Jameson’s periodization of postmodernism rests on intuition, not empirical economics

Evidence

Jameson does not say enough about the nature of ‘multinational capitalism’ to sustain much serious discussion of these questions. The slippages in his analysis (from the late 1940s to the early 1960s, from monopoly to multinational capital), and rather casual uses of econo­ mic sources suggest that his belief in ‘a cultural transformation of signal proportions, a historical break of an unexpectedly absolute kind’ is more an intuition informing his criticism than an inference from the empirical investigation of the contemporary world economy. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 497

Categorization

• XREF: Directly engages Jameson’s ‘Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism’ — the book this reading explicitly contests. — connects to: Scientific and ethical appraisal of capitalism are compatible, contrary to Jameson — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 492; The economic and cultural shifts of 1973 crystallized postmodernism as a new landscape — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 29; Jameson grounded postmodernity in identifiable features of multinational capitalism as of the early eighties. — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 150 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• The economic and cultural shifts of 1973 crystallized postmodernism as a new landscape #qualifies (0.75) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 29