后福特制与当代资本主义经济制度的演变

20世纪70年代以来,从福特制向后福特制的转型是当代资本主义经济制度新的演变趋势。作为具体的生产方式,福特制的基本特征是大规模生产与大规模消费的对应,而后福特制的特征则是柔性生产与个性化和多样化消费的对应。与这一生产组织方式转变相适应的是当代资本主义经济中的劳资关系、企业和产业政策以及国际关系等经济制度的改革和变迁。其中,新自由主义、新公司主义和新国家主义及其创新国家是当代资本主义经济制度演变的关键环节。     

Public education and the post-fordist accumulation regime: A case study of Australia

This paper discusses the current radical changes in the Australian education policy. Central to the argument is the claim that the radical restructuring of the public sector hastened the loss of the possibility of any critical evaluation of national policy.The paper argues that this shift has been forced on the Australian state by the objective conditions expressed in a new realignment of the dominant transnational capital with the subordinate domestic capital, and in the shifts in a global capacity for consumption. The argument is underpinned by the claim that a new, post-Fordist (or flexible specialization) regime of capital accumulation is at present replacing the Fordist regime of mass production and consumption.The paper further argues that in order to achieve the system-preferred changes in the Australian education policy, the Australian government introduced radical changes in the production rules of policy formation. This involved a narrowing of policy making context and, crucially, an exclusion of voices critical of the shift towards economic reductionism.This loss of a critical sensibility constitutes the central concern of this paper. To advance the argument, in Part One, the paper discusses the relationship between the Australian state and the post-Fordist objective conditions of capital accumulation. Part Two argues that the lack of intellectual tradition in Australian public life was at least partially responsible for the easy passage given to neoclassical economics perspective in becoming a dominant public policy paradigm. Part Three locates the role of education within the context of the European philosophical tradition. It provides the link between critical sensibility, the project of Western civilization (which clearly extends beyond the modern vs. postmodern dichotomy), and the role of public discourse. Finally, the paper argues that education policy needs to take the issue of critical sensibility seriously. For this reason, it needs to be informed by a desire to go beyond the mere technical fit between graduates and the workplace, and allow itself to be inspired by new ideas, and new ways of seeing.     

Commodifying Passion

This article explores the cultural framings that all too frequently pass un-noticed in standard cost-benefit accounts of development economics. Our purpose is not simply to add our voice to those who argue for the importance of ‘bringing culture back in’, for we assume that in contexts of modern development economics ‘the cultural’ cannot simply be added to the technical or the economic, as these perspectives are explicitly elaborated as an abstraction from the cultural. Rather, we are interested in how an exploration of the cultural dynamics of technical process leads us to a disjunctive (rather than an additive) mode of ‘inclusion’. Building on approaches from science studies and social anthropology, we draw on our ethnographic and historical investigations of road-building in Peru to explore divergent modes of connectivity through which a politics of cultural engagement is played out. Taking the example of a highway under construction in a frontier zone not generally considered of economic importance to the wider national economy, we discuss the historical desire for ‘connectivity’, highlighting the instability of the physical and social environments on the margins of a marginal state. In this context we find that the vital energies of the frontier – entrepreneurial, innovative, experimental and unruly – consistently disrupt the vision of smooth, orderly, technical integration. We argue that this tension between the cultural and the technical, so clearly manifest at the frontiers of capitalist expansion (but characteristic of technological expansion more generally) is a driver rather than an obstacle in the development process. Attempts to produce a political resolution to a perceived lack of integration on the margins of society too often proceed through further attempts at securing smooth continuity (via further technical modes of intervention) rather than building on the diverse (disjunctive) modes of engagement that already exist.     

The high-tech,post-Fordist school

In many parts of the world, including Victoria, Australia, public schools are undergoing changes to the way they are administered, funded, and staffed and are being asked to accept a different mission and a different set of responsibilities. This paper points out that these structural changes to public school systems are explained and legitimized by their proponents through reference to post-Fordist arrangements of labour, capital, and technology, not through reference to educational discourses per se. At the same time computer-based technologies are being asked to play an increasingly prominent role in education, and it is argued that this computing-in-education project is a key strategy in moving aspects of post-Fordist reform from the administrative wing, down the corridor and through the classroom door. Finally, it is argued that both structural and technological change in school systems contribute to and are nurtured by the prevailing culture, best understood as the postmodern condition.This paper generalizes arguments arising from a case study of laptop computer use in schools (Arnold & Gilding, 1994).     

