Tony Elger and Chris Smith
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199241514
- eISBN:
- 9780191714405
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199241514.003.0002
- Subject:
- Business and Management, International Business
This chapter considers contrasting interpretations of the Japanese model and their implications for international transfer and work transformation. It compares accounts of Japanese production ...
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This chapter considers contrasting interpretations of the Japanese model and their implications for international transfer and work transformation. It compares accounts of Japanese production paradigms as exemplars of neo-Fordism, post-Fordism, or Toyotaism, and locates these accounts within wider debates about evolving work and employment relations in Japan during the post-war period. It considers four rival interpretations of the rise of distinctively Japanese forms of work and employment — culturalist, institutionalist, class relations, and political economy approaches — and the implications of each of these interpretations for the transfer debate. It concludes that an historical analysis of evolving class and gender relations, the role of the state, and wider geo-political contexts is important for understanding the rise of the Japanese economy in the post-war period, the distinctive features of Japanese firms, and the internationalization of economic activity from the 1980s.Less
This chapter considers contrasting interpretations of the Japanese model and their implications for international transfer and work transformation. It compares accounts of Japanese production paradigms as exemplars of neo-Fordism, post-Fordism, or Toyotaism, and locates these accounts within wider debates about evolving work and employment relations in Japan during the post-war period. It considers four rival interpretations of the rise of distinctively Japanese forms of work and employment — culturalist, institutionalist, class relations, and political economy approaches — and the implications of each of these interpretations for the transfer debate. It concludes that an historical analysis of evolving class and gender relations, the role of the state, and wider geo-political contexts is important for understanding the rise of the Japanese economy in the post-war period, the distinctive features of Japanese firms, and the internationalization of economic activity from the 1980s.
Gerardo Patriotta
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199275243
- eISBN:
- 9780191719684
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199275243.003.0004
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Strategy
This chapter provides a brief outline of the Fiat Group's origins, business activities, and organizational model. Section 4.2 outlines a profile of the company by describing its main business ...
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This chapter provides a brief outline of the Fiat Group's origins, business activities, and organizational model. Section 4.2 outlines a profile of the company by describing its main business operations as well as by providing a series of significant performance indicators. Sections 4.3-4.5 analyse the distinctive chronological phases characterizing the development of the company. Finally, Section 4.6 presents the main structural principles underlying the organizational model currently adopted by Fiat at the plant level, and hence in the plants considered in this study.Less
This chapter provides a brief outline of the Fiat Group's origins, business activities, and organizational model. Section 4.2 outlines a profile of the company by describing its main business operations as well as by providing a series of significant performance indicators. Sections 4.3-4.5 analyse the distinctive chronological phases characterizing the development of the company. Finally, Section 4.6 presents the main structural principles underlying the organizational model currently adopted by Fiat at the plant level, and hence in the plants considered in this study.
David Ellwood
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198228790
- eISBN:
- 9780191741739
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198228790.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, American History: 20th Century
‘Everywhere there emerged the centrality of America — whether loved or loathed — as the crucial term of comparison when the topic was building the future in any form’; the challenges of 1920s ...
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‘Everywhere there emerged the centrality of America — whether loved or loathed — as the crucial term of comparison when the topic was building the future in any form’; the challenges of 1920s modernity now become obvious: mass democracy, mass production, mass communication, and the last two bore unmistakeable signs of America all over them. A wave of adaptation ensued, particularly in Germany, where Fordism was thought to be the key to reconstruction. While the Americans, particularly Herbert Hoover, started to elaborate a new theory linking the survival of democracy to the promise of mass prosperity, a surge of self-conscious criticism of American mass society arose in Europe. Here French intellectuals created a new tradition, but disquiet in Britain was strong across the political and business classes. They attempted a controlled, limited, adoption of American ways, but were not particularly successful.Less
‘Everywhere there emerged the centrality of America — whether loved or loathed — as the crucial term of comparison when the topic was building the future in any form’; the challenges of 1920s modernity now become obvious: mass democracy, mass production, mass communication, and the last two bore unmistakeable signs of America all over them. A wave of adaptation ensued, particularly in Germany, where Fordism was thought to be the key to reconstruction. While the Americans, particularly Herbert Hoover, started to elaborate a new theory linking the survival of democracy to the promise of mass prosperity, a surge of self-conscious criticism of American mass society arose in Europe. Here French intellectuals created a new tradition, but disquiet in Britain was strong across the political and business classes. They attempted a controlled, limited, adoption of American ways, but were not particularly successful.
Chris Freeman and Francisco Louçã
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199251056
- eISBN:
- 9780191596278
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199251053.003.0008
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Economic History
The key inventions that led to the internal combustion engine, to the automobile, the truck, the tractor, and the tank, were made in Europe, but the innovations that led to the assembly line, to mass ...
