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Resumo O objetivo deste artigo é abordar a Indústria 4.0 como o cerne de um novo paradigma de produção - o ciberfordismo - que emergiu no bojo do estágio ultraneoliberal do capitalismo. Primeiramente, apresentamos as características da Indústria 4.0 para evidenciar como ela radicaliza os processos de automação da produção e de inserção da inteligência artificial nos processos decisórios. Em seguida, retomamos os contornos dos paradigmas fordistas e pós-fordistas de produção, demarcando a continuidade entre estes e o ciberfordismo, bem como apontando a desconstrução do compromisso fordista e do Estado de bem-estar em sua transição para os modelos de flexibilização pós-fordistas e neoliberais. Discutimos também as características do paradigma ciberfordista, que maximiza os propósitos do fordismo clássico, uma vez que tende a tornar prescindíveis a mão de obra qualificada e até mesmo os próprios gerentes. Na conclusão, destacamos as contribuições do artigo e recomendações para futuras pesquisas. Resumen El propósito de este artículo es abordar la Industria 4.0 como el núcleo de un nuevo paradigma de producción, el ciberfordismo, que surgió en medio de la etapa ultraneoliberal del capitalismo. En la primera parte, presentamos las características de la Industria 4.0 para mostrar cómo radicaliza los procesos de automatización de la producción y de inserción de inteligencia artificial en los procesos de toma de decisiones. En la segunda parte, volvemos a los contornos de los paradigmas de producción fordista y posfordista, delimitando la continuidad entre estos y el ciberfordismo, y señalando la deconstrucción del compromiso fordista y el estado de bienestar en su transición a modelos de flexibilización posfordistas y neoliberales. En la tercera parte, discutimos las características del paradigma ciberfordista, que maximiza los propósitos del fordismo clásico, ya que tiende a hacer innecesaria la mano de obra calificada e incluso los propios gerentes. En las conclusiones destacamos los aportes del artículo y las recomendaciones para futuras investigaciones. Abstract This article approaches Industry 4.0 as the core of cyberfordism, a new production paradigm that emerged amid the ultra-neoliberal stage of capitalism. The first part of the study presents the characteristics of Industry 4.0, showing how it radicalizes production automation and inserts artificial intelligence in decision-making processes. The second part returns to the Fordist and post-Fordist production paradigms, demarcating the continuity between them and cyberfordism. We point out the deconstruction of the Fordist commitment and the welfare state during the transition to post-Fordist and neoliberal flexibilization models. In the third part, we discuss the characteristics of the cyberfordist paradigm, which maximizes the purposes of classic Fordism since it tends to make skilled labor and managers unnecessary. In the conclusion, we highlight the contributions and recommendations for future research.

Robin Murray talks to Jeremy Gilbert and Andrew GoffeyInTrODUCTIOnThis issue of New Formations is concerned with a complex of issues around the politics of networks, 'control' and 'security' societies as defined by Deleuze and Foucault respectively, and post-Fordism. In fact Maurizio Lazzarato, for one, has explicitly linked the latter two phenomena, understanding postFordism as more-or-less the direct consequence of new techniques of power and governance as described by Foucault being deployed in the context of processes of capitalist production.Today the 'post-Fordist' hypothesis seems more or less irrefutable. While some of the key features of 'Fordist' capitalism - such as assemblyline production - remain central to global manufacturing (above all in China), they are no longer bundled with the other key features of 'Fordism', such as a strict gendered division of labour and a macro-economic policy committed to maintaining high aggregate demand within the same nation state in which production is concentrated. Industrial automation, market differentiation, corporate disaggregation, labour market specialisation, justin-time production and the expansion of the retail, IT and service sectors have transformed economies beyond recognition, not just in the old industrial heartlands of northern Europe and north America, but in differentiated ways on a global scale. What's more, these changes have been bound up with profound cultural, social and political changes, as commentators such as David Harvey were already discerning at the end of the 1980s. It is worth bearing in mind, then, that when the hypothesis was first advanced at the end of the 1970s, the idea that such changes would have any significant results at all was widely regarded as controversial, and was much resisted.Robin Murray has been one of the UK's leading radical economists for many years. An expert on co-operatives, social enterprise and institutional and technological innovation, he was Director of Industry for the Greater London Council during the 1980s. This was the period during which the GLC was led by Ken Livingstone, enacting one of the most radical progressive programmes of any major governmental body in British history. Directly influenced by this experience, Murray wrote two celebrated articles for the British monthly Marxism Today on the subject of emergent 'post-Fordism' in the second half of the 1980s. These two essays 'After Henry' and 'Benetton Britain' were key in introducing the concept of post-Fordism to the wider left in the UK.1 new Labour would later take up the idea of post-Fordism as dictating a narrowly individualist culture and an approach to economic management and publicservice reform which was wholly informed by neoliberal ideology. But this was never Murray's conclusion. Instead he has argued consistently that the new technological and organisational forms of contemporary production are adaptable to classic democratic socialist objectives, and facilitate collaborative creativity, democratic self-management and co-operative production.In this interview Andrew Goffey and Jeremy Gilbert discuss a wide range of these issues with Murray, for whose time and co-operation we remain extremely grateful.POsT-FOrDIsM In PrACTICEJeremy I was hoping that initially you could say a bit about the idea of postFordism, and its reception history in this country, because you were one of the first people writing about it robin, at least in a context that was widely read.Robin Well, for me, it originated in our experience at the GLC, not from any writing. Throughout the 1970s, and right up until the drafting of Labour's London Manifesto for the 1981 municipal elections, the predominant economic paradigm was Fordism: left economic industrial strategy was based on the idea of scale and rationalisation. The critique of industrial Britain across the political spectrum was that it was backward. It had too many old family firms, who underinvested and weren't good at managing. …

