The Condition of Postmodernity An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change David Harvey 1B BLACKWELL fambridge MA 6 Oxford ORCopyright © David Harvey 1989 First published 1990 Reprinted 1990 (three times), 1991, 1992 (twice) Blackwell Publishers 238 Main Street Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA Blackwell Publishers 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data ACIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Harvey, David, 1935— The condition of postmodernity/ David Harvey p.cm. Bibliography: p, Includes index. ISBN 0-631-16292-5-ISBN 0-631-16294-1 (pbk.) 1. Civilization. Modern-1950- 2. Capitalism. 3. Space and time. 4. Postmodernism. 1. Title. CB428,H38 1989 909.82,-del9 88-39135 cIP Typeset in 10% on 12pt Garamond by Setrite Printed in the USA This book is printed on acid-free paperContents The argument Preface Acknowledgements Part I The passage from modernity to postmodernity in contemporary culture Introduction Modernity and modernism Postmodernism Postmodernism in the city: architecture and urban design Modernization 6 Postmodernism or postMODERNism? RONH w Part IT The political-economic transformation of late twentieth-century capitalism Introduction Fordism From Fordism to flexible accumulation Theorizing the transition Flexible accumulation — solid transformation or temporary fix? BOw on Part III The experience of space and time 12 Introduction 13 Individual spaces and times in social life 14 Time and space as sources of social power 15 The time and space of the Enlightenment project vii viti 10 39 66 113 121 125 141 173 189 201 211 226 240vi Contents 16 Time—space compression and the rise of modernism as a cultural force 17 Time—space compression and the postmodern condition 18 Time and space in the postmodern cinema Part IV The condition of postmodernity 19 Postmodernity as a historical condition 20 Economics with mirrors 21 Postmodernism as the mirror of mirrors 22 Fordist modernism versus flexible postmodernism, or the interpenetration of opposed tendencies in capitalism as a whole 23. The transformative and speculative logic of capital 24 The work of art in an age of electronic reproduction and image banks 25 Responses to time—space compression. 26 The crisis of historical materialism 27 Cracks in the mirrors, fusions at the edges References Index 260 284 308 327 329 336 338 343 346 350 353 356 360 368The argument There has been a sea-change in cultural as well as in political— economic practices since around 1972. This sea-change is bound up with the emergence of new dominant ways in which we experience space and time. While simultaneity in the shifting dimensions of time and space is no proof of necessary or causal connection, strong a priori grounds can be adduced for the proposition that there is some kind of necessary relation between the rise of postmodernist cultural forms, the emergence of more flexible modes of capital accumulation, and a new round of ‘time—space compression’ in the organization of capitalism. But these changes, when set against the basic rules of capitalistic accumulation, appear more as shifts in surface appearance rather than as signs of the emergence of some entirely new postcapitalist or even postindustrial society.Preface I cannot remember exactly when I first encountered the term post- modernism. I probably reacted to it in much the same way as I did to the various other ‘isms’ that have come and gone over the past couple of decades, hoping that it would disappear under the weight of its own incoherence or simply lose its allure as a fashionable set of ‘new ideas.’ But it seemed as if the clamour of postmodernist arguments in- creased rather than diminished with time. Once connected with poststructuralism, postindustrialism, and a whole arsenal of other ‘new ideas,’ postmodernism appeared more and more as a powerful configuration of new sentiments and thoughts. It seemed set fair to play a crucial role in defining the trajectory of social and political development simply by virtue of the way it defined standards of social critique and political practice. In recent years it has determined the standards of debate, defined the manner of ‘discourse,’ and set parameters on cultural, political, and intellectual criticism. It therefore seemed appropriate to enquire more closely into the nature of postmodernism, not so much as a set of ideas but as a historical condition that required elucidation. 1 had, however, to undertake a survey of the dominant ideas and, since postmodernism turns out to be a mine-field of conflicting notions, that project turned out to be by no means easy to undertake. The results of that enquiry, set out in Part I, have been boiled down to the bare minimum, though I hope not unreasonably so. The rest of the work examines the political-economic background (again, in a somewhat simplified way) before looking much more closely at the experience of space and time as one singularly important mediating link between the dynamism of capitalism’s historical—geographical development and complex processes of cultural production and ideological trans- formation. In this way it proves possible to make sense of some ofPreface ix the wholly new discourses that have arisen in the Western world over the past few decades. There are signs, these days, that the cultural hegemony of post- modernism is weakening in the West. When even the developers tell an architect like Moshe Safdie that they are tired of it, then can philosophical thinking be far behind? In a sense it does not matter whether postmodernism is or is not on the way out, since much can be learned from a historical enquiry into the roots of what has been a quite unsettling phase in economic, political, and cultural development. In writing this book I have had a lot of help and critical encourage- ment. Vicente Navarro, Erica Schoenberger, Neil Smith, and Dick Walker provided a host of comments either on the manuscript or upon the ideas 1 was developing. The Roland Park Collective provided a grand forum for intellectual discussion and debate. It was also my good fortune to work with an extremely talented group of graduate students at the Johns Hopkins University, and I would like to thank Kevin Archer, Patrick Bond, Michael Johns, Phil Schmandt, and Eric Swyngedouw for the tremendous intellectual stimulation they provided during my last years there. Jan Bark initiated me into the joys of having someone do the word-processing competently and with good humour while undertaking much of the burden of con- structing the index. Angela Newman drew the diagrams, Tony Lee helped with the photography, Sophie Hartley sought out the per- missions, and Alison Dickens and John Davey, of Basil Blackwell, provided many helpful editorial comments and suggestions. And Haydee was a wonderful source of inspiration.Acknowledgements The author and publisher are grateful to the following for their kind permission to reproduce plates: Alcatel 3.2; Archives Nationales de France 3.3, 3.8; The Art Institute of Chicago, Joseph Winterbotham Collection, © The Art Institute of Chicago. All Rights Reserved. © DACS 1988 3.9; Associated Press 1.21; A. Aubrey Bodine Collection, courtesy of the Peale Museum, Baltimore. 1.22; Jean-Francois Batellier 1.4; Bildarchiv Photo Marburg 1.20; British Architectural Library/RIBA 3.6; The British Library 3.4; Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, © Robert Rauschenberg, © DACS 1988 (photograph by Rudolph Burckhardt) 1.9; Deutsches Architekturmusuem, Frankfurt am Main, 1.28; P. Dicken, Global Shift 3.1; Equitable Life Assurance Collection of the U.S. 1.5; Fondation Le Corbusier, Paris, © DACS 1988 1.1a; Galerie Bruno Bischofberger, Zurich, 1.6; Lintas Limited, London, 1.10; Lloyds Bank Plc, London, 4.1; Lloyd’s of London (photograph by Janet Gill) 1.19; Los Angeles Times 1.18; Mansell Collection 1.7; Metro Pictures, New York, 1.23 Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Archives, New York, 1.1b; Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, © ADAGP, Paris, and DACS, London 1988 3.11, 3.12; Musée d’Orsay, Cliché des Musées Nationaux, Paris, 1.8; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Purchase Fund, © ADAGP, Paris, and DACS, London 1989 3.10; National Portrait Gallery, London 3.5; Roger-Viollet 1.3. All other photographs were kindly provided by the author. The author and publisher would also like to thank the estate of T.S. Eliot, and the publishers of the Four Quartets, Faber and Faber Ltd and Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, for permission to reproduce the extract from Burnt Norton, and Heinrich Klotz, Revision der Moderne: Postmoderne Architektur 1960-1980, Prestel Verlag Miinchen, 1984, for the catalogue description of Charles Moore’s Piazza d'Italia.