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The key inventions that led to the internal combustion engine, to the automobile, the truck, the tractor, and the tank, were made in Europe, but the innovations that led to the assembly line, to mass production and consumption, were made at the Ford plant in Detroit in the early years of the twentieth century.These technical and organizational innovations gave such an impetus to productivity, profitability, output, and exports of the US automobile industry that the plant became a Mecca for visitors from all over the world and ‘Fordism’ became a dominant management philosophy as well as an economic and cultural ideology, believed to herald the dawn of a ‘new economy’.The chapter devotes considerable attention to possible explanations for the collapse of this boom and the advent of the ‘Great Depression’ of the 1930s, concluding that, as with previous clusters of innovations, the assimilation of a major new technology into the social system gave rise to enormous political and social tensions and to structural crises of adjustment, both at national and international levels.These tensions and conflicts led ultimately to a Second World War, a motorized war in which tanks and aircraft proved decisive weapons and oil was the essential fuel for the motorized armed forces.The world economy after the war was no less dependent on abundant cheap oil, and became a system dominated by the mass production of cars and consumer durables, as well as motor highways, the mass media, mass tourism, mass education, mass culture, and the political and military supremacy of the US.Less
The key inventions that led to the internal combustion engine, to the automobile, the truck, the tractor, and the tank, were made in Europe, but the innovations that led to the assembly line, to mass production and consumption, were made at the Ford plant in Detroit in the early years of the twentieth century.
These technical and organizational innovations gave such an impetus to productivity, profitability, output, and exports of the US automobile industry that the plant became a Mecca for visitors from all over the world and ‘Fordism’ became a dominant management philosophy as well as an economic and cultural ideology, believed to herald the dawn of a ‘new economy’.
The chapter devotes considerable attention to possible explanations for the collapse of this boom and the advent of the ‘Great Depression’ of the 1930s, concluding that, as with previous clusters of innovations, the assimilation of a major new technology into the social system gave rise to enormous political and social tensions and to structural crises of adjustment, both at national and international levels.
These tensions and conflicts led ultimately to a Second World War, a motorized war in which tanks and aircraft proved decisive weapons and oil was the essential fuel for the motorized armed forces.
The world economy after the war was no less dependent on abundant cheap oil, and became a system dominated by the mass production of cars and consumer durables, as well as motor highways, the mass media, mass tourism, mass education, mass culture, and the political and military supremacy of the US.
Timothy R. Whisler
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198290742
- eISBN:
- 9780191684838
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198290742.003.0007
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Business History
This chapter describes the relationship between the British production system and Fordism (or ‘Fordist’ production). Between 1945 and 1970, British-owned firms incrementally developed an indigenous ...
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This chapter describes the relationship between the British production system and Fordism (or ‘Fordist’ production). Between 1945 and 1970, British-owned firms incrementally developed an indigenous production system that differed broadly from the stereotypical Fordist model. The established British system, originating in the inter-war years, appeared to be suited to the needs of a reconversion of materials, tooling shortages, and uncertain market prospects. After the war, managers adopted selected Fordist concepts to try to reduce costs and increase output in inefficient areas. The execution of Fordism was frustrated by a failure to alter management, engineering, and labour institutions radically to support strategic change. Neither middle management nor labour felt incentives to modify behaviour and attitudes. Traditional practices that were still being executed, resulted in old problems surfacing in the new system. Costs, however, were even higher.Less
This chapter describes the relationship between the British production system and Fordism (or ‘Fordist’ production). Between 1945 and 1970, British-owned firms incrementally developed an indigenous production system that differed broadly from the stereotypical Fordist model. The established British system, originating in the inter-war years, appeared to be suited to the needs of a reconversion of materials, tooling shortages, and uncertain market prospects. After the war, managers adopted selected Fordist concepts to try to reduce costs and increase output in inefficient areas. The execution of Fordism was frustrated by a failure to alter management, engineering, and labour institutions radically to support strategic change. Neither middle management nor labour felt incentives to modify behaviour and attitudes. Traditional practices that were still being executed, resulted in old problems surfacing in the new system. Costs, however, were even higher.
KEITH KEITH
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199244898
- eISBN:
- 9780191697401
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199244898.003.0006
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Organization Studies, HRM / IR
This chapter returns to the business world to look at Henry Ford, whose leadership inaugurated a qualitative leap from craft to mass production and gave rise to the term ‘Fordism’. It discusses how ...
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This chapter returns to the business world to look at Henry Ford, whose leadership inaugurated a qualitative leap from craft to mass production and gave rise to the term ‘Fordism’. It discusses how Ford enabled vast numbers of Americans to own cars because his prices were so low, but he persisted in assuming that price was critical long after many of his former customers had drifted away to the cars of General Motors and Chrysler, where the competitive edge was in novelty and product enhancements not simply price. It notes that Ford was a pacifist who spent a vast personal fortune leasing a ‘peace ship’ to sail to Europe and stop the First World War—but he simultaneously made an even bigger fortune with his production of munitions, boats, tanks, planes, and jeeps in both wars.Less
This chapter returns to the business world to look at Henry Ford, whose leadership inaugurated a qualitative leap from craft to mass production and gave rise to the term ‘Fordism’. It discusses how Ford enabled vast numbers of Americans to own cars because his prices were so low, but he persisted in assuming that price was critical long after many of his former customers had drifted away to the cars of General Motors and Chrysler, where the competitive edge was in novelty and product enhancements not simply price. It notes that Ford was a pacifist who spent a vast personal fortune leasing a ‘peace ship’ to sail to Europe and stop the First World War—but he simultaneously made an even bigger fortune with his production of munitions, boats, tanks, planes, and jeeps in both wars.
Clare Bambra
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199588299
- eISBN:
- 9780191731372
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199588299.003.0002
- Subject:
- Public Health and Epidemiology, Public Health
This chapter examines the development of the welfare state from a political economy perspective. Initially, the emergence of post-war welfare state capitalism is examined, and subsequently ...
