Transformations: The eight new ages of capitalism

doi:10.1016/0016-3287(93)90071-Z

Futures

Volume 25, Issue 10, December 1993, Pages 1019-1040

https://doi.org/10.1016/0016-3287(93)90071-Z Get rights and content

Abstract

Many authors observe that the capitalist economy is undergoing momentous change. They envision the resulting new economic age variously as a post-industrial information economy, post-modern economy of images, globally interdependent economy, new mercantilism, economy dominated by global corporations, post-Fordist entrepreneurial economy, economy guided by social movements, and an economy under the thrall of new fundamentals. When these notions of economic transformation are itemized, they exhibit a striking feature: each on its own seems plausible, even though all of them in combination question and contradict each other. Capitalism appears to be undergoing several simultaneous transformations leading in contrary directions. This article proposes, therefore, that we should not try to find the one true depiction of contemporary capitalist change. Rather, we should build our abilities to discern, and act on, multiple capitalist possibilities.

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^∗: Ernest Sternberg is in the School of Architecture and Planning, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14214, USA (Tel: (716) 829-21 33; fax: (716) 829-3256). This essay came to be written only because the author had the fortune to have as colleagues Arthur Hui-Min Chen, Sam Cole, Bruno B. Freschi O.C., Ibrahim Jammal and Magda Cordell McHale, who have led him to appreciate the intellectual dilemmas posed by contemporary change. His thanks go to them, as well as to John Friedmann and Susan Christopherson for their illuminating comments.

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Transformations: The eight new ages of capitalism

Abstract

Manufacturing Matters: The Myth of the Post-Industrial Economy

The re-emergence of regional economies? The mythical geography of flexible accumulation

Environment and Planning D: Society and Space

The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting

The Changing Information Environment

Communications technology—for better or worse

Harvard Business Review

Bibliography of Information Technology: An Annotated Critical Bibliography of English Language Sources Since 1980

The Information Economy: Definition and Measurement

IT Horizons

Making sense of information

The information age

The information age

The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting

Incremental versus methodological policymaking in the liberal state

Administration and Society

The Mirror of Production

Simulations

The Postmodern Scene

Critique of Commodity Esthetics

All Consuming Images: The Politics of Style in Contemporary Culture

The United States in the Global Economy: Challenges and Policy Choices

Power and interdependence revisited

International Organization

Photonic Technology and Industrial Policy: US Responses to Technological Change

Manufacturing Matters: The Myth of the Post-Industrial Economy

The Rise of The Trading State

After Industrial Society?