Flexible Accumulation vs Fordism.

[Theocrat]

Somebody here on Miscellany, pointed to a book called "The condition of postmodernity" by david harvey. In it, he describes the transition from Fordist production to Flexible Accumulation.

I'm definitely seeing it in the works at the job. But I wonder if it is a temporary fix, as he seemed to be alluding to. A lot of working people and managers (US/UK) are tired of "auditing each other to death", and that auditing has become a growing "plague on the job(s)".

Ohh.. And another thing I find disturbing, is that when things have gone well, a goal or quota has been reached in production. Every team gets a cake! :/
I refuse to eat the cake, nowadays, because of a variety reasons.
Mainly by the feeling of, that we are all really 'short-changed' by the company. (And my stomach gets upset by cream. )

Have you guys experienced anything like this at your job?

This whole "team" concept with a "coach" gives me the creeps.
Now we are 'jocks' all of a sudden?

Maybe flexibility doesn't 'have' to be an entirely bad thing.

So.. Lets find some articles on this subject, that is if you all want to?

Maybe I should go mainstream and publish my own useless blogg?

Well.. Time to hit the sack!

[Morgan Kane]

In France, sociology works about

- moral harassement at work

and

- suffering at work

The results are that :

- harassing the workers is a management method .

- The objectives are each day higher until the workers break

- Too often the quantity of work is more important than the quality. that means that workers cannot be proud of their work. They know that they are doing bad work.

This is true even for managers .....

I met this sort of thing in my daily job ......

[zxvasdf]

In France, sociology works about

- moral harassement at work

and

- suffering at work

The results are that :

- harassing the workers is a management method .

- The objectives are each day higher until the workers break

- Too often the quantity of work is more important than the quality. that means that workers cannot be proud of their work. They know that they are doing bad work.

This is true even for managers .....

I met this sort of thing in my daily job ......

Dang. That only confirms what a lot of people are feeling about the French...

[Morgan Kane]

I thought that french people don' t work, drink and chase women .... idid not know we have the reputation of harassed hard workers .....

Seriously ( ? ) theses managerial methods are not the privilege of France. Simlilar studies show that the methods are the same.

And productivity of french workers is one of the highest in the world ..... .Quality can be ggod : Toyaota created in France his new european plant in part because he trusted french workers .....

And New Orleans dams failed in front of Katrina in part because the concret was under par quality .

The point is that the modern managerial methods make of the human factor a tool ...... treated as such

[Doc]

Hey Theo--

I think I was responsible for that recommendation.

My own two cents on the sociology conversation...

The French and Germans are largely responsible for making sociology what it is today. Much of it is concerned with work and working, but is certainly not limited to those areas.

More to the point of the posts, Morgan Kane is correct--those managerial methods are not limited to the French, and many suspect that high French productivity should be attributed more to organizational design than management methods.

[zxvasdf]

I thought that french people don' t work, drink and chase women .... idid not know we have the reputation of harassed hard workers .....

Seriously ( ? ) theses managerial methods are not the privilege of France. Simlilar studies show that the methods are the same.

And productivity of french workers is one of the highest in the world ..... .Quality can be ggod : Toyaota created in France his new european plant in part because he trusted french workers .....

And New Orleans dams failed in front of Katrina in part because the concret was under par quality .

The point is that the modern managerial methods make of the human factor a tool ...... treated as such

everything changed when things could be mass-produced. Time became money. Long, hard hours at a skilled task no longer meant anything in a world where mass quantities of product could be churned out in an hour's time.

[Morgan Kane]

everything changed when things could be mass-produced. Time became money. Long, hard hours at a skilled task no longer meant anything in a world where mass quantities of product could be churned out in an hour's time.

the problem is that there are many works who ask skilled workers.

For instance when your job is reparing plane motors, you cannot cut it in the corners .......

And intellectual jobs are the same : a junior lawyer who expediate his job wins money for the boss not always for the client.

[Theocrat]

Hey Theo--

I think I was responsible for that recommendation.

You have a better memory than I do man.

Well thanks alot! It's a really really good book.
Have you read 'The Worldly Philosophers' By Robert L. Heilbroner?
It is a good book. Alota laughs at how weird but insightful the economists were.

[Theocrat]

Hey guys! I found this yesterday while googling around (Oopps! I forgot to mention I don't use Google anymore because of the China thing)


http://www.lclark.edu/~soan221/repmapuniverse3.html

[Doc]

You have a better memory than I do man.

