Page 46 - Communication Commerce and Power The Political Economy of America and the Direct Broadcast Satellite

34 Communication, Commerce and Power

crisis facing the United States from the 1970s and the subsequent
response of the American public and private sectors to it involved
the disassembling of Fordist and Keynesian accumulation models.
But rather than portraying this crisis and its response as the manip-
ulation of states on behalf of a national or international ruling class
(somehow forging and then imposing a coherent master-pian on state
officials to reform domestic and global institutions),· the actions of
both dominant private sector interests and state actors have been
directly influenced by the historically constructed structural condit-
ions in which they think and work.
The American state, since the mid-1980s, itself has been restruc-
tured in ways that have prioritized the neo-liberal reordering of
domestic and international relations. State officials have come to
champion TNC interests seeking a stable international regime in
which to exploit communication and information technologies and/
or expand market opportunities. In response to a foreign
communication policy crisis in the 1980s, components of the Amer-
ican state were reformed in order to facilitate its mediation of com-
prehensive global restructuring activities. The American state -
through the ascendancy of trade - underwent reforms enabling it to
service the political and legal needs of mostly TNCs and international
business consumers directly involved in information economy devel-
opments. These modifications, in tum, altered aspects of American
state relations with domestic and transnational capital.
The historical context in which these intra-state reforms unfolded
involved what has been called the crisis of the Fordist regime of
accumulation, the pursuit of a more flexible regime of accumulation
and the related crisis of US hegemony. The OPEC cartel, the Vietnam
War, the relative strength and subsequent wage demands of unionized
workers, and the emergence of mostly Asian-based economic compet-
itors, all contributed to a burgeoning demand for technological in-
novation and lower production costs among Western corporations
beginning in the 1970s. Organizational and production-based innova-
tions involving lower costs in communication and information-related
activities were achieved through ongoing research and development
investments (particularly those provided by the American state), the
disciplining of labor (zealously pursued through 'Thatcherism' and
'Reaganomics'), and the promotion of competition in the
telecommunications and computer industries. 38
Beyond lowering production costs and the provlSlon of new
services useful in the promotion of production process innovation,