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This chapter examines the development of the welfare state from a political economy perspective. Initially, the emergence of post-war welfare state capitalism is examined, and subsequently international variations — Fordist welfare state regimes — are outlined and compared. The crisis and reform of developed welfare states as forms of labour market regulation and capital accumulation are then examined and contextualized within the wider economic and political structural shifts from Fordism to post-Fordism. The emergence of new forms of welfare — post-Fordist workfare state regimes — is also described. In the final section, the role of the welfare state as mediator in the social determinants of health is outlined and differences in population health and health inequalities by welfare state regime are examined.Less
This chapter examines the development of the welfare state from a political economy perspective. Initially, the emergence of post-war welfare state capitalism is examined, and subsequently international variations — Fordist welfare state regimes — are outlined and compared. The crisis and reform of developed welfare states as forms of labour market regulation and capital accumulation are then examined and contextualized within the wider economic and political structural shifts from Fordism to post-Fordism. The emergence of new forms of welfare — post-Fordist workfare state regimes — is also described. In the final section, the role of the welfare state as mediator in the social determinants of health is outlined and differences in population health and health inequalities by welfare state regime are examined.
Elizabeth D. Esch
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780520285378
- eISBN:
- 9780520960886
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520285378.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
Between World Wars 1 and 2, the Ford Motor Company globalized its sales and production and, in the process, became an exporter of American race practices and what this transnational study calls ...
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Between World Wars 1 and 2, the Ford Motor Company globalized its sales and production and, in the process, became an exporter of American race practices and what this transnational study calls “white managerialism.” In examining three societies—Brazil, South Africa, and the United States—where Ford supported white supremacist political and social policies, this study deepens our understanding of how American firms rose to prominence globally, including in parts of the world formerly dominated by the British Empire. It argues that seemingly arbitrary and irrational racist ideologies found material backing in managerial practices and policies initiated by Ford and supported by local and national governments. Its focus on the interwar years, when Ford hired unprecedented numbers of African American workers in its Rouge plant in Dearborn, Michigan, allows for a focus on those workers who were both simultaneously central to the Ford empire and treated as second-class citizens within it.Less
Between World Wars 1 and 2, the Ford Motor Company globalized its sales and production and, in the process, became an exporter of American race practices and what this transnational study calls “white managerialism.” In examining three societies—Brazil, South Africa, and the United States—where Ford supported white supremacist political and social policies, this study deepens our understanding of how American firms rose to prominence globally, including in parts of the world formerly dominated by the British Empire. It argues that seemingly arbitrary and irrational racist ideologies found material backing in managerial practices and policies initiated by Ford and supported by local and national governments. Its focus on the interwar years, when Ford hired unprecedented numbers of African American workers in its Rouge plant in Dearborn, Michigan, allows for a focus on those workers who were both simultaneously central to the Ford empire and treated as second-class citizens within it.
Joshua L. Miller
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195336993
- eISBN:
- 9780199893997
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195336993.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This chapter presents the major work of the most prominent literary critic and editor of the 1920s—Mencken's The American Language—in the context of the shift from juridical attempts to control ...
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This chapter presents the major work of the most prominent literary critic and editor of the 1920s—Mencken's The American Language—in the context of the shift from juridical attempts to control language to cultural efforts to define it. It suggests that Mencken's polemical philology was symptomatic both of the national turn toward linguistic concerns and modernist fascination with new forms of linguistic and symbolic expression. In synthesizing and distilling academic research and political foment, Mencken sought to recoup his own standing in the eyes of Americans, which had been badly damaged during World War I as a result of his rhetorical misfires. The American Language showed Mencken attempting to become the philologist in chief by championing a reinvented, innately modern “American language.” His intense engagement with this project, revising it or other writings on language almost continually from 1919 until 1948, showed Mencken to be a brilliant popularizer and prescient observer of the importance of language to U.S. nationalism. Ultimately, the arguments that Mencken advanced in The American Language helped secure the symbolic capital of English as the singular language of national culture during one of the most polyglot periods of U.S. history.Less
This chapter presents the major work of the most prominent literary critic and editor of the 1920s—Mencken's The American Language—in the context of the shift from juridical attempts to control language to cultural efforts to define it. It suggests that Mencken's polemical philology was symptomatic both of the national turn toward linguistic concerns and modernist fascination with new forms of linguistic and symbolic expression. In synthesizing and distilling academic research and political foment, Mencken sought to recoup his own standing in the eyes of Americans, which had been badly damaged during World War I as a result of his rhetorical misfires. The American Language showed Mencken attempting to become the philologist in chief by championing a reinvented, innately modern “American language.” His intense engagement with this project, revising it or other writings on language almost continually from 1919 until 1948, showed Mencken to be a brilliant popularizer and prescient observer of the importance of language to U.S. nationalism. Ultimately, the arguments that Mencken advanced in The American Language helped secure the symbolic capital of English as the singular language of national culture during one of the most polyglot periods of U.S. history.
Edward W. Soja
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780520281721
- eISBN:
- 9780520957633
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520281721.003.0002
- Subject:
- Sociology, Urban and Rural Studies
A look at some of the dramatic changes that have taken place in Los Angeles since 1965, this chapter begins with a vigorous defense against eastern biases rooted in the concept of postindustrialism. ...
