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.
Dario Melossi
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780197266922
- eISBN:
- 9780191938184
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266922.003.0012
- Subject:
- Law
This Chapter advances two claims which are related and sustain each other. The first is that in the contemporary “post-Fordist” world, the coupling of imprisonment and production persists in a ...
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This Chapter advances two claims which are related and sustain each other. The first is that in the contemporary “post-Fordist” world, the coupling of imprisonment and production persists in a relationship, if not between “the prison” and “the factory” – as Dario Melossi and Massimo Pavarini wrote 40 years ago – rather between “the prison” and “subordination”, because what all the multiple forms of “labor” and “non-labor” have in common – and have in common with the origins of protoindustrial capitalism – is subordination. The second is that the traditional reading of the “Rusche and Kirchheimer hypothesis” on the relationship between economic cycles and imprisonment depends on the specific conjuncture and class composition of the capitalist social formation to which it is applied. One thing is economic development in the period of Fordist mass industry and another in the globalized and fragmented labor market of neo-liberalism. Often imprisonment promotes phases of capitalist development rather than crises and recessions. Furthermore, subordination and inequality are strictly linked and feed on each other. Inequality promotes subordination, by putting the squeeze on those who are at the bottom of the social hierarchy; but subordination at the same time promotes inequality, by making sure that those who occupy those bottom positions, stay there. One strong link in the chain of subordination to inequality is penality, because penality reinforces inequality by reaffirming subordination. Data about long-run empirical relationships between imprisonment rates and inequality measures for the US and Italy are discussed.Less
This Chapter advances two claims which are related and sustain each other. The first is that in the contemporary “post-Fordist” world, the coupling of imprisonment and production persists in a relationship, if not between “the prison” and “the factory” – as Dario Melossi and Massimo Pavarini wrote 40 years ago – rather between “the prison” and “subordination”, because what all the multiple forms of “labor” and “non-labor” have in common – and have in common with the origins of protoindustrial capitalism – is subordination. The second is that the traditional reading of the “Rusche and Kirchheimer hypothesis” on the relationship between economic cycles and imprisonment depends on the specific conjuncture and class composition of the capitalist social formation to which it is applied. One thing is economic development in the period of Fordist mass industry and another in the globalized and fragmented labor market of neo-liberalism. Often imprisonment promotes phases of capitalist development rather than crises and recessions. Furthermore, subordination and inequality are strictly linked and feed on each other. Inequality promotes subordination, by putting the squeeze on those who are at the bottom of the social hierarchy; but subordination at the same time promotes inequality, by making sure that those who occupy those bottom positions, stay there. One strong link in the chain of subordination to inequality is penality, because penality reinforces inequality by reaffirming subordination. Data about long-run empirical relationships between imprisonment rates and inequality measures for the US and Italy are discussed.
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.
Stefan J. Link
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780691177540
- eISBN:
- 9780691207988
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691177540.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Russian and Former Soviet Union History
As the United States rose to ascendancy in the first decades of the twentieth century, observers abroad associated American economic power most directly with its burgeoning automobile industry. In ...
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As the United States rose to ascendancy in the first decades of the twentieth century, observers abroad associated American economic power most directly with its burgeoning automobile industry. In the 1930s, in a bid to emulate and challenge America, engineers from across the world flocked to Detroit. Chief among them were Nazi and Soviet specialists who sought to study, copy, and sometimes steal the techniques of American automotive mass production, or Fordism. This book traces how Germany and the Soviet Union embraced Fordism amid widespread economic crisis and ideological turmoil. The book recovers the crucial role of activist states in global industrial transformations and reconceives the global thirties as an era of intense competitive development, providing a new genealogy of the postwar industrial order. The book uncovers the forgotten origins of Fordism in Midwestern populism, and shows how Henry Ford's antiliberal vision of society appealed to both the Soviet and Nazi regimes. It explores how they positioned themselves as America's antagonists in reaction to growing American hegemony and seismic shifts in the global economy during the interwar years, and shows how Detroit visitors helped spread versions of Fordism abroad and mobilize them in total war. The book challenges the notion that global mass production was a product of post-World War II liberal internationalism, demonstrating how it first began in the global thirties, and how the spread of Fordism had a distinctly illiberal trajectory.Less
As the United States rose to ascendancy in the first decades of the twentieth century, observers abroad associated American economic power most directly with its burgeoning automobile industry. In the 1930s, in a bid to emulate and challenge America, engineers from across the world flocked to Detroit. Chief among them were Nazi and Soviet specialists who sought to study, copy, and sometimes steal the techniques of American automotive mass production, or Fordism. This book traces how Germany and the Soviet Union embraced Fordism amid widespread economic crisis and ideological turmoil. The book recovers the crucial role of activist states in global industrial transformations and reconceives the global thirties as an era of intense competitive development, providing a new genealogy of the postwar industrial order. The book uncovers the forgotten origins of Fordism in Midwestern populism, and shows how Henry Ford's antiliberal vision of society appealed to both the Soviet and Nazi regimes. It explores how they positioned themselves as America's antagonists in reaction to growing American hegemony and seismic shifts in the global economy during the interwar years, and shows how Detroit visitors helped spread versions of Fordism abroad and mobilize them in total war. The book challenges the notion that global mass production was a product of post-World War II liberal internationalism, demonstrating how it first began in the global thirties, and how the spread of Fordism had a distinctly illiberal trajectory.
