Regime Of Flexible Accumulation Research Articles

Composing Capital: Classical Music in the Neoliberal Era by Marianna Ritchey

Reviewed by: Composing Capital: Classical Music in the Neoliberal Era by Marianna Ritchey Dale Chapman Composing Capital: Classical Music in the Neoliberal Era. By Marianna Ritchey. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019. [v, 213 p. ISBN 9780226640068 (hardback), $90; ISBN 9780226640235 (paperback), $30; ISBN 9780226640372 (e-book), price varies.] Illustrations, music examples, index. When I heard that the composer Mason Bates was going to register one of his operas as a nonfungible token (NFT), the story struck me as an archetypal embodiment of the times, on two interrelated fronts: The phenomenon of the NFT (in which blockchain technology is used to exchange unreplicable iterations of digital media) has been invoked as the potential savior of music's financial valuation, allowing undercompensated artists in the era of streaming to achieve the market scarcity specific to the contemporary art world. Meanwhile, Bates, in embracing the technological fetishism of Silicon Valley and the electronic dance music (EDM) world, has been received by classical music institutions as the potential savior of a Western tradition whose obituary is republished on a near-weekly basis (Felix Linsmeier, "Ethereum Voices: Do NFTs Matter for Classical Music?" VAN: An Independent Online Classical Music Magazine, posted 13 January 2022, https://van-magazine.com/mag/nft-classical-music [accessed 26 February 2022]). The story of the Bates NFT entails a narrative of messianic rebirth specific to neoliberal discourse: that a new financial instrument might be the vehicle through which this or that moribund cultural practice or industrial sector becomes unshackled from the earth and permitted to fully become itself. A less rose-tinted critical perspective on the NFT, however, might see it as falling somewhere between a quixotic boondoggle and an alarming multiplier of wealth concentration; similarly, a more skeptical critical perspective on Mason Bates himself might wonder what his ideology of techno-market credulity might be doing to our understanding of a classical music legacy that listeners sometimes see precisely as a refuge from Karl Marx's idea of capitalism's ethos of "creative destruction." The kinds of questions raised by the Mason Bates NFT require the development of a new(er) musicology, a field of critical practice adequate to the demands placed upon it by a formidable set of ideological and political-economic formations. Few scholars in contemporary musicology are as well [End Page 417] placed to achieve this daunting task as Marianna Ritchey, whose new book, Composing Capital: Classical Music in the Neoliberal Era, is the culmination of her exciting research on the ways that the longstanding cultural practices of Western classical music have collided with the emergence of the neoliberal regime of flexible accumulation. Ritchey is part of a dynamic cohort of scholars, including Andrea Moore, William Robin, John Pippen, and others, who are interested in the ways that late capitalism has shaped classical institutions, reframed its prevailing ideological assumptions, and variously established or undermined the conditions of possibility for working musicians. One important function of Composing Capital is to register a strategic impatience with contemporary musicology's frequent bracketing of class and political economic analysis, particularly in the context of the New Musicology's otherwise vital critique of gender, race, and sexuality. Outside of musicology, this perspective is by no means new. We might locate it, for instance, in work by Terry Eagleton extending back to the 1990s, or in Thomas Frank's work from the same era, which highlights the utility, for capitalism, of an approach to cultural studies that, in setting aside materialist analysis, permits its subversive rhetorics to be co-opted by capital (see, for instance, Terry Eagleton, "Body Work," in The Terry Eagleton Reader, ed. Stephen Regan [Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998], 157–62, and Thomas Frank, One Market under God: Extreme Capitalism, Market Populism, and the End of Economic Democracy [New York: Anchor Books, 2001]). For this reason, Ritchey's incisive puncturing of musicology's treatment of cultural difference as an isolated vector of analysis—one too often shorn of its connection with political economy—is important and comes not a moment too soon. To be sure, the point can never be to ignore the way that patriarchal, White supremacist, and heteronormative ideologies and practices enact structural violence; rather, it becomes...

Old industrial spaces challenged by platformized value-capture 4.0

ABSTRACT In the 1980s, Switzerland’s Jura Arc region was a globally competitive ‘new industrial space’ in the Third Industrial Revolution’s flexible accumulation regime based on information and communication technology (ICT) and automation processes. Recently, this nowadays ‘old industrial space’ has been experiencing the implementation of Industry 4.0. Caught between the use of existing productive assets and the development of platform-based market ecosystems, this region illustrates the challenges inherent in implementing ‘forking innovation’, which requires the development not only of new business models, but also of collaborative and investment models in order to scale up and increase local value capture.

