a tendency for societies to be continuously transformed ‘from above’, and ‘from below’, so that ideas and cultures, industries and cities, as well as classes, are kept in a state of flux.
In contrast with earlier notions that ADVANCED CAPITALISM is either more organized than earlier forms of capitalism – by virtue of the introduction of state controls, monopoly, etc. – or will ultimately involve a final crisis, the concept of ‘disorganized capitalism’ in the above, modern, sense involves a doctrine neither of stability nor breakdown, but rather it sees continual adjustments within capitalism.
Like the term postmodernism, the phrases late capitalism and disorganized capitalism have been used in many different ways by different theorists, but most often they refer to the shift from modern industrial or "Fordist" capitalism to the new forms of global capitalism that emerged following World War II, and above all since the 1960s and 70s (Harvey 1990).
In disorganized capitalism, the relation between banks and corporations becomes more episodically enacted and the old nationally-organized axis of finance capital fades--particularly as new governance norms deter bankers from sitting on corporate boards.
The three developments I have identified with disorganized capitalism contributed to a restructuring corporate business in Canada during the closing decades of the twentieth century.
In disorganized capitalism, investment capital is highly mobile, and the pressure to attain maximal profitability is severe.
Amid all that, postmodern capitalism raises concern about a shift from an era of organized to disorganized capitalism (Lash and Urry, 1987).
In an era of disorganized capitalism, the production of social differences is the most pressing hallmark of the postmodern drift in economy.
No wonder that the worldwide move toward privatization within the era of disorganized capitalism reaffirms that the postmodern method of allocation of scarce resources is based on the "laws" of laissez-faire rather than organizational rationality of big business along with the further implementation of workplace democracy (Oglivy, 1989: 21).
Replacing the visible hand of managerial capitalism with the invisible hand of the market and workplace democracy, disorganized capitalism also means "the second industrial divide".
Anyone wanting to understand the role of culture in workers' resistance and "consent" to Canadian capitalism, from the craft era to early welfare capitalism, and from Fordism to the disorganized capitalism of the Third Industrial Revolution, will want to read these books and engage the debates these authors have raised.