Jeremy F. Lane
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781789622140
- eISBN:
- 9781800341555
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781789622140.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
Over recent decades concerns at the increased scarcity and precarity of salaried employment have dominated political struggles, theoretical debates and cultural representations in France. This study ...
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Over recent decades concerns at the increased scarcity and precarity of salaried employment have dominated political struggles, theoretical debates and cultural representations in France. This study argues that such concerns are evidence of a profound shift in the French economy and labour market. In its first, theoretical part, the study engages with work in political economy and sociology, sketching a new interpretative framework, the better to understand the nature and implications of this profound shift. This shift has challenged certain fundamental French republican values, opening up a rift between the precarious forms of subjectivity characteristic of post-Fordist labour and older notions of republican citizenship. In its second part, the study finds symptoms of this rift in a range of cinematic and literary representations of the contemporary workplace, as these depict the dilemmas faced, the trajectories followed, and the geographical regions inhabited by French workers of different ages, sexes, classes, and ethnicities.Less
Over recent decades concerns at the increased scarcity and precarity of salaried employment have dominated political struggles, theoretical debates and cultural representations in France. This study argues that such concerns are evidence of a profound shift in the French economy and labour market. In its first, theoretical part, the study engages with work in political economy and sociology, sketching a new interpretative framework, the better to understand the nature and implications of this profound shift. This shift has challenged certain fundamental French republican values, opening up a rift between the precarious forms of subjectivity characteristic of post-Fordist labour and older notions of republican citizenship. In its second part, the study finds symptoms of this rift in a range of cinematic and literary representations of the contemporary workplace, as these depict the dilemmas faced, the trajectories followed, and the geographical regions inhabited by French workers of different ages, sexes, classes, and ethnicities.
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.
Stefan J. Link
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780691177540
- eISBN:
- 9780691207988
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691177540.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, Russian and Former Soviet Union History
This concluding chapter explains that American-style postwar “Fordism” was only one pattern in the mottled global legacy left behind by Henry Ford. It was not the least ideological effect of American ...
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This concluding chapter explains that American-style postwar “Fordism” was only one pattern in the mottled global legacy left behind by Henry Ford. It was not the least ideological effect of American hegemony that in the 1960s modernization theory could universalize this unique historical arrangement — what can be called “high mass-consumption” — as the target of successful development itself. Responding to the crisis of the 1970s and 1980s, social scientists added a next phase: “Post-Fordism” or “post-industrial society” signaled deindustrialization to some and the promise of a “service and information economy” to others. What united these constructs was a thinking in sequential stages, a preoccupation with national patterns of development, and a theory of causation centered on self-generating forces. It has become clear that cycles of industrialization and deindustrialization are inseparable from concerted efforts to restructure the global division of labor, that productive dual-use technologies are fiercely contested by states and corporations alike, that investment and disinvestment cannot be dislodged from contests over the terms of globalization, and that capital has no autonomous power outside of the designs and struggles of political actors.Less
This concluding chapter explains that American-style postwar “Fordism” was only one pattern in the mottled global legacy left behind by Henry Ford. It was not the least ideological effect of American hegemony that in the 1960s modernization theory could universalize this unique historical arrangement — what can be called “high mass-consumption” — as the target of successful development itself. Responding to the crisis of the 1970s and 1980s, social scientists added a next phase: “Post-Fordism” or “post-industrial society” signaled deindustrialization to some and the promise of a “service and information economy” to others. What united these constructs was a thinking in sequential stages, a preoccupation with national patterns of development, and a theory of causation centered on self-generating forces. It has become clear that cycles of industrialization and deindustrialization are inseparable from concerted efforts to restructure the global division of labor, that productive dual-use technologies are fiercely contested by states and corporations alike, that investment and disinvestment cannot be dislodged from contests over the terms of globalization, and that capital has no autonomous power outside of the designs and struggles of political actors.
