gap between wages paid and the labor performed and exchanged for such wages. It also examines the disconnect between what labor earns and what it needs to spend.

Copyright of Dokuz Eylul University Journal of Graduate School of Social Sciences is the property of Dokuz Eylul University Graduate School of Social Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The intention of this article is to problematize global capitalism as the 'common enemy' of the 'anti-globalization' movements by placing it within the ambiguities of post-modernity. Looking at (post)-Fordism, I talk about the incompleteness of any hegemonic project. Gramscian understanding of hegemony as born in the factory may still be still valid but needs to be expanded to cover what Deleuze describes as 'arbitrary bio-politics'. While power aims at control of minds, moods or feelings, the attempt to normalize these evades the power of any institution and contains the potentialities of its own subversion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes articulations among urban enclaves, finance capital, and glass architecture by exploring MGM’s corporate investments in the Las Vegas CityCenter development and the Chinese enclave of Macau. CityCenter is an unsuccessful $9 billion master-planned urban community financed by MGM and Dubai World. Macau is a former Portuguese colony and Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China which has, since its return to the PRC in 1999, replaced Las Vegas as the world’s most lucrative site of casino gaming revenue. Taken together, CityCenter and Macau are illustrative of the political economy and cultural logics of financialization. Foreign investment from Las Vegas entrepreneurs has vitrified Macau, transforming it into a phantasmagoria of glass resorts. Macau in turn plays a crucial functional role in capitalism’s recomposition in East Asia, similar to the autochthonous role of the Italian city-states of Venice and Genoa in the historical origins of capitalism. In order to ‘read’ the cities of Las Vegas and Macau, I explore intertextual legibilities among fictitious capital that relies on glass fiber-optic technology to enable grand architectural projects; expressionist fictional representations of glass architecture and its utopian transformative potential; and glass buildings that themselves dissimulate in a manner not unlike fiction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

L’article a pour objet de montrer l’intérêt d’un rapprochement entre la Théorie de la Régulation et le référentiel, analytique et normatif, du développement durable. Si ce rapprochement ne se conçoit pas sans précautions, les deux constructions ne se situant pas sur le même plan épistémologique, chacune aide cependant à éclairer les zones d’ombre laissées par l’autre. La mise en rapport est notamment féconde pour les entrées suivantes : conceptualisation du système économique, rapport aux institutions, prise en compte de l’environnement, rapport au temps, analyse des ruptures, et cadre spatial. À titre de première illustration, la suite de l’article mobilise les catégories régulationnistes pour questionner les dynamiques fordiste et post-fordiste(s) au crible de la durabilité. La mise en évidence d’antagonismes forts entre ces modes de développement particuliers et les enjeux de durabilité invite à se demander si, plus fondamentalement, certaines caractéristiques essentielles du capitalisme ne seraient pas en cause.Régulation theory and sustainable development. The article aims to show the importance of a rapprochement between Régulation theory and the analytical and prescriptive approaches of sustainable development. This rapprochement should not be considered lightly, as the two constructions are not on the same epistemological level, yet each helps to clarify the grey areas left by the other. The relationship is particularly productive in the following areas: conceptualisation of the economic system, relationship to institutions, recognition of environmental factors, time relationships, crises analysis and spatial framework. The article illustrates this rapprochement by using the regulationist categories to examine Fordist and post-Fordist dynamics from the sustainability viewpoint. The emergence of strong antagonisms between these particular modes of development and sustainability issues leads one to ask, more fundamentally, whether certain essential features of capitalism are not being questioned.

