Potential and Limitations of Community Economic Development: Individual Initiative and Collective Action in a Post-Fordist Context

As traditional alternatives to laissez-faire economics lose ground and credibility, increasing attention is being focused on community economic development (CED). This form of development emerges as one of the few remaining options available to promote social equity and achieve community survival in the face of economic adversity. CED is dedicated to participatory decisionmaking and to forms of economic development that operate at a local level and advance social objectives. I contend that present circumstances are less than conducive to a fulfilment of the high hope placed in CED. I draw on regulation theory to identify factors that account for both the present interest in CED and the current difficulties experienced in carrying out this type of development. The argument is that difficult economic, social, and political circumstances associated with post-Fordism account for a search for solutions—among which CED figures prominently—while precluding the availability of the resources needed to launch successful CED initiatives. I conclude by exploring the possibility that CED will eventually be conducive to the emergence of local regimes of regulation capable of reinserting marginalized groups into the production process, thus contributing to rebalance the production and consumption spheres, and of introducing democratic forms of management.