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A look at some of the dramatic changes that have taken place in Los Angeles since 1965, this chapter begins with a vigorous defense against eastern biases rooted in the concept of postindustrialism. Far from being postindustrial, Los Angeles after the Watts riots was pioneering the formation of a new industrial economy. As the country’s largest manufacturing center, Los Angeles combined Frostbelt deindustrialization with Sunbelt and Pacific Rim reindustrialization to epitomize the growth of the post-Fordist industrial metropolis. The chapter draws on the initial work done for the Coalition to Stop Plant Closings, including excerpts from an unpublished pamphlet, “Shutdown—Early Warning Signs of Plant Closings.” Also responding to the CSPC was Soja’s first article on Los Angeles, cowritten with Rebecca Morales and Goetz Wolff, that introduced the concept of urban restructuring as a form of social and spatial change. Soja, Morales, and Wolff argued one could find in Los Angeles a Detroit and a Houston, a Singapore and Sao Paulo, as well as representations of so much more—hence the idea that “it all comes together in LA,” borrowing from the old masthead of the LA Times. Urban restructuring is reinterpreted here as an attempted spatial fix, an effort to respond to crisis by creating a new and more sustaining geography.Less
A look at some of the dramatic changes that have taken place in Los Angeles since 1965, this chapter begins with a vigorous defense against eastern biases rooted in the concept of postindustrialism. Far from being postindustrial, Los Angeles after the Watts riots was pioneering the formation of a new industrial economy. As the country’s largest manufacturing center, Los Angeles combined Frostbelt deindustrialization with Sunbelt and Pacific Rim reindustrialization to epitomize the growth of the post-Fordist industrial metropolis. The chapter draws on the initial work done for the Coalition to Stop Plant Closings, including excerpts from an unpublished pamphlet, “Shutdown—Early Warning Signs of Plant Closings.” Also responding to the CSPC was Soja’s first article on Los Angeles, cowritten with Rebecca Morales and Goetz Wolff, that introduced the concept of urban restructuring as a form of social and spatial change. Soja, Morales, and Wolff argued one could find in Los Angeles a Detroit and a Houston, a Singapore and Sao Paulo, as well as representations of so much more—hence the idea that “it all comes together in LA,” borrowing from the old masthead of the LA Times. Urban restructuring is reinterpreted here as an attempted spatial fix, an effort to respond to crisis by creating a new and more sustaining geography.
Mark Whitehead, Rhys Jones, and Martin Jones
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- November 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780199271894
- eISBN:
- 9780191917608
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199271894.003.0014
- Subject:
- Earth Sciences and Geography, Social and Political Geography
From the beginning of this book we have consistently emphasized that our multi-faceted understanding of states cannot be simplistically equated with a nationally ...
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From the beginning of this book we have consistently emphasized that our multi-faceted understanding of states cannot be simplistically equated with a nationally scaled and territorially bound institution. Despite this stated aim, in many of the preceding chapters we have described a series of ways in which state natures have been produced at a national level. Whether it has been through water supply networks, national mapping and land-use surveys, nationalized pollution monitoring networks, or nationwide judicial frameworks, we have described how nature has been framed at a distinctly national scale. While exploring the national framing of nature we have seen how the national centralization of ecological knowledge and the territorial framing of the natural world have transformed the social experience, understanding, and ability to transform nature. A closer inspection of our descriptions of the nationalization of nature within the modern state, however, revels that the process of nationalization is never quite as national as it may seem. Attempts to produce a national picture or vision of nature are always based upon more localized practices and conventions than may be immediately apparent. It is our contention that attempts to manage and regulate nature through the multifarious processes of nationalization are best conceived of as the unfulfilled desire of numerous state regimes. This statement has two implications. First, it indicates that nationally based strategies for the control and regulation of nature are only one among a series of scales in and through which states can potentially manage nature. Secondly, it suggests that states could develop other (non-national) territorial strategies in their evolving historical relationships with the natural world. This final chapter is devoted to exploring these alterative sites and moments of contemporary state–nature relations. We begin by considering the rise of sustainable cities as alterative (‘post-national’) territorial strategies in and through which states are attempting to manage contemporary social relations with nature. As sub-national, decentralized territorial units, sustainable cities provide an interesting spatial and institutional perspective on contemporary manifestations of state nature. Drawing on the example of Australia’s Sustainable Cities Inquiry, we consider how states attempt to regulate nature through the control and administration of urban space.
Less
From the beginning of this book we have consistently emphasized that our multi-faceted understanding of states cannot be simplistically equated with a nationally scaled and territorially bound institution. Despite this stated aim, in many of the preceding chapters we have described a series of ways in which state natures have been produced at a national level. Whether it has been through water supply networks, national mapping and land-use surveys, nationalized pollution monitoring networks, or nationwide judicial frameworks, we have described how nature has been framed at a distinctly national scale. While exploring the national framing of nature we have seen how the national centralization of ecological knowledge and the territorial framing of the natural world have transformed the social experience, understanding, and ability to transform nature. A closer inspection of our descriptions of the nationalization of nature within the modern state, however, revels that the process of nationalization is never quite as national as it may seem. Attempts to produce a national picture or vision of nature are always based upon more localized practices and conventions than may be immediately apparent. It is our contention that attempts to manage and regulate nature through the multifarious processes of nationalization are best conceived of as the unfulfilled desire of numerous state regimes. This statement has two implications. First, it indicates that nationally based strategies for the control and regulation of nature are only one among a series of scales in and through which states can potentially manage nature. Secondly, it suggests that states could develop other (non-national) territorial strategies in their evolving historical relationships with the natural world. This final chapter is devoted to exploring these alterative sites and moments of contemporary state–nature relations. We begin by considering the rise of sustainable cities as alterative (‘post-national’) territorial strategies in and through which states are attempting to manage contemporary social relations with nature. As sub-national, decentralized territorial units, sustainable cities provide an interesting spatial and institutional perspective on contemporary manifestations of state nature. Drawing on the example of Australia’s Sustainable Cities Inquiry, we consider how states attempt to regulate nature through the control and administration of urban space.
