Post-Fordist work substitutes communication for Fordist silence
Evidence
The Fordist factory was crudely divided into blue and white collar work, with the different types of labor physically delimited by the structure of the building itself. Laboring in noisy environments, watched over by managers and supervisors, workers had access to language only in their breaks, in the toilet, at the end of the working day, or when they were engaged in sabotage, because communication interrupted production. But in post-Fordism, when the assembly line becomes a ‘flux of information’, people work by communicating. As Norbert Wiener taught, communication and control entail one another. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 72
Categorization
- XREF: Links to the noise/silence reading project — Fordist noise gags language, post-Fordist work is all communication. — connects to: Heat dramatizes the shift from Fordist hierarchies to flexible post-Fordist crews — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 69; Cubism fragmented spatial perspective in parallel with Fordist industrial practice — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 1693; The state’s crisis-management role grew in the post-Fordist era rather than shrinking — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 1034 (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- Heat dramatizes the shift from Fordist hierarchies to flexible post-Fordist crews
#expands(0.80) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 69 - Cubism fragmented spatial perspective in parallel with Fordist industrial practice
#expands(0.75) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 1693 - The state’s crisis-management role grew in the post-Fordist era rather than shrinking
#expands(0.75) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 1034 - Worker accommodation to Fordist labor remained a surface adaptation, not internalized consent
#qualifies(0.72) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 801