Digital Technology, Work, Finance and Crises: Do We Now Live in Lash and Urry’s Capitalism of Mobilities or in Ernest Mandel’s Late Capitalism?
Abstract
The single and combined work of Scott Lash and John Urry have become extremely significant in the social sciences in the UK and beyond. In particular, one of their principal ideas that dominant capitalist countries have made a transition to a ‘disorganized’ and ‘mobile’ era founded on digital networks, global flows of people, objects, images and texts, decentralized and flexible work practices, declining industrialized social classes, and a loss of power for the nation-state to regulate flows of finance, has influenced many researchers. Their work has even helped to establish of a new ‘mobilities’ paradigm in the social sciences. Ernest Mandel has also explored the impact of digital technology on capitalist restructuring. Indeed, he claims that from 1945 onwards, a ‘late capitalist’ wave emerged predicated on the rise of factors like automation, the service sector, and new class identities. Unlike Lash and Urry, however, Mandel applies Marxist theory to investigate these changes. The aim of this paper is to draw on Mandel’s ideas to examine critically the account put forward by Lash and Urry. Five areas in particular will be discussed: theoretical differences between Lash and Urry and Mandel; the transition between different phases in capitalism; the changing composition of social class; whether the workplace is now dominated by decentralized and flexible networks; and the relationship between finance, the state and digital technology.
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