Seb Franklin
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780262029537
- eISBN:
- 9780262331135
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262029537.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Technology and Society
This chapter opens with a discussion of Gilles Deleuze’s theorization of control societies and its relation to concepts of post-Fordism, neoclassical economics, immaterial labor, and attention ...
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This chapter opens with a discussion of Gilles Deleuze’s theorization of control societies and its relation to concepts of post-Fordism, neoclassical economics, immaterial labor, and attention economies. Following this, the chapter traces the historical relationship between the conceptual structure of control and the fundamental logic of the capitalist mode of production. This historical examination passes through three major stages: an analysis of Marx’s work on capital, labor, and abstraction; a discussion of Charles Babbage’s work on computing machines, political economy, factories, and theology; and a close reading of the automation of essentialism that undergirds Herman Hollerith’s late-nineteenth century work on machine tabulation.Less
This chapter opens with a discussion of Gilles Deleuze’s theorization of control societies and its relation to concepts of post-Fordism, neoclassical economics, immaterial labor, and attention economies. Following this, the chapter traces the historical relationship between the conceptual structure of control and the fundamental logic of the capitalist mode of production. This historical examination passes through three major stages: an analysis of Marx’s work on capital, labor, and abstraction; a discussion of Charles Babbage’s work on computing machines, political economy, factories, and theology; and a close reading of the automation of essentialism that undergirds Herman Hollerith’s late-nineteenth century work on machine tabulation.
Ramsay Burt
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199321926
- eISBN:
- 9780190456627
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199321926.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Dance
Ungoverning Dance examines the work of progressive contemporary dance artists in continental Europe from the mid-1990s to 2015. Placing this work within its historical and political context—that of ...
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Ungoverning Dance examines the work of progressive contemporary dance artists in continental Europe from the mid-1990s to 2015. Placing this work within its historical and political context—that of neoliberalism and austerity—it argues that these artists have developed an ethico-aesthetic approach that uses dance practices as sites of resistance against dominant ideologies and attests to the persistence of alternative ways of thinking and living. In response to the way that the radical values informing their work are continually under attack from neoliberalism, these artists recognise that they in effect share common-pool resources; and while contemporary dance has been turned into a market, they nevertheless value the extent to which it functions as a commons. Works that do this, it argues, ungovern dance. It begins with a theoretical discussion of dance in relation to neoliberalism and post-Fordism, and then develops an account of ethico-aesthetics in choreography, drawing in particular on the work of Emmanuelle Levinas and its adaptation by Maurice Blanchot. It also explores ethics from the point of view of affect theory, drawing on the work of Erin Manning and Brian Massumi. These philosophical ideas inform close readings of works from the 1990s and 2000s by two generations of Europe-based dance artists. Topics examined include dance and precarious life, choreographing friendship, re-performance, the virtual in dance, and a dancer’s experience of the Egyptian Revolution. Ungoverning Dance proposes new ways of understanding recent contemporary European dance works by making connections with their social, political, and theoretical contexts.Less
Ungoverning Dance examines the work of progressive contemporary dance artists in continental Europe from the mid-1990s to 2015. Placing this work within its historical and political context—that of neoliberalism and austerity—it argues that these artists have developed an ethico-aesthetic approach that uses dance practices as sites of resistance against dominant ideologies and attests to the persistence of alternative ways of thinking and living. In response to the way that the radical values informing their work are continually under attack from neoliberalism, these artists recognise that they in effect share common-pool resources; and while contemporary dance has been turned into a market, they nevertheless value the extent to which it functions as a commons. Works that do this, it argues, ungovern dance. It begins with a theoretical discussion of dance in relation to neoliberalism and post-Fordism, and then develops an account of ethico-aesthetics in choreography, drawing in particular on the work of Emmanuelle Levinas and its adaptation by Maurice Blanchot. It also explores ethics from the point of view of affect theory, drawing on the work of Erin Manning and Brian Massumi. These philosophical ideas inform close readings of works from the 1990s and 2000s by two generations of Europe-based dance artists. Topics examined include dance and precarious life, choreographing friendship, re-performance, the virtual in dance, and a dancer’s experience of the Egyptian Revolution. Ungoverning Dance proposes new ways of understanding recent contemporary European dance works by making connections with their social, political, and theoretical contexts.
Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick and Richard Hyman
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199644414
- eISBN:
- 9780191756290
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199644414.003.0002
- Subject:
- Business and Management, HRM / IR
This chapter identifies the main power resources which trade unions have deployed. It explores how changes in the world of work (‘post-Fordism’), in the relationship between national economies and ...
