Capitalism might have granted the radical wishes of the 1960s new left but only in a perverse form. Old hierarchies and institutions have been overthrown, work and life are more flexible, new communications have opened up the world – but none of this has necessarily made us free. For Sennett, the flows of capital might have become emancipated – but people haven't. To quote Delillo's Eric Packer; 'Money has lost its narrative quality the way painting did once upon a time ... money is talking to itself'.
Sennet claims that an older form of capitalism, what he calls 'social capitalism', was underwritten by a far greater commitment to stability than assumed by those enamoured of unfettered markets today. While acknowledging that older-style capitalist bureaucracies were oppressive (he doesn't deny the truth of Weber's iron cage), Sennett argues that such organizations created a grounding context where workers could derive some meaning and satisfaction from what they did. Moreover, social capitalism granted what Sennett calls the 'gift of organised time' – you could plan your future life within the organization. In other words, the relative stability of 'social capitalism' created an experience of time suited to building the self as a narrative project.
Sennett's emphasis on the narrativised self allows us to recall that the rise of social capitalism coincided with the rise of linear narrative forms such as the 19th century novel and the autobiography. Both constructed a self that unfolded through time, where experiences and events shaped identity...
By contrast, the 'new' capitalism ushers in a very different culture. Traditional corporations aimed at gradual profit. Corporations today – dominated by fickle shareholders – are governed by short-term speculation, risk and a mindset where destabilising the organization sends a positive, rather than negative message to investors. Sennet argues that this instability is devastating for workers. The company that downsizes, gets taken over, or reinvents itself is no longer a place where one can plan for the future.
The new capitalism is also blind to past experience. The accomplishments of an employee mean little in a world of continual retraining and rapid obsolescence. Indeed, the employee who takes pride in their work – subscribing to the ideal of work as craft – is regarded with suspicion...
For Sennet only a particular kind of person is able to succeed in this culture – a person who in a sense has no self - who doesn't need a sustaining life narrative...
Any wonder then that the new capitalism spawns different cultural representations, where those that stress randomness and chance begin to supplant linear narratives...
Sennett claims the destabilizing forces found in the new workplace also manifest themselves in consumer society. Much of what we consume is based on potential rather than use – MP3 players store more songs that we can hear, SUVs are designed to go places we'll never go, Walmart complexes are overstacked with items we don't need...
For Sennett this unusable potential ushers in a strange kind of passivity where possibility is more important than actual realization. One might find a parallel of sorts here, in the critical backlash against so-called 'hysterical realism' – the sprawling novels of David Foster Wallace, Zadie Smith, Salman Rushdie and the like...
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2006/1657086.htm
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