ABSTRACT
The transition to flexible accumulation was in part accomplished through the rapid deployment of new organizational forms and new technologies in production. Though the latter may have originated in the pursuit of military superiority, their application had everything to do with bypassing the rigidities of Fordism and accelerating turnover time as a solution to the grumbling problems of Fordism-Keynesianism that erupted into open crisis in 1973. In the realm of commodity production, the primary effect has been to emphasize the values and virtues of instantaneity (instant and fast foods, meals, and other satisfactions) and of disposability (cups, plates, cutlery, packaging, napkins, clothing, etc.). The popularity of a work like Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock lay precisely in its prescient appreciation of the speed with which the future has come to be discounted into the present.
