Post-Fordism and the State

Abstract

Drawing on recent developments in regulationist economics and neoMarxist state theory, this contribution begins with a brief comment on the nature of social reproduction regimes and the importance of taking proper account of the ‘mixed economy of reproduction’.¹ It then addresses four interrelated sets of questions about the recent restructuring and possible transcendence of the post-war social reproduction regime associated with Atlantic Fordism, especially in its north-West European guise of the Keynesian welfare state. First what is involved in theorizing ‘post-Fordist’ social reproduction regimes? Second, considering the latter in relatively abstract theoretical terms, what might its core features comprise? Third, moving to more concrete-complex terms, how might post-Fordist social reproduction regimes be distinguished one from another? And, fourth, what are the respective roles of the state (whether at supranational, national, or local level) and other forms of governance in such regimes? Unfortunately space constraints preclude a detailed answer to all these questions but I will at least try to suggest how they might be addressed.