Continuous assessment as a selfinitiated teacher development strategy in Swaziland: practice and challenges for effective implementation

Abstract

The paper reports on a study that clarifies the challenges that a teacher in Swaziland faced in using continuous assessment (CA) as a self-initiated professional development tool. Drawing mainly on post-Fordist ideals we analyse the assessment tasks she gave to learners to establish the degree of agency, reflectivity and creativity she invested in the choice, adaptation and re-design of assessment tasks that were suggested to the teachers by education authorities. Items within these tasks and how they were employed to serve the lesson objectives are drawn on to illustrate how she took advantage of the professional autonomy the CA programme afforded her to judge the appropriateness of what was officially suggested. The curriculum expertise that informed her choice of items to reinforce or remedy learning is understood in terms of how she conceptualised CA as a tool to track learners’ cognitive competence and as a resource for a self-directed professional development strategy. In conclusion, an attempt is made to provide cues for the conditions under which the self-empowering elements of CA can function to improve learning and teaching.     

Public education and the post-fordist accumulation regime: A case study of Australia

This paper discusses the current radical changes in the Australian education policy. Central to the argument is the claim that the radical restructuring of the public sector hastened the loss of the possibility of any critical evaluation of national policy.The paper argues that this shift has been forced on the Australian state by the objective conditions expressed in a new realignment of the dominant transnational capital with the subordinate domestic capital, and in the shifts in a global capacity for consumption. The argument is underpinned by the claim that a new, post-Fordist (or flexible specialization) regime of capital accumulation is at present replacing the Fordist regime of mass production and consumption.The paper further argues that in order to achieve the system-preferred changes in the Australian education policy, the Australian government introduced radical changes in the production rules of policy formation. This involved a narrowing of policy making context and, crucially, an exclusion of voices critical of the shift towards economic reductionism.This loss of a critical sensibility constitutes the central concern of this paper. To advance the argument, in Part One, the paper discusses the relationship between the Australian state and the post-Fordist objective conditions of capital accumulation. Part Two argues that the lack of intellectual tradition in Australian public life was at least partially responsible for the easy passage given to neoclassical economics¹ perspective in becoming a dominant public policy paradigm. Part Three locates the role of education within the context of the European philosophical tradition. It provides the link between critical sensibility, the project of Western civilization (which clearly extends beyond the modern vs. postmodern dichotomy), and the role of public discourse. Finally, the paper argues that education policy needs to take the issue of critical sensibility seriously. For this reason, it needs to be informed by a desire to go beyond the mere technical fit between graduates and the workplace, and allow itself to be inspired by new ideas, and new ways of seeing.Parts One and Two of this Article appeared in INTERCHANGE, Vol. 26, #2, 1995.     

‘Intelligent capitalism’ and the disappearance of labour: Whitherto education?

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.     

福特制是否走向终结——基于对福特制特征的考察

第二次产业革命建立现代大工业之后,西方资本主义企业主要实行以福特公司为代表的福特制生产方式。70年代以后,福特制模式出现,福特制是否已走向终结?本文围绕这个问题,以对福特制及其危机的简要分析开端,描述福特制的主要特征,来表明宣判"福特制已经终结"还为时过早,组织化生产渗透着福特制的典型特征。     

Towards a Political Theory of Social Work and Education

The article focuses on Gramsci's elaboration of the concept of hegemony to analyze the function of Social Work during the periods of Fordism and post-Fordism. It discusses the limits and opportunities for a democratic development in the theory and praxis of Social Work.     

发展中国家与地区企业组织演化:一个解释框架

与发达国家及地区的企业相比较,发展中国家及地区企业面临的市场条件、宏观政策环境、体制约束与所要解决的利益冲突均存在着自身的特点,在企业组织形态、演化动力、演化机制及途径等方面存在着自身的一系列复杂性与特殊性,考虑到发达国家及地区的企业组织形式演化的历史实践以及俄罗斯、东欧等地快速私有化的教训,在企业组织演化的进程中,发展中国家与地区不能照搬发达地区的企业组织模式.而是必须结合本国的经济体制、制度特征及经济发展战略进行有效的自主创新.