Post-fordist people?: Cultural meanings of new technoeconomic systems☆

Abstract This article applies Langdon Winner's concept of technologies as ‘forms of life’ to the task of interpreting the cultural meanings of a (possibly) emerging ‘post-Fordist’ social order. The particular focus of interest is on the kinds of persons and communities that a post-Fordist society might produce. The four writers examined—Morton Schoolman, Stuart Hall, David Harvey and Donna Haraway—reflect a wide diversity of views about the emancipatory potential opened up by a new order resulting from the diffusion of new technologies. Despite their differences, these writers do help us to see the importance of a form of moral discourse which on the one hand takes seriously the significance of technoeconomic changes in shaping human identities, and on the other tries to articulate a vision of human meaning which can shape technological change for just and emancipatory social purposes.

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