Jameson grounded postmodernity in identifiable features of multinational capitalism as of the early eighties.
Evidence
At the Whitney, the term ‘consumer society’ acted as a kind of preliminary range-finder for a survey at higher resolution to come. In the subsequent version, for New Left Review, the ‘new moment of multi-national capitalism’ came more fully into focus. Here Jameson pointed to the technological explosion of modern electronics, and its role as leading edge of profit and innovation; to the organizational predominance of transnational corporations, outsourcing manufacturing operations to cheap-wage locations overseas; to the immense increase in the range of international speculation; and to the rise of media conglomerates wielding unprecedented power across communications and borders alike. These developments had profound consequences for every dimension of life in advanced industrial countries — business cycles, employment patterns, class relationships, regional fates, political axes. But in a longer view, the most fundamental change of all lay in the new existential horizon of these societies. Modernization was now all but complete, obliterating the last vestiges not only of pre-capitalist social forms, but every intact natural hinterland, of space or experience, that had sustained or survived them. — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 150
Categorization
- XREF: The outsourcing, speculation, and conglomerate features map onto Mandel’s Late Capitalism periodization — the empirical grounding the reader is tracking. — connects to: The modern-to-postmodern shift correlates with capitalism’s transformation from monopoly to multinational — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 374; Jameson periodized postmodernism into a creative seventies phase followed by regression. — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 306; Jameson’s periodization of postmodernism rests on intuition, not empirical economics — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 497 (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- The modern-to-postmodern shift correlates with capitalism’s transformation from monopoly to multinational
#corroborates(0.95) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 374 - Jameson’s periodization of postmodernism rests on intuition, not empirical economics
#contradicts(0.85) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 497 - Postmodernism cannot be understood apart from late capitalism’s economic structure
#expands(0.85) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 374 - Jameson periodized postmodernism into a creative seventies phase followed by regression.
#expands(0.72) — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 306