Tecnologías del capitalismo contemporáneo para el Entretenimiento y el Diseño de almas ¿estandarizadas?

En este trabajo nos proponemos un acercamiento exploratorio a las charlas TED (TED Talks), producto audiovisual alojado en la plataforma YouTube y la web ted.com de gran circulación y consumo. Frente a un actual régimen de acumulación flexible que parcela las voluntades y las responsabilidades vitales de manera individual, explorar críticamente las características de TED nos acerca a los patrones actitudinales actuales frente al conocimiento y la acción política.
 TED parece ofrecer un producto a tono con el hedonismo nihilista al que se refiere Mark Fisher (2016), ese no pensar que se apropia de discursos rápidos y digeridos que permiten ostentar un supuesto conocimiento multidisciplinar e ilustrado. Una profundización en su formato puede iluminar intersecciones discursivas menos innovadoras de las que su apariencia indica, y lo suficientemente conservadoras en sus valores basales. En este sentido, el artículo se expande sobre cómo las famosas charlas funcionan como estructura en sintonía con las lógicas culturales del capitalismo contemporáneo, para luego avanzar sobre cómo incorporan a oradores que tensionan el formato por sostener lugares de enunciación y de origen subalternos.

Identidades masculinas rarámuris ante la migración y la sobrevivencia

La vulnerabilidad y la pobreza que prevalecen en la Sierra Tarahumara, en Chihuahua, México, obligan a sus habitantes a migrar en búsqueda de mejores condiciones de vida. Esta migración tiene repercusiones en las identidades y relaciones de género. Con base en una amplia revisión bibliográfica y en el trabajo de campo desarrollado con jornaleros migrantes rarámuris, se analizan las transformaciones identitarias y genéricas experimentadas históricamente por varones pertenecientes a este grupo étnico. Destacan, en particular, los cambios derivados de su participación como fuerza de trabajo en los circuitos migratorios asociados a la agroindustria, y los procesos de adaptación o resistencia frente al régimen de acumulación flexible que los explota, excluye y margina.

A vulnerabilidade social em tempos de acumulação flexível: uma contribuição para o debate no campo socioambiental

A noção de vulnerabilidade tem sido utilizada em diversos campos do conhecimento. Um de seus usos se faz nas pesquisas interdisciplinares sobre a vulnerabilidade socioambiental, que é entendida de forma simplificada como a sobreposição de situações de vulnerabilidade social e riscos ambientais. Identificou-se que o debate, no campo ambiental, tem sido dominado por perspectivas das ciências sociais de caráter individualista e funcionalista, com pouca abertura para leituras críticas. De forma a contribuir para a ampliação desse debate, busca-se nesse artigo apresentar uma discussão teórica acerca da noção de vulnerabilidade social. Argumenta-se que, em que pese ser utilizada por distintas vertentes e orientações teóricas e ideo-políticas, seu uso dominante se estabeleceu dentro do pensamento liberal revisitado. Essa hegemonia está em consonância com as transformações societárias ocorridas desde a década de 1970, com a crise do regime de acumulação fordista e a emergência do regime de acumulação flexível. Neste, uma nova gramática social para tratar dos temas relativos à pobreza, à desigualdade e à injustiça social toma forma, na qual se destaca uma abordagem da vulnerabilidade baseada nos ativos e nas capacidades, focada nos indivíduos e nas suas carências, respondendo a demandas de ajuste fiscal do Estado e corte nos gastos públicos. Como alternativa, dá-se ênfase a uma abordagem processual, focada nos direitos e na proteção e na exposição desigual aos riscos e suas causas econômicas e políticas.