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This chapter identifies the main power resources which trade unions have deployed. It explores how changes in the world of work (‘post-Fordism’), in the relationship between national economies and the global level (globalization), in social attitudes (often viewed as a trend to individualism) and in political environments have weakened some traditional resources. This in turn has encouraged a search for alternatives. The chapter summarizes the relative importance of the key challenges facing unions in each of the ten countries examined in the book, noting that what are objectively similar challenges may have very different implications because of different histories, institutions and identities. Finally it summarizes the main routes to union ‘revitalization’ which have been discussed in recent literature on trade unionism.Less
This chapter identifies the main power resources which trade unions have deployed. It explores how changes in the world of work (‘post-Fordism’), in the relationship between national economies and the global level (globalization), in social attitudes (often viewed as a trend to individualism) and in political environments have weakened some traditional resources. This in turn has encouraged a search for alternatives. The chapter summarizes the relative importance of the key challenges facing unions in each of the ten countries examined in the book, noting that what are objectively similar challenges may have very different implications because of different histories, institutions and identities. Finally it summarizes the main routes to union ‘revitalization’ which have been discussed in recent literature on trade unionism.
Kit Hughes
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- December 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190855789
- eISBN:
- 9780190855826
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190855789.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This book explores how work, television, and waged labor come to have meaning in our everyday lives. However, it is not an analysis of workplace sitcoms or quality dramas. Instead, it explores the ...
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This book explores how work, television, and waged labor come to have meaning in our everyday lives. However, it is not an analysis of workplace sitcoms or quality dramas. Instead, it explores the forgotten history of how American private sector workplaces used television in the twentieth century. It traces how, at the hands of employers, television physically and psychically managed workers and attempted to make work meaningful under the sign of capitalism. It also shows how the so-called domestic medium helped businesses shape labor relations and information architectures foundational to the twinned rise of the technologically mediated corporation and a globalizing information economy. Among other things, business and industry built extensive private television networks to distribute live and taped programming, leased satellite time for global “meetings” and program distribution, created complex closed-circuit television (CCTV) data search and retrieval systems, encouraged the use of videotape for worker self-evaluation, used videocassettes for training distributed workforces, and wired cantinas for employee entertainment. Television at work describes the myriad ways the medium served business’ attempts to shape employees’ relationships to their labor and the workplace in order to secure industrial efficiency, support corporate expansion, and inculcate preferred ideological orientations. By uncovering industrial television as a prolific sphere of media practice—one that continually sought to reshape the technology’s cultural meanings, affordances, and uses—Television at Work positions the medium at the heart of Post-Fordist experiments into reconfiguring the American workplace and advancing understandings of labor that increasingly revolved around dehumanized technological systems and information flows.Less
This book explores how work, television, and waged labor come to have meaning in our everyday lives. However, it is not an analysis of workplace sitcoms or quality dramas. Instead, it explores the forgotten history of how American private sector workplaces used television in the twentieth century. It traces how, at the hands of employers, television physically and psychically managed workers and attempted to make work meaningful under the sign of capitalism. It also shows how the so-called domestic medium helped businesses shape labor relations and information architectures foundational to the twinned rise of the technologically mediated corporation and a globalizing information economy. Among other things, business and industry built extensive private television networks to distribute live and taped programming, leased satellite time for global “meetings” and program distribution, created complex closed-circuit television (CCTV) data search and retrieval systems, encouraged the use of videotape for worker self-evaluation, used videocassettes for training distributed workforces, and wired cantinas for employee entertainment. Television at work describes the myriad ways the medium served business’ attempts to shape employees’ relationships to their labor and the workplace in order to secure industrial efficiency, support corporate expansion, and inculcate preferred ideological orientations. By uncovering industrial television as a prolific sphere of media practice—one that continually sought to reshape the technology’s cultural meanings, affordances, and uses—Television at Work positions the medium at the heart of Post-Fordist experiments into reconfiguring the American workplace and advancing understandings of labor that increasingly revolved around dehumanized technological systems and information flows.
George Steinmetz
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226090948
- eISBN:
- 9780226090962
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226090962.003.0009
- Subject:
- Sociology, Comparative and Historical Sociology
This chapter on American sociology between the early 1930s through the mid-1960s examines the shift from an epistemologically splintered discipline before World War II to a more hegemonized situation ...
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This chapter on American sociology between the early 1930s through the mid-1960s examines the shift from an epistemologically splintered discipline before World War II to a more hegemonized situation afterward. It analyzes sociology internally in terms of its field-like qualities (or lack of), asking about the emergence of agreed-upon definitions of unequally distributed social scientific capital. The burden of the argument in this chapter is to track the postwar narrowing of sociology's intellectual diversity or, more precisely, the shift from a relative equality between nonpositivist and positivist orientations in terms of scientific prestige to a condition in which positivism as defined here was clearly dominant. It examines the epistemological characteristics of some of the leading sociology departments and disciplinary publications of the middle third of the century. It concludes by summarizing the author's arguments and findings from previous studies concerning the specific ways that postwar Fordism seemed to provide immediate confirming evidence for social science positivism.Less
This chapter on American sociology between the early 1930s through the mid-1960s examines the shift from an epistemologically splintered discipline before World War II to a more hegemonized situation afterward. It analyzes sociology internally in terms of its field-like qualities (or lack of), asking about the emergence of agreed-upon definitions of unequally distributed social scientific capital. The burden of the argument in this chapter is to track the postwar narrowing of sociology's intellectual diversity or, more precisely, the shift from a relative equality between nonpositivist and positivist orientations in terms of scientific prestige to a condition in which positivism as defined here was clearly dominant. It examines the epistemological characteristics of some of the leading sociology departments and disciplinary publications of the middle third of the century. It concludes by summarizing the author's arguments and findings from previous studies concerning the specific ways that postwar Fordism seemed to provide immediate confirming evidence for social science positivism.