Starting in the late 1970s, Cape Verdean labor-power became indispensable in a number of sectors of the Portuguese economy, no longer merely filling gaps but serving as a vital part of the workforce in key industries such as civil construction and cleaning services. Assuming a central role in the productive process, these largely “low-skilled” immigrants came to form a reserve army of labor in the fragmented service-sector economy of the Lisbon Metropolitan Area. Although they come from diverse backgrounds and belong to different migratory phases, Cape Verdeans continue to be concentrated in the most precarious and poorly paid strata of the Portuguese labor market. The tenuous situation of most Cape Verdean immigrants has made them especially vulnerable to the post-2010 economic downturn and the accompanying IMF-mandated structural changes and liberalization measures. In this paper, I examine the trajectory of four Cape Verdean workers in the Portuguese labor market prior to 2010 and during the current “crisis economy.” While these accounts differ in the details, they are alike in how my interviewees have seen their daily lives become more difficult and insecure. In addition to exploring this sequence of events, I contextualize these case studies within the extant literature on precarity. In this regard, I identify a temporal gap in concept of precarity as it has been theorized to date. Whereas most scholars juxtapose the stability of the Fordist period with the precariousness of our post-Fordist times, I wish to highlight how my interviewees simply long for a return to pre-crisis post-Fordism, not Fordism per se.

This chapter examines the nature of urban economies in the early 1990s, in the light of the recent arguments in the social sciences about New Times and postmodernity. It provides a conceptual framework for analyzing the empirical findings of recent research into Manchester's 'cultural' industries, its clothing and fashion industries, and so-called 'green businesses', conducted by the Institute for Popular Culture at MMU and its PCFC research team. The chapter emphasizes the exploratory nature, which acknowledges the complexity and scope of the issues involved, and the controversy surrounding the debates around postmodernity. It aims to examine some of the specific claims of postmodern theorists about the economy, and the light they throw on Manchester's current experience. The chapter argues that, just as Manchester's Fordism has to be understood as the product of politics and strategy, at local and national level, so too are the fragments of an emergent post-Fordism which the PCFC research has uncovered.