Precarious Workers’ Movements and the Neoliberal State

How can we best conceptualize working‐class mobilization in the post‐Fordist regime of flexible accumulation? With the increasing precariousness of employment, how do workers press their demands? While the emphasis thus far has been on the melding of workplace and community organizing, which is a hallmark of “social movement unionism,” I argue that there is a countervailing trend afoot that has received far less attention—that is, a bifurcation of strategies. Only those select workers who are in powerful structural locations, such as transportation and distribution workers, are in a position to take the economic route while the swelling ranks of the precariat have turned instead to the political sphere to press their demands. Additionally, I address what this bifurcation means for labor's power and working‐class formation. Does the separation of economic and political protest lead to a weakened working class? Such a separation has been thought to undermine class‐based solidarities, with community identities undermining workplace‐based ones. I argue, however, that the contemporary context is different in that precarious workers’ mobilizations in the community have become explicitly class‐based. In contrast to the long‐standing notion of the workplace as the hotbed of working‐class consciousness, the community has emerged as a locus of class‐based perspectives and solidarities. Throughout I emphasize not just strategy and material gain for the working class, but also shifts in civil society, organizations, and subjectivity. My argument is developed through a case study of the Chicago Jobs and Living Wage Campaign, which is then compared to other cases of precarious worker mobilization around the globe. Examining the tensions inherent in precarious workers’ political mobilization in the context of the post‐Fordist neoliberal state, the study has implications for labor and social movements, class formation, citizenship, and contemporary capitalism.

Reflexiones sobre el territorio rural bajo la acumulación flexible: el caso de la región cafetalera de Coatepec, Veracruz, México

El presente trabajo ofrece una discusión sobre los cambios territoriales experimentados en la región cafetalera de Coatepec, Veracruz, provocados por la reestructuración del mercado internacional agroalimentario y por la modificación de las políticas agrarias en México, desde los años ochenta y hasta la fecha, dentro del contexto del nuevo régimen de acumulación flexible. El trabajo argumenta a favor de la importancia del concepto de territorio para explicar las nuevas realidades rurales (en este caso de una región caficultora con una larga tradición) configuradas por el régimen de acumulación flexible, utilizando para ello los resultados y experiencias del trabajo de campo en dicha región.

Da dualidade assumida à dualidade negada: o discurso da flexibilização justifica a inclusão excludente

Este artigo, com base nas pesquisas que a autora vem desenvolvendo, propõe-se a demonstrar que a relação entre trabalho e educação no regime de acumulação flexível se expressa através de uma diferente forma de materialização da dualidade estrutural. Neste regime de acumulação, ao contrário do que afirma o discurso pedagógico, a dualidade se aprofunda a partir da relação que se estabelece entre o mercado, que exclui a força de trabalho formal para incluí-la de novo através de diferentes formas de uso precário ao longo das cadeias produtivas, e um sistema de educação e formação profissional, que inclui para excluir ao longo do processo, seja pela expulsão ou pela precarização dos programas pedagógicos que conduzem a uma certificação desqualificada. A partir do princípio da integração produtiva que caracteriza este regime de acumulação, são apontadas, como proposta inicial para ser aprofunda, as categorias que constituem o que a autora chama de dualidade negada na acumulação flexível.

Cultura do trabalho, produção associada e produção de saberes

Which knowledge can contribute to the constitution of a new labor culture and the potentiation of social-economic relations that somehow contradict the logic of capital? In order to bring up some polemical issues related to the production and legitimization of knowledge, I retrieve some discoveries made in the course of my activity as a researcher. It should be stressed that in the history of capitalism workers haven been excluded from the right to basic education, which makes it extremely difficult for them to become masters of their labor. Then, distinguishing the perspectives of labor and capital, I emphasize that in the regime of flexible accumulation the new technologies of production and management of the labor force presuppose the valuing, legitimization and certification of work-related knowledge. Thirdly, taking into account the need to mobilize and articulate forms of knowledge in order to render associative labor technically and politically feasible, I resume some contributions made by Gramsci that help us to reflect on the labor culture that is developing within the popular economic organizations. With a view to the strengthening of the popular solidarity economy, I conclude with some theoretical-practical references of a “pedagogy of associative labor” that takes into consideration the processes of the production and socialization of knowledge in associative labor. Key words: labor and education, popular solidarity economy, labor culture, production of work-related knowledge, pedagogy of associative production.

Governance in the Global Agro-food System: Backlighting the Role of Transnational Supermarket Chains

With the proliferation of private standards many significant decisions regarding public health risks, food safety, and environmental impacts are increasingly taking place in the backstage of the global agro-food system. Using an analytical framework grounded in political economy, we explain the rise of private standards and specific actors – notably supermarkets – in the restructuring of agro-food networks. We argue that the global, political-economic, capitalist transformation – globalization – is a transition from a Fordist regime to a regime of flexible accumulation (Harvey, 1989). We also argue that the standard making process of this new regulatory regime is increasingly moving from the front stage – where it is open to public debate and democratic decision-making bodies – to the backstage – where it is dominated by large supermarket procurement offices. We assert that transnational supermarket chains are increasingly controlling what food is grown where, how, and by whom. We also contend that the decision-making processes of transnational supermarket chains are typically “black-boxed.” The Euro-Retailer Produce Working Group (EUREP) is presented as a case of private governance by transnational supermarket chains. We conclude by examining the limitations and long-term efficacy of a system of private governance in the global agro-food system.

