Chapter 3, Flexible, by Richard Sennett, “The Corrosion of Character”

* As a whole, Richard Sennett’s book The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism discusses the effect of the flexible capitalist economy on the lives of workers during the 1990s.

* Chapter 3 focuses mainly on flexibility. Sennett compares the flexibility of a human being to that of a tree, whereby, the tree has the capacity both to yield and to recover, from both the testing and the restoration.

* Theoretically, a flexible person ought to have the same tensile strength as the tree. That is, the person should be able to adapt himself to changing circumstances and resist to tension. Sennett states that routine is an evil of the old capitalism, and that in recent times, the workplace has been made "flexible" by means of the restructuring of time (flex time, part time jobs, increased use of swing and graveyard type shifts, etc.). However, in practical and in today’s society, the practices of flexibility focus mainly on the forces that bend people.
(Today, “Flexible capitalism” describes the goal of most modern companies, to be able to continuously change to fit the market. Companies no longer provide job descriptions or long term contracts, but rather an opportunity to compete in a winner-takes-all market.) * Many modern philosophers such as Locke and Hume have associated the bending aspect of flexibility with a person’s self powers of sensations. These sensations come from events happening in the world outside that elicits different responses, and hence bend the self from one way to another.

* Adam Smith’s theory of moral sentiments was founded on these external changing stimuli itself.

* Subsequently, philosophers tried to find principles of inner regulation and recovery which would rescue the sense of oneself from sensory fluctuations.

* However, after the writings that Adam devoted to political economy, emphasis was put on complete change. Flexibility of this sort was associated with the entrepreneurial virtues, which were later contested by political economists to labourer’s monotonous work.

* Unlike Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill stated that flexible behaviour produces personal freedom. We still think of being adaptable to changing circumstances, but in today’s society, the new political economy betrays this personal desire for freedom.

* Instead of creating the conditions which set us free, the aversion against bureaucratic routine and the search for flexibility has produced new structures of power and control. Power and control have now been disguised in the name of flexibility. * The society is searching for ways to destroy the evils of routine through creation of more flexible institutions and for Sennett, there are three possibilities to do so. According to Sennett, a system of power lurks beneath the flexible organisational arrangements that are essence of the new economy. This system is made up of three components: discontinuous reinvention of institutions; flexible specialisation of production; and concentration of, without centralisation of power.

* Discontinuous reinvention of institutions: This possibility seeks to reinvent institutions so that the present becomes discontinuous from the past. It is believed that loose networks are more open to reinvention than pyramidal hierarchies of Fordism. Team works and networks are trying to achieve greater efficiency where at the same time workers motivation can drop sharply. Specific techniques were found for reinventing the institutions such as software programs which standardise operational procedures, delayering and so on. The worker is like a bird flying from team to team, trying to adapt himself to a variety of circumstances.
Sennett goes on to talk about reengineering. Reengineering has caused many people to lose their jobs. Those who were in favour of this idea associated it with efficiency ‘doing more with less’. Nevertheless, Clemons thought of reengineering being a flop, as companies becomes dysfunctional, business plans are discarded, benefits are only short termed, and eventually, the organisation loses its discretion. Studies from the American Management Association have shown that downsizing has led to bad effects such as low profits and declining worker productivity. * Flexible specialisation of production: This possibility tries to quickly get more varied products to the market, searching for temporary and not permanent market niches. It is focused on islands of specialised production requiring quick decision. It fits well to the small work group, the team work. . In this concept, competing firms work together. Flexible specialisation is expected to provide flexible jobs, open communication networks, innovations and can adapt to changes whereas the Fordist regime is said to be inflexible, authoritarian and rigid.

* Concentration without centralisation: This possibility of concentration of power, without centralisation of power, gives people in the low ranks of the organisation more control over their own activities. It creates a sense of false personal freedom. The work is reorganised into fragments and node. The worker positions oneself in a work of possibilities with fewer responsibilities. Rather than paralysing oneself in a particular job with a lot of responsibilities, he works on many different fronts at the same time. He is part of the team, often irresponsible for his own mistakes which can be attributed to the team. The personal qualities of being a good worker are harder to define.