Orientadores: Marcelo de Carvalho Pereira, José Ricardo Fucidji Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Economia Resumo: A desaceleração da produtividade do trabalho a partir da década de 1970 é um fato bem estabelecido pela literatura econômica. Em sua investigação fenômenos relacionados a mudanças demográficas, preços de commodities, progresso tecnológico etc. foram levantados como causas prováveis. Nessa mesma direção, o presente trabalho analisa o efeito do comportamento dos trabalhadores sobre a produtividade agregada do trabalho. Empregando elementos da economia comportamental do trabalho e da teoria da regulamentação, apresenta as comparações salariais como estímulos à percepção da justiça, o que, por sua vez, conduziria a mudanças no empenho do trabalhador. Possíveis vínculos entre essa lógica microeconômica e a esfera macroeconômica são apresentados por meio da adição de elementos históricos, sociais e políticos vigentes no período de transição para o pós-fordismo, 1973-1995. Por fim segue a sugestão de uma correlação positiva entre a deterioração das percepções de justiça e a desaceleração da produtividade do trabalho para o período em questão, que seria provocada pelos menores ganhos do salário real Abstract: A fact established by the economic literature is the slowdown of labor productivity since 1970s. Phenomena linked to changes in demographic, commodity prices, technological progress etc. have been proposed as causes for that problem. In addition to these explanations, the present work analyses the effects of workers behavior on aggregate labor productivity. Employing behavioral labor economics and régulation theoretical framewoks, the investigation presents wage comparisons as stimulus to perceptions of justice, which in turn leads to changes in worker's effort. An attempt to link those microeconomic outcomes to macro sphere is made by adding historical, social and political elements prevailing in the period of transition to post-Fordism, 1973-1995. Finally, a positive correlation between a decline in perceptions of justice and the slowdown in labor productivity, due to the fall in real wages growth, is suggested for the period in question Mestrado Teoria Econômica Mestre em Ciências Econômicas CAPES

The article argues that the current financial crisis that began unfolding in late 2007 cannot be explained merely by institutional failure, false economic theories, or human misbehavior. Instead, the crisis must be analyzed against the backdrop of the internal contradictions of capitalist accumulation and the gradual disintegration of the post-war hegemonic world order under U.S. leadership. The specifics of the crisis are inherently related to the failure of Fordism in the 1970s and the emergence of a post-Fordist, neoliberal, and finance-driven regime of accumulation that was pushed to its limits in the lead-up to the current downturn. El artículo sostiene que la crisis financiera que se desencadenó a finales de 2007, y que prevalece en la actualidad, no puede ser meramente explicada por el fracaso institucional, las falsas teorías económicas o el mal comportamiento humano. Más bien, debe ser analizada en el contexto de las contradicciones internas de la acumulación capitalista y la gradual desintegración del orden mundial hegemónico de posguerra bajo el liderazgo de EE. UU. Los detalles de la crisis están intrínsecamente relacionados con el fracaso del fordismo en la década de 1970 y la aparición de un régimen de acumulación posfordista, neoliberal e impulsado por el sector financiero, que finalmente fue empujado a sus límites en los preparativos de la recesión actual.

This entry describes the central features of Fordism and post-Fordism with special focus on consumerism. It summarizes how the organizational and political–legal arrangements during post-Fordism made credit readily available, encouraged home ownership, and created opportunities for risk taking. The entry concludes by pointing out that the meltdown of financial markets in 2008 and the subsequent Great Recession raise important questions about the capacity of post-Fordist consumer capitalism to sustain capitalist growth and development in the long term. Keywords: capitalism; consumption; culture; ideology; political economy

This article investigates the historical relationship between gender and precarious labor by analyzing the case study of Italian women in the second half of the twentieth century. A gendered historical approach shows that different production modes and working conditions were simultaneously present in Fordist and post-Fordist societies, and women, as well as migrants, experienced a significant level of precariousness even in the so-called golden age of the twentieth century. Sexual division of labor and sex-based discrimination seem to lie at the very heart of the gendered nature of precarious work, a long dureé nexus that has characterized industrial and postindustrial societies, as the article shows, in regard to the Italian case. By approaching the question of job precariousness as a multifaceted phenomenon, it is claimed that the subsequent spread of precarious work in the second half of the twentieth century was directly affected by labor and women's movement struggles, on the one hand, and by the role of the state and politics in defining and redefining the labor law relationship, on the other.

This paper investigates urban policy-making and development from a regulation theory perspective. It describes major Toronto urban trends of the past 50 years in order to gauge their conformity to changing regulation conditions. Results indicate that in the 1950s and 1960s, policies in Toronto were in accord with the Fordist mass consumption and welfare orientation. They also suggest a coincidence between the post-1995 period of public-sector retrenchment and the market-driven nature of post-Fordism. The intermediary period, however, was dominated by unsuccessful efforts at maintaining Fordist-type policies in a regulation context shifting towards post-Fordism. These findings confirm the non-functionalist interpretation of links between policy-making and regulation professed by regulation theory researchers. They also cast light on the role the city plays in the changing nature of regulation. Assertive metropolitan planning and socially balanced sub-divisions characteristic of the Fordist period of regula...