This chapter approaches from a critical perspective questions regarding socalled 'virtual communities.' Because the origins of every community arise from language and communication it is impossible to distinguish between 'genuine,' communities and imaginary, or even 'fake,' communities. It is, however, possible to discern both their (changing) stability and solidity within specific social conditions and the ways in which these communities are imagined. This social-constructivist approach is further developed by proposing a three-fold construction of community while simultaneously demonstrating the falsehood of the 'virtual' versus 'real' dichotomy. Throughout the chapter, determinist paradigms are questioned and demystified by demonstrating how both optimistic and pessimistic technologistic currents fail to acknowledge wider structural changes in capitalism, and attempt to depoliticise these developments by providing escapist or unitary solutions to social antagonisms. Because technology is neither autonomous nor neutral, and always develops within a complex conjuncture of power relationships, there is a need to look beyond views that solely blame technology for social transformations. In the time of 'liquid modernity' and post-Fordist capitalism, temporary cloakroom communities have become a rule, and this chapter aims at revising our understanding of their role in society [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Communication is examined in the realm of Marxist theory not as an autonomous social field, but as a component in the total social structure. It is argued that there was a shift from the initial Marxist idea of forms of communication as relations of production to communication as part of the superstructure, and that this view has prevailed in Marxist theory for a long period of time. In the work of later Marxists, we can spot a re-connection of communication with the capitalist mode of production, but not with the process of structuration and changing of relations of production. In my view, first we must connect these modifications in Marxist theory with the changes in the capitalist mode of production itself and secondly we must seek the role of communication primarily in the production process. We stress that at the end of the 19th century there was a shift from extensive to intensive forms of surplus value which was tightly interconnected with the mass (enlarged) consumption of symbolic commodities and commodities -- symbols as stimulus for the intensive production. In this way capitalism was transformed to symbolic capitalism. In the '60s, the symbolic logic of enlarged consumption led to the need for diverse and flexible production and therefore to the deep information -- symbolic changes in technology and social organization of the labour. Thus the logic of consumption became the logic of production. This made possible on one hand the shrinkage of the enlarged consumption and on the other the high productivity of the economic systems. This was the rise of a new, deep symbolic capitalism, which made possible the social change without seizing the power. Therefore, the recent developments in the capitalist mode of production takes us back to the primary Marxist notion of communication forms as relations of production and make possible to change the laters by changing the first. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the relations between film and work under the conditions of post-Fordist modes of production as they have appeared since the 1970s. It engages with the political theories of post-Fordism and immaterial labor and biopolitics which were originated in Italy from the 1970s and have become influential on modern understandings of new modes of work and production. The Foucauldian biopower is described.

This article examines how the representation of work changed in Jean-Luc Godard's films over the years 1972-1982. It considers three films: Tout va bien/Everything's All Right (1972), signed jointly by Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin, Sauve qui peut (la vie)/Every Man for Himself (1979) and Passion (1982). It argues that Godard presents in them characters who are unhappy in their work and search for alternatives, which proves very difficult. The three films are discussed in the context of the transformation that took place in the 'wider world' in the 1970s. They include, in Western Europe, the shift from Fordism to post-Fordism, marked by mass redundancies, factory closures and the decline of the workers' movement, the increase in immigrant labour, and the blurring of boundaries between blue- and white-collar workers, and in Poland, the rise of the Solidarity movement and imposition of martial law. The three films also possibly reflect Godard's gradual loss of interest in the topic of work, or his search for a new language to represent it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the center of contemporary discourse on technology -- or the digital discourse -- is the assertion that network technology ushers in a new phase of capitalism which is more democratic, participatory, and de-alienating for individuals. Rather than viewing this discourse as a transparent description of the new realities of techno-capitalism and judging its claims as true (as the hegemonic view sees it) or false (a view expressed by few critical voices), this article offers a new framework which sees the digital discourse as signaling a historical shift in the technological legitimation of capitalism, concurrent with the emergence of the post-Fordist phase of capitalism. Technology discourse legitimated the Fordist phase of capitalism by stressing the ability of technology and technique to mitigate exploitation. It hence legitimated the interventionist welfare state, the central planning in businesses and the economy, the hierarchized corporation, and the tenured worker. In contrast, contemporary technology discourse legitimates the post-Fordist phase of capitalism by stressing the ability of technology to mitigate alienation. It hence legitimates the withdrawal of the state from markets, the dehierarchization and decentralization of businesses, and the flexibilization of production and the labor process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The apparent de-bordering of the western world under the impulse of economic globalization has been paralleled by a simultaneous process of re-bordering of late-capitalist societies