Page 119 - Culture Society and Economy

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CULTURE, SOCIETY AND ECONOMY

There is a real contradiction in Castells’ work between this technological
determinism and his ‘identitarianism’. This stands out clearly if one goes
back to an earlier essay written in 1993 and a later work by Carnoy. 41
In Castells’ analysis in The New Global Economy in the Information Age,
the entire thesis rests upon technological determinism. In the chapters
by Carnoy and especially Cohen, but also by Castells himself, there is
no mention of the role of culture, community or identity in the new
global economy, although this work is clearly an important early version
of Castells’ later ideas. 42 It is the transformations wrought by Japanese
production systems and information technology which are held responsi-
ble for the transformation of the global economy and even the collapse
43
of the Soviet Union. Moreover, the analysis of the position of transna-
tional corporations in this work does not in any way put forward the thesis
that their power is in any way diminished by these technological changes.
On the contrary, in the chapters by Carnoy and Cohen, it is precisely the
opposite point which is repeatedly made. The adoption of Japanese pro-
duction techniques, flatter organizational forms, and the application of
information technology have, if anything, made transnational corporations
even more powerful, both in the national and world economies, as Harrison
established more than ten years ago. Harrison proved that flexible pro-
44
duction systems did not simply create ‘network enterprises’ but ‘large
firm-centered networked production systems’. 45
At the opening of his chapter published in 1993, Carnoy, for example,
wrote:

Large multinational enterprises (known as MNEs) continue to grow rapidly
and to influence changes in the world economy. They also dominate trade
among the industrialized countries and control international capital move-
ments. In the rapid informatization and internalization of production and
distribution, much of the innovation (R&D) in information technology takes
place in the MNEs or is financed by them, especially as the cost of innova-
tion has risen. 46

Even Castells himself in his chapter, although he refers to a new ‘flexibil-
ity and decentralization in production and management’, shows his general
line of argument is the same as the book as a whole: A technological revo-
lution has transformed large corporations and the world economy which
they continue to dominate. 47 It is true that all the authors of this work,
Carnoy and Cohen in particular, strongly uphold the thesis that the global
‘geo-economy’ is one dominated by the most powerful nation–states in
which countries the most powerful corporations originate and are based.
But the grounds on which this is maintained are not communitarian ones.

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