This paper discusses the challenges to Regulation Theory (RT) that are presented by post-national modes of accumulation. It begins by introducing to RT's core analytical foundations a mode of social regulation and its explanation of the regime of accumulation. The paper then examines how, despite clear asymmetries, the stability of the international system supported domestic accumulation. Because of this, RT only really addressed the international from the perspective of the nation state, and with only limited engagement with North–South issues. While some authors did address the international system, the greater instability of the 1970s combined domestic regime change with greater international insecurity. Up to the collapse of the Berlin Wall, new political ideologies and economic ideals challenged the nation-based Keynesian compromise while greater trade from the South and greater financial liberalisation fundamentally altered the international environment. Various approaches to the post-Fordist international regime are discussed, including that of a financial regime, and the conclusion identifies some of the areas for future research.

This article is intended as a contribution to the ethnography of contemporary capitalism. I analyze the case of the Mondragón cooperative model and consider what its international fame tells us about the regime of post-Fordism. I explore the constitution of the Mondragón model through the singular discourse of labor–management cooperation. I show how the model is produced by the discursive practices of omission and decontextualization. Mondragón can only be constructed as an alternative to and critique of capitalism if (1) workers’ experiences are erased; (2) politics are marginalized; and (3) the cooperatives are de-territorialized from the global economic context. By providing the missing contexts, I offer a competing narrative, portraying cooperation as a class-interested discourse that undermines workers’ power. My account of how the Mondragón model was produced is a revealing case of the production of global capitalist discourses in a period of economic and ideological shifts to post-Fordism.

FROM FORDISM TO POST-FORDISM: REPRESENTATION OF WORK IN THE FILMS ABOUT NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMPS Nazi concentration camps in cinema, as well as in other media, tend to be represented as an aberration from the human norm. Watching films about the camps (the mainstay of the Holocaust film), we get the impression that there is a clear division between life in a camp and normal life. The inclusion of walls and barbed wire, marking the boundary between the prisoners' world and that of free people, as well as between camp and non-camp stages of the characters' lives confirm this impression. I also regard camps as extraordinary. This extraordinariness has a double meaning. In some aspects Nazi camps deviated qualitatively from ordinary institutions and everyday practices. In others, they were different in a sense of intensifying certain aspects of practices tested in other historical circumstances or even regarded as normal and...

The Post-Fordist welfare state thesis locates contemporary social welfare change within a wider analysis of the transformation of capitalist accumulation regimes. Whilst this analysis is useful in directing attention to macro socio-economic change, it has for the most part contained three shortcomings. First, the Post-Fordist thesis has overemphasized the role of historical 'breaks' in the development of social welfare as it purportedly passes from Fordism to Post-Fordism. Second, the thesis has assumed a degree of convergence between welfare states as a result of global economic forces. In doing so, it has underemphasized the mediating impact of existing institutional arrangements within nations. Third, the thesis has assumed, rather than demonstrated, the specific changes which are alleged to be taking place in various fields of social welfare. As a consequence, aspects of continuity in social welfare have been neglected. These three lacunae are addressed through a comparative analysis of developments in the personal social services in Australia and Britain. Services to older people are employed as the specific context of comparison in relation to three dimensions of measuring transformation along a Post-Fordist trajectory: a shift from a unitary economy to a mixed economy of service provision; changes in the model of service delivery and consumption; and strengthening the governance function of the central state. This comparative analysis suggests the need for refinement of the Post-Fordist welfare state thesis concerning the restructuring of social welfare and its impact on the personal social services.

(2006). Globalisation, Policy and Shipping: Fordism, Post-Fordism and the European Union Maritime Sector. By Evangelia Selkou and Michael Roe. Economic Geography: Vol. 82, No. 4, pp. 457-459.

Social scientists increasingly claim that work structures based on the mass production or “Fordist” paradigm have grown obsolete, giving way to a more flexible, “post-Fordist” structure of work. These claims have been much disputed, however, giving rise to a sharply polarized debate over the outcome of workplace restructuring. I seek to reorient the debate by subjecting the post-Fordist approach to theoretical and empirical critique. Several theoretical weaknesses internal to the post-Fordist approach are identified, including its uncertain handling of “power” and “efficiency” as factors that shape work organizations; its failure to acknowledge multiple responses to the crisis of Fordism, several of which seem at odds with the post-Fordist paradigm; and its tendency to neglect the resurgence of economic dualism and disparity within organizations and industries. Review of the empirical literature suggests that, despite scattered support for the post-Fordist approach, important anomalies exist (such as the growing authority of “mental” over manual labor) that post-Fordism seems powerless to explain. In spite of its ample contributions, post-Fordist theory provides a seriously distorted guide to the nature of workplace change in the United States. Two alternative perspectives toward the restructuring of work organizations are sketched—neoinstitutionalist and “flexible accumulation” models—which seem likely to inspire more fruitful lines of research on the disparate patterns currently unfolding within American work organizations.

