Post-Fordism
Concept for a stage of capitalism which came after the dominance of the industrial mass worker, i.e. Fordism. This concept has been used a lot in the Autonomist tradition.
Discussion
PJ Rey:
"Fordism refers to Henry Ford’s innovations in assembly line production in his automotive plants. The assembly line had profound social consequences in that it made the tasks of each worker so repetitive and simplified that anyone could do them. That is to say, the assembly line created a de-skilled workforce. Fordism is also generally linked to Taylorism, which refers to Fredrick Taylor’s attempts to introduce scientific rationality in the workplace through time-and-motion studies and pay-for-performance.
In the most basic sense, we can talk about post-Fordism as the de-rationalization of production. Mechanization and automation (we should also add in outsourcing) reduce the need for workers to play a direct role in material production. Instead, the workforce (of the developed world) is increasingly engaged in designing, operating, and maintaining the machines (or other humans) that produce material commodities. In the paradigm of mass automation, productivity is dependent not on maximizing labor time and improving its efficiency but on freeing individuals to contribute to what Marx (1857-61/1939-41) once called “the general intellect” (i.e., the common stock of communicative and intellectual resources that can be used to serve further innovation). That is to say, the general intellect is the means of production of the means of production (Virno, p. 61).
The transition away from physical labor also involves an expansion of productivity beyond the rationalized confines of the workplace. Virno argues that while production was once exclusively the domain of labor (as Marx described), the mere fact of our existence now involves participation in the social mechanisms of productions. That is to say, with our every actions, we now are constantly creating value for capitalist enterprises (even if we are completely unaware of it). Virno concludes (p. 103) that it no longer even makes sense to talk about labor time and non-labor time:
- The old distinction between “labor” and “non-labor” ends up in the distinction between remunerated life and non-remunerated life.
...
Breaking with Marx’s teleological and deterministic worldview, Virno argues that the post-Fordist moment is characterized by ambivalence, meaning that, while the communicative and intellectual capacities of the masses (i.e., the so-called “multitude”) are currently subject widespread exploitation by capitalist enterprise, it is legitimate to entertain other ways in which these capacities might be directed.
Virno seeks a foundation for an alternative to post-Fordist capitalism, but this is complicated by the fact that the old foundations for resistance to capitalism have eroded. The de-individuation (i.e., all worker were equally de-skilled and non-specialized) that formed the heart of Fordist labor organization also provided the fundamental basis of working-class solidarity. Post-Fordism, on the other hand, emphasizes individual creativity and uniqueness, so that production no longer offers the same universality of experience. Given this loss of solidarity, society is becoming increasingly classless (though no less unequal). Yet, Virno argues that the situation is not hopeless because there is a new sort of post-Modern solidarity to be found in the universality of our socialization—a universal socialization that, ironically, celebrates difference and individuation." (http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2012/07/05/notes-on-virno-the-multitude-and-the-web/)
Interview
Excerpt from an interview with Paolo Virno:
"PV: I have never used the expression “immaterial labor"; to me it seems equivocal and theoretically inconsistent. Post-Fordism certainly cannot be reduced to a set of particular professional figures characterized by intellectual refinement or “creative" gifts. It is obvious that workers in the media, researchers, engineers, ecological operators, and so on, are and will be only a minority. By “post-Fordism," I mean instead a set of characteristics that are related to the entire contemporary workforce, including fruit pickers and the poorest of immigrants. Here are some of them: the ability to react in a timely manner to the continual innovations in techniques and organizational models, a remarkable “opportunism" in negotiating among the different possibilities offered by the job market, familiarity with what is possible and unforeseeable, that minimal entrepreneurial attitude that makes it possible to decide what is the “right thing" to do within a nonlinear productive fluctuation, a certain familiarity with the web of communications and information.
As one can see, these are generically human gifts, not the result of “specialization." What I hold true is that post-Fordism mobilizes all the faculties that characterize our species: language, abstract thinking, disposition toward learning, plasticity, the habit of not having solid habits. When I speak of a “mass intellectuality," I am certainly not referring to biologists, artists, mathematicians, and so on, but to the human intellect in general, to the fact that it has been put to work as never before.
If we look carefully, post-Fordism takes advantage of abilities learned before and independently of entrance into the workplace: abilities brought forth by the uncertainty of metropolitan life, by uprootedness, by the preceptual shocks of technological mutations, even by video games and the use of cellular phones. All this is at the base of post-Fordist “flexibility." These experiences outside the workplace become afterward, in the production system known as “just in time," authentic and proper professional requirements." (http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=06/01/17/2225239)