Comments on: Kupperman in Santiago? http://anthropos-lab.net/vss/2008/03/kupperman-in-santiago/ An ARC Collaboration Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:09:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Vital Systems Security » Blog Archive » Housing and the Labor Markets: Management of the Interfaces of Economic Subsystems http://anthropos-lab.net/vss/2008/03/kupperman-in-santiago/#comment-9907 Vital Systems Security » Blog Archive » Housing and the Labor Markets: Management of the Interfaces of Economic Subsystems Thu, 03 Apr 2008 15:25:33 +0000 http://anthropos-lab.net/vss/2008/03/kupperman-in-santiago/#comment-9907 [...] Vital Systems Security An ARC Collaboration « Kupperman in Santiago? [...] [...] Vital Systems Security An ARC Collaboration « Kupperman in Santiago? [...]

]]> By: Onur Ozgode http://anthropos-lab.net/vss/2008/03/kupperman-in-santiago/#comment-9768 Onur Ozgode Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:11:04 +0000 http://anthropos-lab.net/vss/2008/03/kupperman-in-santiago/#comment-9768 I absolutely agree with your points Stephen. Especially the shift from gold standard to the floating dollar is very significant and begs an explanation in my mind. Someone like Mitchell I guess argues that there was not a real shift but the index commodity of Value, i.e. gold, was replaced simply by another commodity, i.e. oil. So, for him there is not shift at the epistemic level; we are still living in the universe of Ricardo and only for ideological mis-recognitions we think we moved into a new paradigm. I personally think this explanation is too simplistic--maybe I myself believe in the abstract value of money in itself too much as a pure signifier. Nevertheless, oil seems to be another critical issue in this period which seems to be source of many external shocks upon the economy. From this perspective, it is significant that OEP was also involved in the energy issues as Brian has been arguing. But I guess we have to take into account under what kind of an economy oil is a critical major input? The answer seems to mass production and for this reason flexibility revolution is indeed the key response to the rising instability of the 70s... The rescaling and redeployment you are referring to has no doubt have to do with the transformation of the firm. Yet, another interesting place this is taking place is banks and consulting companies... For instance, it is curious that in the early 70s McKensey have been going under a major restructuration towards becoming a consulting firm not simply in terms of efficiency, but also strategic futures planning. It is also interesting to note that the founders of this company were the followers of Taylorists, the ancestors of Industrial engineering... It is quite fascinating to see the historcal literature on Taylorism claiming it had failed... May be not. This sounds very much like the mainstream story of systems engineering. Finally, it is significant that the firms had to rationalize their financial statements and make them public in the early 70s. Again seems to be linked to the story of consulting/planning and rationalization of the firm. This may be the meso level transformations that neither the micro nor the macro economic stories can quite capture... I absolutely agree with your points Stephen. Especially the shift from gold standard to the floating dollar is very significant and begs an explanation in my mind. Someone like Mitchell I guess argues that there was not a real shift but the index commodity of Value, i.e. gold, was replaced simply by another commodity, i.e. oil. So, for him there is not shift at the epistemic level; we are still living in the universe of Ricardo and only for ideological mis-recognitions we think we moved into a new paradigm. I personally think this explanation is too simplistic–maybe I myself believe in the abstract value of money in itself too much as a pure signifier. Nevertheless, oil seems to be another critical issue in this period which seems to be source of many external shocks upon the economy. From this perspective, it is significant that OEP was also involved in the energy issues as Brian has been arguing. But I guess we have to take into account under what kind of an economy oil is a critical major input? The answer seems to mass production and for this reason flexibility revolution is indeed the key response to the rising instability of the 70s…

The rescaling and redeployment you are referring to has no doubt have to do with the transformation of the firm. Yet, another interesting place this is taking place is banks and consulting companies… For instance, it is curious that in the early 70s McKensey have been going under a major restructuration towards becoming a consulting firm not simply in terms of efficiency, but also strategic futures planning. It is also interesting to note that the founders of this company were the followers of Taylorists, the ancestors of Industrial engineering… It is quite fascinating to see the historcal literature on Taylorism claiming it had failed… May be not. This sounds very much like the mainstream story of systems engineering.

Finally, it is significant that the firms had to rationalize their financial statements and make them public in the early 70s. Again seems to be linked to the story of consulting/planning and rationalization of the firm. This may be the meso level transformations that neither the micro nor the macro economic stories can quite capture…

]]>