This article examines attempts by Marxist thinkers such as Fredric Jameson and David Harvey to explain the cultural transition from modernism to postmodernism by the economic transition from Fordism to post-Fordism. They argue that the movement of advanced industrial societies from standardized mass production to diverse flexible production has created a new culture that stresses difference, superficiality, and ahistoricality. But in their attempts to portray a synchronous development of economy and culture, these thinkers ignore the uneven developments between and within each realm. I argue that in the United States the popular arts like automobile design developed postmodern traits long before the high arts like architecture. Instead of this change in popular culture resulting from post-Fordism, it dialectically influenced this economic change.

Work experience is an eminent stage in the process of self-actualization. It is exposed more than anything else to the influence of history, opening the essence of the person to its constitutive historicity. Therefore, work is the special element of individuals’ fulfilment expressing their essential forces in the outside world. This world is not something detached from the person, but it represents the domain of his/her own historicity in which the individual can only act as a social being. As Marx wrote, “society is the essential unity that allows the fulfilment of man in nature, the true resurrection of nature, the naturalism accomplished by the man and the humanism accomplished by the nature” (2004, 109).

In this paper I consider the relevance of commentaries on the transition from Fordism to post-Fordism and specifically their applicability to the welfare state. I suggest that some such commentaries have identified interesting parallels without providing much original analysis of why the putative transitions have come about. I also note various trends in the British health sector, which cannot be explained solely by reference to changes in the production process. Then, events in the British health sector since 1979 are considered in terms of the extent to which they can be interpreted in terms of a putative transition from Fordism to post-Fordism. This is divided into two sections. In the first, measures taken between 1979 and the National Health Service (NHS) reforms are examined, and it is argued that numerous measures taken prior to the NHS reforms failed to resolve some of the perceived crises of the NHS. The NHS reforms implemented from 1991 are then discussed and a number of problems are identified with these reforms, which highlight the difficulties of implementing a neoliberal reform strategy in the context of the British NHS. In particular the political conditions have yet to be established which might facilitate the wider extension of such a strategy, though this does not rule out changes that might restrict the scope of the NHS.

This paper explores the relationship between changes in the labour process, recent developments in the vocational curriculum and challenges that these changes present to the preparation of further education lecturers in England and Wales. Firstly it will be argued that the economy is moving from a Fordist to a post‐Fordist phase and that this change is affecting the vocational education curriculum. Previous attempts to relate post‐Fordism to education have tended to analyse the relationships in terms that are too general. When a specific aspect of education and training is examined such as the introduction of National Vocational Qualifications and General National Vocational Qualifications in England and Wales, more light is shed on the question of ‘correspondence’. This in turn reveals issues such as divisions between mental and manual work and issues of conception and execution which tend to be ignored or overlooked in debates about changes in the curriculum and changes in the economy. Secondly...

Debate concerning industrial restructuring in Australia has mainly focused upon the attributes of post‐Fordist as opposed to Fordist forms of work organisation. However, the Industrial trades, which are also undergoing restructuring, have not been adequately considered in this debate. This paper argues that an important characteristic of the industrial trades, both in terms of economic efficiency and the nonalienating character of the work, has been the integrity of the work culture. It further argues that, while this form of work organisation already provides a viable alternative to Fordism, it will be diminished by restructuring based upon post‐Fordist criterion. The paper concludes that underlying the debate about the qualities of post‐Fordism is a postmodern ideology of autonomy which encourages the disintegration of conventional forms of association and communication and, thus, is oblivious to the merits of the tradesperson cultural identity.