against global migrations. This re-bordering is part of a broader punitive turn in the regulation of migration which has emerged, particularly in the European context, since the mid-1970s. On the one hand, non-western immigrants are targeted by prohibitionist immigration policies which in fact contribute to the reproduction of their status of illegality; on the other hand, the systematic use of incarceration (together with administrative detention and deportation) as the main strategy in the ongoing war against unauthorized immigration configures a dynamic of hyper-criminalization of immigrants, whose result is the intensification of their socioeconomic and political marginality across Europe. Following the materialist criminological approach known as political economy of punishment, this article suggests that these punitive strategies should be analyzed against the background of an increasingly flexible and de-regulated neoliberal economy: in this context, the hyper-criminalization of migrations contributes to the reproduction of a vulnerable labor force whose insecurity makes it suitable for the segmented labor markets of post-Fordist economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fundamental question we pose in this article is how should we understand marketing in the age of increasingly integrated and networked customer databases? This article argues that new forms of database marketing are best described as customer production processes that rely on the exploitation of the multitude of consumer life. We suggest that the recent increase in available consumer data, computational power and analytical skills leads to a reorganization of the gaze of marketers and increasingly reverses the Fordist articulation of production and consumption. More specifically, instead of flexibly adjusting production regimes to shifting consumption patterns, database marketers collapse the production--consumption dichotomy by manufacturing customers as commodities. Hence, theories about the role of surveillance and simulation technologies for strategies of economic value creation need to be updated in order to acknowledge the evolution of database marketing into a central site of flexible accumulation processes in information capitalism. The result of our undertaking is a model of customer databases that foregrounds the far-reaching effect of potent simulational capabilities intersecting with constantly increasing computational power to transform the database into the factory of the 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Política & Sociedade: Revista de Sociologia Política is the property of Revista Politica & Sociedade and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses the key elements of neoliberalism in Organization for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD) countries. It examines the characteristics of the accumulation and domination strategy in neoliberalism, which involved a shifting of market and state logics. Moreover, it also cites the development of neoliberal policies to deal with the crisis of neoliberalism. It further highlights theoretical concepts to clarify the complexity of the crisis, including its history and its dynamics.

The article discusses the concept of bifurcations in postneoliberalism. It cites three processes that were considered important to the neoliberal phase, including the postneoliberalism of capital, national postneoliberalism and the postneoliberalism of the people. National postneoliberalism focuses on the nationalization of companies and institutions, while, the postneoliberalism of people puts emphasis on the creation of common spaces and the transformation of everyday relations. The postneoliberalism of capital, on the other hand, has resulted to the growth of institutional and discursive practices in national security.

This article argues the formation of a new type of economic actor at the intersection of a new capitalism and a new technology: The digerati. The article is based on a discourse analysis of the popular magazine Wired, which registers the culture of contemporary technocapitalism. The article suggests that the new persona of the digerati is constructed as a rejection of the ethics, which dominated the Fordist workplace and Fordist society: Hierarchy and differentiation between workers, on the one hand and capitalists and managers, on the other hand. The article describes the transformation of these two categories—workers and capitalists—into the digerati worker and the digerati entrepreneur, respectively. Set within the context of the structural transformations of capitalism from Fordism to post-Fordism, the article shows the ideological fit of the new ethics of the digerati to the new working arrangements of post-Fordist capitalism, characterized by more privatizes, flexible, and precarious working arrangements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, basic income (BI) will not be considered as a measure to raise living standards and social well-being. Rather, it will be presented as an indispensable structural policy for achieving a healthier social order governed by a more equitable compromise between capital and labor. Embracing the French Regulation School approach, we maintain that such a compromise is founded on the redistribution of productivity gains. Describing the dynamics of productivity enables a better understanding of the main features and development of contemporary capitalism. In advancing our argument, we focus on the socioeconomic transformation that has overtaken the Fordist paradigm within Western countries and propose the term "cognitive capitalism" to describe the new economic system. We argue that BI can be seen as a viable economic policy able to contrast the instability generated by the present form(s) of accumulation, as it increases productivity through network and learning processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article suggests some new lines of research in the field of the political economy of punishment and some possible new directions for a critical approach to contemporary social control strategies. The starting point is the transition from a Fordist economy to what can be defined as a post-Fordist system of production. I outline some tendencies in the actual capitalist dynamic (concerning the labour market, the production process, the relations between the workforce and capitalist power and between work and social citizenship), suggesting