New Capitalism? [Paperback]

The gaps between, what J K Galbraith called, `the conventional wisdom,'The Affluent Society (Penguin Business) and popular narratives of societal change are tricky to bridge. Bridging them is even trickier when our quotidian experiences engender feelings that do not chime with the available data; data that are often gathered for remote purposes and then obscured from our gaze by the needs of academia or officialdom.

New capitalism has without doubt become the narrative of our age, as it does seem to capture our experience. It is also given credence by commentators in the media and prominent academics. Its ideological essence has been assimilated into the language of business and shaped the responses of trade unions. It is the exegesis that captures work relations in a world that moves too fast for policy interventions to be worthwhile. Technology moves rapidly (no longer confined by location or time), capital can move just as quickly and workers are, consequently, less secure in their employment. New capitalism differs from previous forms in that it is intangible and as such the operation of the market is all that is needed or can be expected to work in such circumstances. Without the tangible technologies or constraints of previous eras, capitalism has been dematerialized.

Doogan will have none of this and sets about challenging the conventional wisdom. His task is to rematerialize the market by considering the central importance of the labour market as a medium of change. The use of social regulation and government as active agents in labour market productive and reproductive requirements are employed to give a concrete base his arguments.

Once the setting for the `new capitalist' narrative has been dealt with, many of its favourite tropes are shown to be built on sand. A multitude of secondary data is pressed into service to spoil the `new capitalist' party. This, along with the emphasis placed on labour market requirements, are what really mark this work out. The chapter devoted to: `Theorizing the Labour Market', brings the labour market as an instituted process to centre stage and by drawing on both theoretical and historical explanations is an excellent corrective to dominant accounts.

In relation to the use of data where others, such as SennettThe Corrosion of Character: Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism, have used ethnographic studies that tend to highlight the immediate responses of economic actors, Doogan, by contrast, stands back and looks for trends and evidence of change, or he digs well below the popular accounts weighing and measuring the data he unearths. The evidence presented in relation to multinational companies and the flight of capital is a good example of standing back. An examination of US data shows little change in the balance of domestic to overseas investment since the 1970s. The demographic time bomb and pensions crisis debate sees Doogan digging. The debate has always seemed to ignore productivity improvements, but Doogan delves deeper providing data that shows the ratio of non-worker to worker fell over the course of the last century, making this a question of economics not demographics.

When examining the workings of the labour market itself, it is current theories such as dual labour market theory, which he feels have failed to capture what is really happening. There has been a failure to draw sharp enough distinctions between temporary and part-time workers. The latter group, Doogan contends, are often beneficiaries of flexible labour policies and employers' desires to retain and implant company culture. The increase in student labour provides an illustration of how changes in welfare regimes can affect labour markets.

That the left and trade unions, as well as the right have accepted the `new capitalism' narrative is a conundrum raised by Doogan. The short comings of such an approach is discussed by citing the example of American trade unions campaigning against the outsourcing of jobs when the evidence on relocation indicate the problem is far smaller than generally perceived. That such a response is a missed opportunity is undeniable. The left, Doogan contends, have forgotten that capital needs labour and in doing so has been unable to develop an alternative account of current employment relations, thereby undermining labour further. He offers an explanation for this based on routine exchanges with employers that reinforce pessimistic views. This goes some way to explaining the trade unions responses, but other explanations such as policy-making structures reflecting members concerns could also be at play. I would have liked a greater discussion of this point, however, this is a small criticism, as Doogan is, in fairness, offering a warning not a detailed explanation.

`New Capitalism?' does manage to bridge the gap between narrative and reality and although, by necessity, it does this by employing a multitude of specialist data, Doogan pulls it off with an adeptness that ensures accessibility. It is all too easy for industrial relations actors and commentators to become mesmerized by their immediate concerns and, like Blake's Newton, miss what is going on in the world around them. `New Capitalism?' reminds us to stand up and survey our surroundings and thereby really recognize the importance of what is going on in the wider economy.

The nature of work is changing, but not for the reasons as popularly understood. Doogan explores these shifts through an engaging analysis of the secondary material available, as well as concise reference to his own research. This book also brings into sharp focus the uncritical use of right-wing assumptions by left-wing commentators and trade unionists, much to the detriment of their own position and of those they represent or support.

Doogan challenges the myth of the powerless state, arguing that far from being unfortunate and passive recipients of the negative forces of Globalization, nation-states use Globalization as a bogey-man for the implementation of unpopular national policies relating to the national economy.

The idea of the powerless nation-state is a ruse, a neoliberal foil, yet one used and accepted by the Left in almost every economic discourse relating to jobs and welfare. In America, for example, corporate greed and market irrationality has led to an enormous waste of resources, as well as job losses, yet `the unions appear to accept that outsourcing is the scourge of American labour.' Doogan shows that outsourcing has had a limited effect on job losses at a national level; instead, jobs tend to be `outsourced' from the northern to the southern states.

New Capitalism? challenges those narratives which seek to disengage economic forces from material reality. By focusing in on the Labour market - the `machine in the ghost' as he phrases it - Doogan reiterates the fact seemingly forgotten by the left that Capital needs labour.

As such, Capital cannot separate itself from labour, it cannot replicate itself in a virtual world.

This need for labour is the Achilles heel of right-wing economic analysis, and should form the basis of any left-wing analysis of how the machine works.