Resumo A economia criativa emerge da crise instaurada a partir da passagem do padrão produtivo fordista / taylorista para o regime pós-fordista e é aqui entendida como um dos principais agentes da reestruturação contemporânea do capital. Sua produtividade baseia-se não apenas nas capacidades cognitivas e comunicacionais de seus empreendedores, como também na mobilização e apropriação de um conjunto de idéias-força conformadoras de – e conformadas por – uma multiplicidade de valores e estilos de vida surgidos ao longo da segunda metade do século passado, os quais este artigo objetiva apresentar.Palavras-chave pós-fordismo; economia criativa; produtividade; idéias-força; estilos de vidaAbstract The creative economy emerges from the crisis established after the passage of the fordist / taylorist productive pattern to the Post-fordist regimen and is understood here as one of the main agents of the contemporary restructuring of capital. Its productivity is based not just on the cognitive and communicational capacities of its entrepreneurs, but also on the mobilization and appropriation of a set of ideas that configure – and are configured by – a multiplicity of values and lifestyles that emerged along the second half of the last century, which this article aims to present.Keywords post-fordism; creative economy; productivity; ideas-force; lifestyles

The story of the rise of Fordism and the subsequent transition to post-Fordism has been a staple of economic geography pedagogy. It builds on the concept of Fordism first set out by Gramsci in the 1920s. This identified two key components. The first was the industrial workplace where workers specialized narrowly on distinct tasks and were regulated by the mechanized progress of the assembly line. The second was high wages. Together, these created a new era of mass production of standardized goods, and a new kind of working class which traded alienating work for the new pleasures of consumerism. The idea that Fordism designated a particular chapter in the history of capitalism was revived in the 1970s and became a central theme in the new economic geographies of the 1980s and 1990s. These focused on Fordism’s alleged successor, post-Fordism. The most influential accounts suggested this would be defined by the generalization of flexible specialization, a new mode of production based on rapid changes in product and on batch production technologies mobilizing the boundless creativity of the workforce. The transition to this post-Fordist ‘flexible specialization’ would involve remaking the region and the city, and new policy orientations. This narrative proved enormously influential. But many of its empirical and historical claims were found wanting, along with the logic of the relationships it presumed between microeconomic phenomena, macroeconomic trends, and economic governance. It offers an instructive case study in the evolution of ideas in geography.

This paper applies a historical structural, regulation-theoretical approach to interpret Swedish economic policy in the 1980s. It is argued that the market-oriented long-term assumptions of the 'third way' were flawed, and constituted an inadequate response to the crisis of the Swedish (Rehn-Meidner) Model. It violated the already increasingly brittle terms of legitimation of the 'moral economy' of solidaristic wage policy. Although such a violation was reasonable, necessary (and accepted by the trade unions) in the short run, the failure of the policy to achieve a progressive trajectory in the transformation from Fordism to post-Fordism made it impossible to reproduce the conditions of the 'moral economy'. The paper is especially critical of the use of a 'norms-based' monetary policy, and the marginalization of collective capital formation policy and active industrial policy.

This paper compares and evaluates two recently developed and increasingly popular general approaches in comparative and historical political economy: the regulation approach and theories of governance. There are at least four good reasons for such a review at the present time. Its first, and immediate, pretext is the close connection often made between the alleged transition from Fordism to a post-Fordist accumulation regime and the purported development of new forms of economic and political governance. Second, even without this direct and explicitly drawn connection, the regulation approach and theories of governance would seem to have enough (meta-)theoretical assumptions in common to merit a systematic comparison. Third, in addition to various underlying parallels and (sometimes conscious) convergences in their theoretical apparatus, the two perspectives share substantive or practical concerns across a wide range of topical issues. And, fourth, as anyone who has tried to grapple with the complexities of either the regulation approach or theories of governance will have found, there are serious difficulties with each paradigm. So it is worth asking whether such difficulties would be alleviated, left unchanged, or magnified in the attempt to combine them into a more general account of contemporary economic and political change. These four motives are reflected in the argument of the present paper. First it briefly reviews the conceptual background to current concerns with regulation and governance. Then it considers the basic (meta-)theoretical assumptions and core concepts of the two paradigms. This will enable me to identify major parallels and convergences and to identify areas where there are important differences in theoretical or substantive focus. I suggest that some of these differences are linked to the relatively 'pre-theoretical' and eclectic nature of work on governance; or, at least, to the far broader scope of studies of governance and hence the greater heterogeneity of their various theoretical objects as compared to those examined in the regulation approach. This in turn enables me to reveal some problems in earlier attempts to combine concepts and arguments relating to governance and regulation in research on local governance. Considerations of space as well as the specific thematic focus of the contributions in this issue prevent me from addressing governance and regulation in national and international regimes (but see also Jessop 1995). This article nonetheless concludes on an optimistic note with some suggestions for a way forward on both theoretical and empirical grounds which should be relevant to a wide range of regulatory and governance issues.

