The state’s crisis-management role grew in the post-Fordist era rather than shrinking

Evidence

September 1988). So exercised did William Isaacs, Chairman of the FDIC, become that he felt obliged to warn the American Bankers Association as early as October 1987 that the USA ‘might be headed towards nationalization of banking,’ if they could not stem their losses. Operations in international currency markets to stabilize ex­ change rates come no cheaper - the New York Federal Reserve reported spending more than $4 billion in the two months after the stock market crash of October 1987 to keep the dollar exchange rate relatively orderly, and the Bank of England sold £24 billion in 1987 in order to keep the British pound from rising too fast and too far. The role of the state as a lender or operator of last resort has, evidently, become more rather than less crucial. — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 1034

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s rival-periodization framing: this is evidence against a pure retreat-of-the-state account of post-Fordism, strengthening Harvey’s continuity argument over rupture. — connects to: The Fordist mass production model is misrepresented by post-Fordist theorists. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 507; The 1973 crisis began a new capitalism immune to state steering and proletarian challenge — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 18; Fordism required active nation-state economic management. — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 813 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Fordism required active nation-state economic management. #corroborates (0.85) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 813
• The 1973 recession undermined Fordism and birthed a new accumulation regime #qualifies (0.80) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 864
• Manufactured crises enable states to restructure by projecting threat outward. #expands (0.75) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 271
• States manufacture and manage crises to justify self-assertion and restructuring. #expands (0.75)
• Flexible production bypassed Fordist rigidity to serve quick-changing markets #qualifies (0.75) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 936