ABSTRACT
This chapter examines in more detail some of the ideas discussed in Chapter 1, relating to the development of the FS research programme through the writings of Piore and Sabel and others; in particular, it discusses whether the FSRP can be seen as a progressively developing one in two senses; first, in the sense loosely related to debates in the philosophy of the social sciences that can be found in Kuhn, Lakatos, Feyerabend, and Bhaskar; second, in the sense that the FSRP could be viewed as in opposition to the emergent and now dominant (but now maybe decomposing?) neoliberalism or, better, ‘absolute capitalism’ or ‘hyper-capitalism’. That is, whether the FSRP could be viewed and perceived as, in some way, in opposition to a renewed social democratic or socialist manner, to the ‘free market’ capitalism or financialised monopoly capitalism that became dominant from the 1980s to today in the twenty-first century? This would be a ‘Socialism’ that would be adequate and adapted to the new forms of political and social regulation that was replacing the classic Fordist and mass production era. Suffice it to say, however, no simple answer can be given to this question insofar, to be sure, the FSRP was highly ambivalent and its critique of the Marxist critique of political economy was, in some ways, caricatural and simplistic albeit not without relevant and hitting criticisms.