Well thanks alot! It's a really really good book.
Have you read 'The Worldly Philosophers' By Robert L. Heilbroner?
It is a good book. Alota laughs at how weird but insightful the economists were.

The only remember because I recommend that to everyone


I'll check out that Heilbroner if I get a chance. It sounds interesting...

[Theocrat]

The only remember because I recommend that to everyone


I'll check out that Heilbroner if I get a chance. It sounds interesting...

Huh? I found this as well. Maybe you've seen it already?
http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/peo...rvey-con0.html

Alotta conservatives seem to dislike the universities and teachers. Because they think they are all socialists.

[Doc]

Harvey is a lighning rod in a good way. He made many obscure ideas pretty clear, which is threatening to straight talking types (read knee-jerk, I-don't-want-to think conservatives).

Of course, universities are threatening to conservatives. Even in the U.S., they are publicly supported, and they tell people that there is hope for better days. The hallmark of conservatism is a belief that the best days have already happened. The hope of progress that undergirds universities has to be threatening to those ideas.

Maybe more importantly, conservatives don't like the idea that degrees are turning into capital, which is ultimately controlled by lefties. There own grabs at exclusivity are turning against them. Tell people they have to go to school to learn what they are supposed to know. Much of this is debunking untenable conservative ideas.

[Theocrat]

Harvey is a lighning rod in a good way. He made many obscure ideas pretty clear, which is threatening to straight talking types (read knee-jerk, I-don't-want-to think conservatives).

Of course, universities are threatening to conservatives. Even in the U.S., they are publicly supported, and they tell people that there is hope for better days. The hallmark of conservatism is a belief that the best days have already happened. The hope of progress that undergirds universities has to be threatening to those ideas.

Maybe more importantly, conservatives don't like the idea that degrees are turning into capital, which is ultimately controlled by lefties. There own grabs at exclusivity are turning against them. Tell people they have to go to school to learn what they are supposed to know. Much of this is debunking untenable conservative ideas.

Sure.. Knowledge is power. But knowledge isn't all thats needed today.
But it sure helps you think for yourself, and others to get some clarity.
I always try to learn from both elder and young people, and learn them. But sometimes I, unknowingly, drop too heavy words on their heads for them to comprehend (books sometimes do that to me). Thing is, I reckon, that people are still too unquestioning about the world today. People are mostly lazy when they say "these/those people" are to blame for this and that, or victimize themselves, and those around them with outrageous conspiracy theories. Do we need a second enlightenment period? If so. How would it look like? Or come into being?

Harvey says he is a straight up marxist. I disagree, to some extent, on Marx's 'revolution'. That most social models are really evolutionary in character. Sure revolutions do happen, but they go out of fashion or become untenable in the end. From 'The Aton' to 'Communism' and then 'Neoliberalism'. I agree with Wallerstein that globalism is at it's deathbed, at least the ability of america to persue its agenda.

Hollywood pressured our minister of justice, via WTO, to go after a torrent site called "Pirate Bay". Many party officials have shown a rabid dislike towards this sort of disregard of internal politics and law from America. Many honest businesses where hurt in the process.
*Surprising?*

Some kind of Nationalism is also rising up. But whether it is a "positive nationalism" or a negative one I can't say? If there can be such things.

Sad to say this, but 'marxism' is too fundamentalist I think. Not to say that I don't read stuff written by Marxists or agree with most of their analysis.

[Doc]

Marxism seems to suffer from a kind of split personality, and asking someone like Harvey to pin down his own position doesn't clarify anything. On one hand you have ideological Marxists--people who think his basic analysis or criticism is accurate. On the other are the dogmatic Marxists, who are true believers in the entire analysis.

For my own part, I think Marx as criticism still works well, but I have a problem with dialectical materialism. I trust the validity of dialectical models, but Marx's materialism ignores ideas and culture entirely too much. I suppose I'm like some of the critical or cultural theorists in that regard.

[Morgan Kane]

Marxism does' not ignore culture and ideas ....... It treats them from two points of view : ideological products and marketable products.

Gramsci and Georg Lukacs have written about ideological problems. More recently, Bourdieu has worked about ideological production and effect and i don' t forget school of Francfort ( Adorno and others ).

The main problem of Marx is that it wants to be a scientific theory but prophetize the end of tne class struggle after the revolution and the bulding of the perfect communism system . That' s not a scientific view of history who showns that never the dominated class was the engine of revolution.

Sorry if this text is in French but to translate it is beyond my mastering of english ....

The communism for beginners .....

