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Post-Fordism and Social Form: A Marxist Debate on the Post-Fordist State, edited by Werner Bonefeld and John Holloway. London: Macmillan, 1991. L14.99. Pp. 212.
This collection of articles is an excellent introduction to the debates that have arisen in Marxist state theory as it has developed from the early 1980s. The central concern is to understand the apparent change in capitalism from its Fordist to its post-Fordist phase, and how this relates to the form of the state. Fordism is generally characterized by assembly-line production of standardized products, Keynesian state intervention in the economy, and an accepted role for trade unions both in the workplace and the state itself. Post-Fordism is seen as a movement to a more flexible mode of production that produces a diversity of products, stresses the importance of consumption over production, and results in a decreased role of trade unions as the rule of the market holds sway.
It is the determinist aspect of the perceived Fordist/post-Fordist change that is the main source of contention among the book's contributors. This becomes particularly clear in the opening exchange between Wirsch and Bonefeld. Hirsch attempts to reformulate a theory of the state using the Regulation approach of Aglietta and Lipietz. Regulation theory understands the transition from Fordism to post-Fordism in terms of the state restructuring social relations to pave the way for a new regime of accumulation. The breakdown in the Fordist regime of accumulation leads the state to develop a new mode of regulation in order to secure capitalist reproduction....