This article contributes to the current controversy concerning the application of the Fordist framework to distance education and open learning by showing that bureaucratic practice can best be understood from within the Fordist framework. In addition, it draws attention to the distinction between bureaucratic and post‐bureaucratic practices, These issues are of particular significance to distance education institutions for frequently their success has been measured by the size of their student populations, and large student populations increase the prospects of bureaucratic practices being the norm.

Fordism refers to the twentieth-century phase of capitalism (c.1918–1978), characterized by the centrality of bureaucratized firms, an interventionist state, national unions, and the coordination of mass production and mass consumption. This system reached its peak in the first two post–World War II decades, and entered its final crisis in the 1970s. By the 1980s, pertinent literature described the contemporary socio-economic conditions as post-Fordist. Keywords: capitalism; commodity; industrialization; labor; labor supply; manufacturing; productivity

Gender relations in employment are one of the fastest changing areas of social relations in both the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe, and face even greater changes as there is closer integration in the EC and as the organization of employment relations is restructured. Three related is sues are addressed here. First, there is an apparent paradox: While there has been an enormous increase in the extent of women's paid employ ment in the United Kingdom and much of the rest of the EC, there has only been a very slight closing of the equity gap between men and women in employment in these countries. Second, what is and will be the impact of increasing European integration, especially within the EC, on the position of women in employment? Third, are the political pres sures represented in the Social Charter and Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome for equal opportunities likely to achieve their aims since they are predicated on a Fordist employment structure, just as the EC moves in a post-Fordist direction? The main focus here is on the United Kingdom as a member state of the EC, with some reference to other EC and other European countries. The article is divided into two sections: the first deals with the substantive points of change; the second focuses on the theoretical issues involved.

(1991). Fordism/Post-Fordism, Marxism/Post-Marxism: The Second Cultural Divide? Rethinking Marxism: Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 39-58.

Drawing on recent developments in regulationist economics and neoMarxist state theory, this contribution begins with a brief comment on the nature of social reproduction regimes and the importance of taking proper account of the ‘mixed economy of reproduction’.1 It then addresses four interrelated sets of questions about the recent restructuring and possible transcendence of the post-war social reproduction regime associated with Atlantic Fordism, especially in its north-West European guise of the Keynesian welfare state. First what is involved in theorizing ‘post-Fordist’ social reproduction regimes? Second, considering the latter in relatively abstract theoretical terms, what might its core features comprise? Third, moving to more concrete-complex terms, how might post-Fordist social reproduction regimes be distinguished one from another? And, fourth, what are the respective roles of the state (whether at supranational, national, or local level) and other forms of governance in such regimes? Unfortunately space constraints preclude a detailed answer to all these questions but I will at least try to suggest how they might be addressed.

As the language of Fordism and post-Fordism has entered everyday discussion it has also been vulgarized.1 This reduces its utility for theoretical understanding and empirical analysis and generates many confusions and controversies. This chapter critically reworks the conventional terminology of Fordism and post-Fordism by distinguishing four levels on which they can be analyzed. It also notes a fundamental analytical asymmetry between the two terms and calls for more cautious and critical use of the notion of post-Fordism.

The evidence today is practically uncontested: about thirty years ago we left Fordism behind and entered a new phase of capitalism. That the structures of the post-Fordist social order call for new modes of social critique is also a prevalent idea. The category of alienation continues, however, to be discredited. Nevertheless it is not clear that the categories of democracy (as apparatuses of non-domination), justice and the good life are capable of bringing about the political effects that may be expected today from the concept of alienation. For these reasons, not only the historical diagnostic that appears to have authorized jettisoning the problematic of alienation but also the model of critique used to replace it demand critical scrutiny.

The present article discusses a fundamental argument of a series of regulation approaches. Although regulation approaches are heterogeneous, both in their premises and in their analytical instruments, this relatively common argument describes a shift at the level of the economy, the state and the organization of work: from Fordism to post-Fordism and from Keynesianism to neoliberalism. Despite the influence of this argument in economic and social theory and despite its contribution to recent debates about neoliberalization and the crisis of the welfare state, this transition also sets some methodological limitations presented in this article., peer-reviewed