Le communisme ?

Allons y, en simplifiant au maximum des milliers de pages … (de mémoire et en essayant d’être le plus honnête possible, il s’agit d’une présentation sommaire, rien de plus, pas d’une critique)

Le communisme est une idée, celle de la mise en commun de l’ensemble des biens essentiels. A chacun selon ses besoins. … Il s’agit d’une idée ancienne.

La doctrine a été mise en forme par Marx.

Pour ceux que cela intéresse : « la pensée marxiste » de Jacques Ellul. Pas le que sais je !

Marx a défini sa pensée comme la synthèse de la philosophie allemande, de la sociologie française et de l’économie politique anglaise.

Economie :

Marx est parti des études des économistes classiques anglais. La valeur d’un bien dépend de la quantité de travail qui y est incorporée directement ou indirectement.

Le système économique actuel, dit capitaliste, est fondé sur l’appropriation privée du capital, c'est-à-dire des moyens de production. Un salarié contribue à la production de biens et de services. Il cède sa force de travail au capitaliste et celui-ci l’utilise pour produire des biens et des services. Une partie des biens et services produits sont vendus pour assurer sa rémunération. Le surplus, une fois déduit le coût des matières premières, services externes, investissements, etc. constitue la plus value que le propriétaire des moyens de production s’approprie.

En fait, la force de travail du salarié permet à celui-ci de produire une quantité de biens et de services supérieure à la valeur de celle ci, égale à son coût de reproduction.

Le système capitaliste est donc fondé sur l’exploitation de l’homme par l’homme, c'est-à-dire par l’appropriation par les capitalistes de la force de travail des salariés.

Le système capitaliste est condamné à s’étendre et à englober toute la planète, à détruire les autres modes de production et à incorporer dans la sphère marchande l’ensemble des relations humaines. (Pas mal vu en 1850). Comme il ne peut survivre qu’en s’étendant, il est condamné à dépérir le jour où il ne pourra plus croître.

Sociologie :

L’évolution de la société commence avec la division du travail. Celle ci implique la spécialisation et l’apparition des classes sociales.

La place des individus dans la société est déterminée par leur place dans le système de production. Les individus qui occupent une place semblable forment une classe sociale. Les classes sociales sont en conflit permanent, plus ou moins ouvert, pour le partage de la plus value et pour la propriété des moyens de production.

Une société déterminée se constitue en fonction du système de production existant et l’histoire à long terme est celle du passage d’un système de production à un autre.

Ainsi, dans le système féodal, le bien essentiel pour la production de biens matériels est la terre. Ceux qui contrôlent la terre, les seigneurs, forment la classe dominante. Les paysans forment la classe dominée. Le développement des forces productives, l’apparition du marchand, permettent l’apparition d’une nouvelle classe sociale, la bourgeoisie. Celle-ci renverse l’ordre féodal et fonde une nouvelle société, la société capitaliste.

L’Etat a pour fonction d’assurer l’ordre social, c'est-à-dire de garantir la pérennité du système de domination. Il dispose d’appareils idéologiques et répressifs, l’armée, l’église etc. … .

Dans le système capitaliste, les classes principales sont la classe capitaliste et le prolétariat formé des salariés productifs et de leurs familles. Il existe d’autres classes mais elles sont subordonnées à la classe capitaliste.

Philosophie :

Le matérialisme : la matière est tout, la conscience de l’homme, son esprit ne sont pas séparés de son corps. Les pensées des hommes naissent de leurs conditions matérielles d’existence, de leur place dans le procès de production des biens matériels. (Procès au sens de processus).

Le système capitaliste contrôle la production idéologique et l’idéologie de la classe dominante constitue l’idéologie dominante.

Une idéologie est un système d’idées, de représentation qui traduit la vision du monde par les individus.

L’homme est aliéné parce qu’il est dépossédé de sa force de travail, exploité, parce qu’il est réduit à n’être qu’une marchandise, parce que sa conscience du monde est faussée par l’idéologie dominante. En fait, il n’est plus propriétaire de lui même.

Enfin, la révolution …. Passe par le renversement de l’Etat capitaliste, et pendant une phase de transition, par la mise en place de la dictature du prolétariat. Celle-ci ne constitue pas une dictature au sens traditionnel mais le remplacement d’une classe par une autre.

La société communiste suppose la disparition de l’exploitation, des classes sociales et de l’Etat.

For interested people, a novel by Ursula K Le Guin discribes an anarchist society: « The dispossessed ( ? ) » who merites a reading