Meric S. Gertler
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- November 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198233824
- eISBN:
- 9780191916496
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198233824.003.0010
- Subject:
- Earth Sciences and Geography, Urban Geography
Since the late 1980s a growing number of geographers and other social scientists have chronicled the apparent rise of post-Fordist economic systems (Scott and Storper ...
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Since the late 1980s a growing number of geographers and other social scientists have chronicled the apparent rise of post-Fordist economic systems (Scott and Storper 1987; Schoenberger 1988; Harvey 1989; Storper and Walker 1989; Boyer 1990; Storper 1997). These systems are said to employ a flexible approach to production reflected in employment relations, the organization of work within firms, and the broader social division of labour (Cooke and Morgan 1998). To some, the heart of this transformation lies in the rise of a new set offerees of production (Walker 1994). In particular, they point to a new set of flexible process technologies whose programmable properties offer producers prospects of great versatility, limited downtime, unparalleled precision, and superior quality. The same technologies are said to hold the potential to unleash the creative potential of workers, and to compel manufacturers to establish a new regime of co-operation on the shopfloor (Florida 1991). Despite the popularity of such arguments, their unqualified acceptance has not been universal. A critical literature has arisen which, among other things, questions the pervasiveness of such practices, especially in locations outside the paradigmatic flexible production regions (Gertler 1988; 1992; Sayer 1989; Pudup 1992). The evidence reviewed in Ch. 2 attests that, while rates of adoption of flexible technologies such as computerized numerical control (CNC) are reasonably high amongst manufacturers in countries such as the United States, Great Britain, and Canada, many firms in these countries have experienced considerable difficulty in trying to implement such technologies effectively (Jaikumar 1986; Beatty 1987; Meurer, Sobel, and Wolfe 1987; Kelley and Brooks 1988; Turnbull 1989; Oakey and O’Farrell 1992). Furthermore, the discussion in Ch. 2 also shows that there is an apparent regularity to the geography of technology adoption difficulty that is highly suggestive of its roots. Many of these implementation difficulties seem to arise in older, mature industrial regions, where manufacturing firms are far removed from the major production sites of the new flexible production technologies. Increasingly, the leading producers of these process technologies are to be found in such countries as Germany, Japan, and Italy, while once-dominant American machinery producers have seen their market shares drop significantly, both at home and abroad (Graham 1993).
Less
Since the late 1980s a growing number of geographers and other social scientists have chronicled the apparent rise of post-Fordist economic systems (Scott and Storper 1987; Schoenberger 1988; Harvey 1989; Storper and Walker 1989; Boyer 1990; Storper 1997). These systems are said to employ a flexible approach to production reflected in employment relations, the organization of work within firms, and the broader social division of labour (Cooke and Morgan 1998). To some, the heart of this transformation lies in the rise of a new set offerees of production (Walker 1994). In particular, they point to a new set of flexible process technologies whose programmable properties offer producers prospects of great versatility, limited downtime, unparalleled precision, and superior quality. The same technologies are said to hold the potential to unleash the creative potential of workers, and to compel manufacturers to establish a new regime of co-operation on the shopfloor (Florida 1991). Despite the popularity of such arguments, their unqualified acceptance has not been universal. A critical literature has arisen which, among other things, questions the pervasiveness of such practices, especially in locations outside the paradigmatic flexible production regions (Gertler 1988; 1992; Sayer 1989; Pudup 1992). The evidence reviewed in Ch. 2 attests that, while rates of adoption of flexible technologies such as computerized numerical control (CNC) are reasonably high amongst manufacturers in countries such as the United States, Great Britain, and Canada, many firms in these countries have experienced considerable difficulty in trying to implement such technologies effectively (Jaikumar 1986; Beatty 1987; Meurer, Sobel, and Wolfe 1987; Kelley and Brooks 1988; Turnbull 1989; Oakey and O’Farrell 1992). Furthermore, the discussion in Ch. 2 also shows that there is an apparent regularity to the geography of technology adoption difficulty that is highly suggestive of its roots. Many of these implementation difficulties seem to arise in older, mature industrial regions, where manufacturing firms are far removed from the major production sites of the new flexible production technologies. Increasingly, the leading producers of these process technologies are to be found in such countries as Germany, Japan, and Italy, while once-dominant American machinery producers have seen their market shares drop significantly, both at home and abroad (Graham 1993).
Anca Parvulescu
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226118246
- eISBN:
- 9780226118413
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226118413.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
This chapter brings together the book’s argument about the category “women’s work” in the context of post-Fordism. The narrative basis for the chapter is offered by Ulrich Seidl’s Import/Export ...
