Autonomy as a Value: Design and Branding in the Post-Fordist Era

Abstract
For a long time, autonomy in art and cultural production has been understood as something that stands outside the market. According to this traditional view, when art becomes a commodity to be sold, creative freedom is undermined and controlled by the logic of profit. Industrialization and capitalism have been seen as forces that limit creativity.
However, in post-Fordist capitalism, the situation seems much more complicated. The question that arises is not whether autonomy has been lost, but how its form has changed. In contemporary economies, where value is created through communication, networks, and identity, autonomy does not disappear; it becomes part of the way value is produced. It is not enough to treat autonomy solely as a resistance to the market to understand its role today.
To examine this transformation, this article presents a critical analysis, drawing on the concept of the cultural field and the theoretical framework of project-oriented capitalism. These approaches show that autonomy functions within the economic system as a form of symbolic capital. In this context, branding takes on a key role, because it structures identities, stories and meanings, turning authenticity and creativity into economic value. Ultimately, autonomy is neither a complete illusion nor a complete freedom. It can be considered as a negotiated space, where creative freedom and market logic intertwine. To understand design today, we must stop asking whether autonomy has been lost. Instead, we must examine how autonomy produces value and how it is shaped by the structures that demand it. Branding is the mechanism that connects creative freedom with economic logic. In the post-Fordist era, autonomy is not lost. It is transformed.

Keywords: Creative freedom, project-oriented capitalism, identity production, communication networks, transformation