Post Industrialism - An Idea Project, by Ed Whitfield

At the turn of the twentieth century Henry Ford had put in place in his factories, the principal of mass production, creating cheaper cars at a much faster pace than the old, more luxurious and expensive cars. The principal of mass production spread throughout the industrialised countries of the world and secondary industry gained new heights.

The whole process of Fordism created much of how the industrial world lived during the mid twentieth century. In Britain, typically the north of England, it became a way of life- the factory labourer and the 'job for life'. It was a complete identity and Fordism also fuelled consumer culture and other new lifestyle identities.

Socialism and Marxism were very relevant in these times. The dark centres of industry were unhealthy places with dangerous working conditions and high levels of pollution. Of course the owners of capital were set far apart from these areas, and the labour they exploited was under tremendous amounts of pressure and risk as they created profits for the absentee employers. Unions were created to fight for workers rights and the whole idea, the identity of the labourer, went hand in hand with solidarity in the struggle for better social conditions. Fordism created a culture in itself, involving this social struggle and the male, breadwinner identity. It was all very straightforward. This was your job, that was your boss and here's what you had to do. When times were hard, as they often were, you complained to the union. This is how things were done.

But unions don't seem to be as powerful anymore. Could it be that they are becoming irrelevant in what may now be termed as post industrialism?

The transition between these two eras are characterised by such events as the rise in liberal ideologies, the fall in secondary industry employment and the subsequent dramatic change of the male identity. Industry is now more knowledge based. The production of knowledge and the tertiary sector are main elements in post industrial times.

The fact that mass production became over production and manual labour was replaced by robotics set the stage for our new era. Jobs had to come from somewhere and with the liberals at the helm it was down to the individual to pursue their own way in the world of wealth. This has created a new culture, one of individual endeavour, of flexibility and dynamic flows. The service industry and communications are where it is at in the new millennium. $1.5 trillion flow across the face of the planet in a digital format ever day (1998). Times are certainly different. If one wishes to be successful at this new pace they must begin to think less in physical terms and more in abstract, dynamic ways, money being a relevant example here. Its main use now is not in the physical transaction between customer and clerk, but it flies above our head on electronic tracks, zooming to and fro in the new flows of the post industrial era. These abstract ideas are central to the new concepts of the world, of how the world is perceived to work.

Products have become smaller and lighter and are shifted around a global assembly line, as the market dictates, thus creating less intensive industrial centres and because of this pollution has become more dispersed and less intensive in certain areas. In many respects it is the consumer that is to blame for a lot of the pollution nowadays rather than the producer.

It is this new way in which the world works that has me believing that the ideas of Marx and socialism are largely invalid in today's world. Perhaps it is impossible for the principals of these ideologies to bring about revolution. It is obvious to see that the simple stratification between the bourgeois and proletariat may not apply anymore as the individual's case is a far more important issue than the state of their overall neighbourhood or 'class'. Social geography is not as clear in national terms as it once was. Perhaps the only remaining way to view this black and white class stratification is on a global scale, the 'west' being the bourgeois, and the 'south' being the proletariat as much of manual labour has moved to the third world to exploit cheap labour forces. We are left with the service industry where we, ever increasingly, work menial and temporary jobs in search of cash to spend on leisure activities and consumer goods in an attempt to keep up over priced lifestyles we don't need and cant really afford.

Of course this is a generalisation of the post industrial worker, and poverty is not only restricted to the third world. And this is why lumping people into categories will only ever lead to unsavoury ends. Maybe not for everyone, but always at least for a few.

In sum, I believe we are now living in a post industrial era, created by a liberal agenda to box the individual into their own personal space, where they must struggle to survive and no longer have time to look out for other people. We are ever increasingly being pushed into the role of the individual consumer. Our interface with mediums are no longer relationships of pleasure or stimulation but merely instructions on how to be a successful individual in the new, emerging consumer lifestyles that are themselves consuming not only the meanings behind being human, but our civil liberties and our environment also! If the American Empire wishes to homogenise popular culture throughout the world, to attain global economic and political hegemony then it only makes sense that the trajectory will follow and lead us to, as some witty American sitcom would put it, between America and a hard place.

-- Ed Whitfield, March 2004

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