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This chapter brings together the book’s argument about the category “women’s work” in the context of post-Fordism. The narrative basis for the chapter is offered by Ulrich Seidl’s Import/Export (2007), a film that documents the labor of a Ukrainian nurse in Austria, where she is employed as a cleaning lady in a middle class home and a geriatric ward. The chapter revisits the second-wave feminist debate on housework, especially the work of Silvia Federici, Pat Mainardi, and Ellen Malos, locating “women’s work” within Fordist economy. It juxtaposes to this history the analysis of contemporary work offered by Italian autonomist neo-Marxists, especially the work of Maurizio Lazzarato and Paolo Virno, who often take the figure of the housewife as exemplary of the post-Fordist worker. What happens, the chapter asks, if we consider the Ukrainian cleaning lady as a new housewife figure and consider her work to be exemplary of post-Fordist “immaterial labor”? The chapter ends by pointing to a European linguistic hierarchy, arguing that the calculated failure of translation is an important ingredient in the traffic in women.Less
This chapter brings together the book’s argument about the category “women’s work” in the context of post-Fordism. The narrative basis for the chapter is offered by Ulrich Seidl’s Import/Export (2007), a film that documents the labor of a Ukrainian nurse in Austria, where she is employed as a cleaning lady in a middle class home and a geriatric ward. The chapter revisits the second-wave feminist debate on housework, especially the work of Silvia Federici, Pat Mainardi, and Ellen Malos, locating “women’s work” within Fordist economy. It juxtaposes to this history the analysis of contemporary work offered by Italian autonomist neo-Marxists, especially the work of Maurizio Lazzarato and Paolo Virno, who often take the figure of the housewife as exemplary of the post-Fordist worker. What happens, the chapter asks, if we consider the Ukrainian cleaning lady as a new housewife figure and consider her work to be exemplary of post-Fordist “immaterial labor”? The chapter ends by pointing to a European linguistic hierarchy, arguing that the calculated failure of translation is an important ingredient in the traffic in women.
Ipsita Chatterjee
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- June 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199465132
- eISBN:
- 9780199086825
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199465132.003.0003
- Subject:
- Sociology, Urban and Rural Studies, Economic Sociology
This chapter explores the existing literature on globalization. Some understand globalization as an economic process seen as neoliberalization. Others focus on the cultural aspects of globalization, ...
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This chapter explores the existing literature on globalization. Some understand globalization as an economic process seen as neoliberalization. Others focus on the cultural aspects of globalization, seeing it as McDonaldization. Yet others talk about globalization spatially, conceptualizing it as ‘time–space compression’, ‘space of flows’, and ‘de- and re-territorialization’. This chapter aims to understand globalization in its totality. But how to conceptualize these contradictory cultural, economic, and spatial realities in a tight nutshell? To answer that question, the author looks at churches, mosques, and other religious institutions that go global by using Facebook, YouTube, and the internet. She uses examples from cyberspace to indicate how these institutions resolve the cultural (religion) and economic (call for subscriptions, memberships, selling CDs, confessions, and sacred rites) through a cyber-material city, a transcendent space where culture always unfolds with the economy.Less
This chapter explores the existing literature on globalization. Some understand globalization as an economic process seen as neoliberalization. Others focus on the cultural aspects of globalization, seeing it as McDonaldization. Yet others talk about globalization spatially, conceptualizing it as ‘time–space compression’, ‘space of flows’, and ‘de- and re-territorialization’. This chapter aims to understand globalization in its totality. But how to conceptualize these contradictory cultural, economic, and spatial realities in a tight nutshell? To answer that question, the author looks at churches, mosques, and other religious institutions that go global by using Facebook, YouTube, and the internet. She uses examples from cyberspace to indicate how these institutions resolve the cultural (religion) and economic (call for subscriptions, memberships, selling CDs, confessions, and sacred rites) through a cyber-material city, a transcendent space where culture always unfolds with the economy.
Jason Maxwell
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780823282463
- eISBN:
- 9780823286317
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823282463.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter considers the odd status of literary and rhetorical critic Kenneth Burke within English Studies. It does so by examining a debate between Burke and Fredric Jameson that occurred in the ...
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This chapter considers the odd status of literary and rhetorical critic Kenneth Burke within English Studies. It does so by examining a debate between Burke and Fredric Jameson that occurred in the late 1970s in the journal Critical Inquiry; careful attention to the nuances of their exchange reveals why Burke has come to occupy such a central role within the discourse of rhetorical theory but has been largely overlooked within literary and critical theory. Although Burke and Jameson share many similarities concerning methodology and a host of related issues, they ultimately split on the structural characteristics of late capitalism. Whereas Burke asserts that capitalism operates by producing conformity and standardization, Jameson argues that capitalism must be understood as a much more dynamic system. Their differences on this matter illuminate a number of underlying tensions within theoretical work produced in the humanities today.Less
This chapter considers the odd status of literary and rhetorical critic Kenneth Burke within English Studies. It does so by examining a debate between Burke and Fredric Jameson that occurred in the late 1970s in the journal Critical Inquiry; careful attention to the nuances of their exchange reveals why Burke has come to occupy such a central role within the discourse of rhetorical theory but has been largely overlooked within literary and critical theory. Although Burke and Jameson share many similarities concerning methodology and a host of related issues, they ultimately split on the structural characteristics of late capitalism. Whereas Burke asserts that capitalism operates by producing conformity and standardization, Jameson argues that capitalism must be understood as a much more dynamic system. Their differences on this matter illuminate a number of underlying tensions within theoretical work produced in the humanities today.