that a renewed political economy of social control has to deal with them. Two tendencies are assumed to be structural. On the one hand, the tendency of the capitalist system to make the production (and extraction) of surplus-value more and more independent of the effective working time (a tendency toward the reduction of human labour in the productive process). On the other hand, the tendency towards the massive introduction of new technologies: a tendency whose main consequences seem to be the intellectualisation of human labour and the decline of the classic distinction between manual and intellectual labour. I assume that these tendencies give rise to a new productive subject (the multitude), whose characters exceed the actual organisation of work and deepen the contradictions intrinsic to post-Fordist societies. Hence, an analysis of some new social control strategies follows, where I consider actuarialism as a technology for the control of these contradictions [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of the Historical Materialism research stream on immaterial labour, cognitive capitalism and the general intellect, begun in issue 15.1, this articles explores the importance of the expression 'general intellect', proposed by Marx in the Grundrisse, for an analysis of linguistic and intellectual work in contemporary capitalism. It links the notion of general intellect to the crisis of the law of value, the political significance of mass intellectuality, and the definition of democracy in a world where knowledge is a productive force in its own right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces a series of essays on the related concepts of cognitive capitalism, immaterial labour and the 'general intellect', which will feature in the pages of Historical Materialism from this issue onwards. It outlines the stakes of the theoretical discussion around these concepts and welcomes the recasting in Marxian terms of debates which have o en been monopolised by apologetic treatments of capitalist development. It also identifies five areas which future articles in this 'research stream' will be preoccupied with: (1) the interpretation of Marxian notions, especially arising from the Grundrisse; (2) the philosophy of history and the schemata of social change that underpin concepts such as cognitive capitalism; (3) the identification of hegemonic social figures (e.g. the immaterial labourer, the 'cognitariat'); (4) issues of philosophical anthropology bearing on the definition of knowledge and intellect; (5) the role of debates on value (and its possible crisis) in assessing the idea of knowledge as a productive force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A case is made for cultural political economy (CPE) by exploring the constitutive role of semiosis in economic and political activities, economic and political institutions, and social order more generally. CPE is a post-disciplinary approach that adopts the "cultural turn" in economic and political inquiry without neglecting the articulation of semiosis with the interconnected materialities of economics and politics within wider social formations. This approach is illustrated from the emergence of the knowledge-based economy as a master discourse for accumulation strategies on different scales, for state projects and hegemonic visions, for diverse functional systems and professions, and for civil society. * He is best known for his contributions to state theory, the regulation approach in political economy, the study of Thatcherism, governance and, most recently, the future of capitalism, the capitalist state, and welfare regimes. His recent publications include: The Future of the Capitalist State (Polity, 2002) and STATE / SPACE , co-edited with N. Brenner, M. Jones, and G. MacLeod (Blackwell, 2003). He is now working on the nature and contradictions of the knowledge-based economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the cultural and social consequences of the new forms of work organisation variously described as engineered workplace culture, flexibilisation, teamwork, employee involvement, quality circles and post-Fordism. Some celebrate the new form of worker this creates as a consumer of organisationally provided meanings. However, the choices are quite limited for workers in engineered cultures, and for the self-discovering subjects of consumer capitalism more generally. The language, norms and values of engineered cultures become internalised and dominate employees' subjectivity. Further, a sociological analysis of institutional structures of consumer capitalism, and engineered cultures in particular, points to how they encourage workers to develop moral frameworks that are individualistic, with little concern for other people. Simone Weil's studies of the workplace are used to argue that a culture that encourages an ethical orientation of respect for the other is at the heart of good work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a historical review of forms of temporal structuring and experience in the evolution of work organization. Initially, we review some key images of time and temporality to emerge from philosophy and social theory. In particular, we discuss images of temporal structuring reflected in the two key time metaphors, the line and the cycle. Secondly, we examine some of the main images of time to emerge from the history of work organization. While initially the focus is upon those linear time images that stem from the progressive commodification of the labour process, subsequently this analysis is qualified by time images that reflect the social construction of organizational culture. An examination of the homogeneous time-reckoning systems of Taylorism is complemented by examples of heterogeneous time-reckoning from anthropological and ethnographic studies. Finally, we discuss the postmodernist debate in the sociology of time. Much of the foregoing analysis having been devoted to issues of clock-time, this section sees discussion of what has been referred to as "instantaneous-time", whereby organizational practices are based on time-frames that lie beyond conscious human experience. This concept is associated with the complex shifts from Fordism to the flexible accumulation of "post-Fordism". Central to this debate is the notion of the time-space compression of physical processes and human experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]