Resisting and Challenging Neoliberalism: The Development of Italian Social Centers

In the 1970s, Italy experienced a difficult transition from Fordism to a flexible accumulation regime. The resulting changes in production relations led to the disappearance of traditional public spaces and meeting places such as open squares, workplaces, party offices or the premises of groups involved in the antagonistic, ie anti‐capitalist and anti‐fascist, movement. Within this context, in the 1980s and 1990s, these groups managed to create new social and political spaces by setting up Self‐Managed Social Centers (CSAs), ie squatted properties which became the venue of social, political and cultural events. Over 250 Social Centers have been active in Italy over the past 15 years, especially in urban areas. Their organizational modes are examples of successful direct democracy in non‐hierarchical structures and may provide alternative options to the bureaucratic organization of so many aspects of social and political life. Point number one on a Social Center's agenda is a daunting task: it must renovate and refurbish privately or publicly owned empty properties and turn them into public spaces open to the general public. For this task it relies exclusively on collective action, ie cooperative working modes which do not come under the provisions governing regular employment contracts and can thus be used to combat marginalization and exclusion processes which are becoming more and more dramatic in our cities. An analysis of the evolution of this original Italian movement provides the opportunity to address a number of issues associated with alternative practices to neoliberal globalization.

Regime de acumulação flexível e saúde do trabalhador

Analisar a saúde do trabalhador exige, na contemporaneidade, a compreensão do impacto do regime de acumulação flexível como resposta do capital e do capitalismo, seus rebatimentos nas relações de trabalho, bem como a compreensão das respostas articuladas pelo Estado, valendo-se de reformas neoliberais. Elas têm transferido as ações de saúde para a circunscrição do mercado, o que significa, em última instância, inserir o Estado no campo de ação da concorrência, do capital. Com base nesse enfoque é que se estruturou a abordagem do tema.

Hybrid Embodiment and an Ethics of Masochism: Nella Larsen's "Passing" and Sherley Anne Williams's "Dessa Rose"

In the African American tradition, hybridity is represented in the slave narratives as part of a sadistic configuration of master, mistress, overseer, and slave. But the shift in modalities of power from a regime of punishment to one of discipline, and the progression in the political economy--from a slave economy, through Taylorism-Fordism, (1) to flexible accumulation--are attended a shift in representations of hybridity. While desire was hybridized coercively in the regime of slavery, hybrid desire, once externally imposed, is now interiorized within already transgressed racial boundaries. In African American texts of the twentieth century, we find increasing interrogation of racial and cultural boundaries and a proliferation of images of hybridity. The two novels I examine here, Nella Larsen's Passing and Sherley Anne Williams's Dessa Rose, represent these concerns in different ways, but both are relentless in their interrogation of hybridity. We will pause briefly here to mark the moments in the political during which these novels were published, 1929 and 1986. These dates fall within a progression which spans the twentieth century from Taylorism-Fordism to a globalized regime of flexible accumulation. In these increasingly globalized regimes of accumulation, specific populations are targeted for into the world-system. The incorporation of the African American population, and that of other decolonized peoples, has been undertaken, however imperfectly, in a post-1914 and specially in a post-1945 global of North American ascendancy. In the incorporation of different peoples into a global economy, racism operates through what Wallerstein calls an 'ethnicization' of the work force, a process which adjusts different human genetic and social pools to the hierarchical needs of the economy at different times and in different places (Balibar 33-34). Perhaps Deleuze and Guattari come closer to the phenomenon being addressed here in their assertion that racism operates by the determination of of in relation to the White-Man face (178); that is, the from the physiognomy of whiteness. Commenting on the above passage from Deleuze and Guattari, Michael Hardt suggests that we speak of racist practice not in terms of exclusion but as a strategy of differential (146). This strategy measures degrees of deviance along a chromatic slide, and this graded chromaticism seems to be based on a measure of mimetic efficacy. Differential inclusion inevitably seems to include those whose approximation of the physiognomy of whiteness has attained a degree of mimetic efficacy through markers of race and class. The incitement to approximation is pervasive, but equally pervasive is the imperative of distance and difference. Differential inclusion includes those whose of are muted through mimetic approximation, but whose or difference never becomes undecipherable, as undecipherable difference always provokes extreme anxieties. These are strategies for the management of otherness in a regime of globalized flexible accumulation, strategies which locate otherness contiguously on a differential grid of heterogeneity, as inalienably he same and indisputably other. In such a space, in which bodies are subject to a polymorphous incitement to approximate a physiognomy or topography of whiteness, we observe a proliferation of images of racial approximation. In Toni Morrison's work alone, we find figures of racial approximation in a succession of characters like Geraldine, Maureen, Helene, and Jadine, and Nella Larsen's Passing extends this line to Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry. If these figures are projected outward as hybrid embodiments of otherness, Clare has, in fact, become indistinguishably other. While characters like Geraldine and Helene seem to be figures of false consciousness and alienation, Clare Kendry is too conspicuously cultivated, her role too deliberately performed for her to be understood in these terms. …

