Reviving post-post-Fordism
An academic adventure
I had an odd intellectual experience recently. A US high school student wrote to me as part of an assignment, asking for my thoughts on Brave New World, and its current relevance. I replied talking about the role of "Our Ford", and Gramsci's contemporary concept of Fordism.
That got me thinking about post-Fordism, and then to the idea of post-post-Fordism, referring to the information economy that has emerged since the rise of the Internet. I expected that this would be a reinvention of the intellectual wheel on my part, but when I popped the phrase into DuckDuckGo, I got a single hit, which was part of a 2015 interview with UK radical economist Robin Murray whose ideas about the concept were very similar to mine, but whose comments were very brief.
I didn't know of Murray, but I thought I should write to him and ask him how he had developed the idea. Sadly, I was led to Wikipedia, which reported that Murray had died in 2017, apparently without writing anything further on the topic. I've found a handful of citations, but of the "in passing" variety.
I'm not sure where to go next with this. I'd like to revive the idea (if indeed it died with Murray), but I'm not sure how to deal with an intellectual history like this. Perhaps some of my readers knew (or knew of) Murray or have seen the idea of post-post-Fordism?
Greetings JQ,
Fordism and post, or post post (1) I associate with John Mathews Australian intellectual and scholar . Very prolific after he left ACTU as the trail blazing OH&S contributor. Perhaps David Runciman's recent review in LRB maybe of interest too - I could email you a pdf of it. Chloe Mason
It’s funny the places from which inspiration will come. I haven’t read Brave New World since I was in high school myself. It’s a good book, but I have always returned to 1984. I still think they’re both great books.