Compromising positions: emergent neo‐Fordisms and embedded gender contracts

This paper adopts a regulation framework to chart the emergence of neo-Fordism as a flexible accumulation regime and mode of social regulation. Neo-Fordism relies on old Fordist principles as well as incorporating new models of emergent post-Fordisms; old and new social relationships, in their particular combination, specify the trajectory of national variants. I argue that Fordist bargains institutionalized the terms of a compromise between labour, capital and the state. These bargains embedded a male-breadwinner gender contract compromising women's positions and standardizing employment contracts around the needs, interests and authority of men. A focus on compromises and contracts makes visible the differentiated gender effects of work transformation in each country.

“CASINO CAPITALISM” AND THE RISE OF THE “COMMERCIALISED” SERVICE CLASS-AN EXAMINATION OF THE ACCOUNTANT

The central contention of this paper is that a new paradigm is emerging within the area of professional or expert labour. This process entails a shift from a “social service” evaluation mechanism to a “commercialised” mechanism. This change is but one element in a wider range of alterations entailed in the change from a Fordist regime of accumulation to a Flexible Accumulation regime. The paper examines these issues with regard to the chartered accountancy profession. It analyses the socialisation processes experienced by accountants and the evaluation criteria involved in the promotional process to partnership. The evidence for this paper was gathered from qualitative and quantitative research undertaken in the Big Six accountancy practices in Ireland and the USA.

FORGING A POSTMODERN WATERFRONT: URBAN FORM AND SPECTACLE AT THE VICTORIA AND ALFRED DOCKLANDS

ABSTRACT This, the second in a two paper series, assesses the evolving character and form of Cape Town's Victoria and Alfred (V&A) Dockland redevelopment from its beginnings in 1990. Economic and technological changes have turned waterfront places in countries around the world into sites for renewed capital accumulation. A model developed by Pinder, Hoyle and Husain (1988) assists in explaining the structural forces which underlie dockland retreat, redundancy and eventual revitalisation, while analysis of the regime of flexible accumulation provides a basis for further understanding of the processes shaping the (post)modern waterfront. Using these theoretical constructs to examine the planning, design and operation of the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront Company, it is shown how the processes of commodification and ‘spectacle-isation’ have been used to forge (and consolidate) a postmodern harbourscape.

Thatcherism—One Nation or Two? An Exploration of British Political Attitudes in the 1980s

Thatcherism is presented as an ideological project, seeking to reorient public attitudes in Great Britain to positions consistent with a new regime of flexible accumulation. Analysis of political attitudes, as surveyed in 1983 and 1987, suggests that the project has been much more successful among some social classes than others and in the country's southern regions than elsewhere.

From Fordism to Flexible Accumulation: Technology, Competitive Strategies, and International Location

Aspects of the transition from Fordism to what has been labeled a regime of flexible accumulation are analyzed. First the nature of the current crisis of Fordism is considered, with special emphasis on two elements of this crisis. The first has to do with the internationalization of Fordist production techniques without the corresponding elaboration of characteristically Fordist consumption patterns in the countries involved. The second has to do with the forms of competition that have arisen in conjunction with the Fordist regime of accumulation in the core countries. Both of these factors, it is argued, have played a significant role in the current predicament facing many advanced industrial nations. The shift to a regime of flexible accumulation is then considered with particular attention paid to the rise of new technologies and new ways of organizing production. These factors are related to changing competitive strategies and the spatial organization of production on an international scale.