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.
Jeremy F. Lane
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781789622140
- eISBN:
- 9781800341555
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781789622140.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
The Introduction opens with evidence of the extent to which questions of employment, precarious and flexible labour have come to dominate the French political, cultural, and intellectual agenda ...
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The Introduction opens with evidence of the extent to which questions of employment, precarious and flexible labour have come to dominate the French political, cultural, and intellectual agenda since, broadly, the beginning of the new century. It then argues that this is itself evidence of the extent to which the shift to post-Fordist forms of accumulation is posing a fundamental challenge to established notions of French national identity and republican citizenship as these were institutionalised in the postwar compromise. A summary of the book’s content follows which clarifies how it seeks to probe more deeply into the precise nature of these phenomena and the diverse ways in which French filmmakers and authors have sought to represent them.Less
The Introduction opens with evidence of the extent to which questions of employment, precarious and flexible labour have come to dominate the French political, cultural, and intellectual agenda since, broadly, the beginning of the new century. It then argues that this is itself evidence of the extent to which the shift to post-Fordist forms of accumulation is posing a fundamental challenge to established notions of French national identity and republican citizenship as these were institutionalised in the postwar compromise. A summary of the book’s content follows which clarifies how it seeks to probe more deeply into the precise nature of these phenomena and the diverse ways in which French filmmakers and authors have sought to represent them.
Jeremy F. Lane
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781789622140
- eISBN:
- 9781800341555
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781789622140.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
This chapter offers an account of the crisis of Fordism in France from the 1970s on, identifying key developments at the global, national, and regional level, showing how these have affected ...
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This chapter offers an account of the crisis of Fordism in France from the 1970s on, identifying key developments at the global, national, and regional level, showing how these have affected corporate governance, so that by the 2000s the experience of work had radically altered. This will enable a clearer distinction between ‘post-Fordism’, a term we take in a general sense to refer to the unstable set of economic arrangements emerging from the crisis of Fordism, and ‘neo-liberalism’, understood as an ideological project that has exploited that crisis to push for welfare reductions and the liberalisation of global flows of goods, capital, and labour. This then leads into a critical review of a range of diagnoses of this situation, from those (Frédéric Lordon) who see it as the product of neo-liberalism as an exogenous ideological project, to those (Yann Moulier Boutang) who highlight its endogenous determinants within the contradictions of Fordism, to those (El Mouhoub Mouhoud and Dominique Plihon) who occupy a mid-point in these debates. The aim here is to begin sketching a new interpretative framework from a critical synthesis of these accounts.Less
This chapter offers an account of the crisis of Fordism in France from the 1970s on, identifying key developments at the global, national, and regional level, showing how these have affected corporate governance, so that by the 2000s the experience of work had radically altered. This will enable a clearer distinction between ‘post-Fordism’, a term we take in a general sense to refer to the unstable set of economic arrangements emerging from the crisis of Fordism, and ‘neo-liberalism’, understood as an ideological project that has exploited that crisis to push for welfare reductions and the liberalisation of global flows of goods, capital, and labour. This then leads into a critical review of a range of diagnoses of this situation, from those (Frédéric Lordon) who see it as the product of neo-liberalism as an exogenous ideological project, to those (Yann Moulier Boutang) who highlight its endogenous determinants within the contradictions of Fordism, to those (El Mouhoub Mouhoud and Dominique Plihon) who occupy a mid-point in these debates. The aim here is to begin sketching a new interpretative framework from a critical synthesis of these accounts.
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.
Stefan J. Link
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780691177540
- eISBN:
- 9780691207988
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691177540.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Russian and Former Soviet Union History
This introductory chapter provides an overview of Fordism. Fordism, in its most common usage, was a term that first originated in the 1970s and then boomed in the 1980s, when social scientists sought ...
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This introductory chapter provides an overview of Fordism. Fordism, in its most common usage, was a term that first originated in the 1970s and then boomed in the 1980s, when social scientists sought ways to theorize the structural crises of the industrialized West. Henry Ford in fact never used the term — his global admirers created it. Fordism enjoys a second popular usage: as a shorthand for a distinctively American modernity that is said to have spread across the world in the twentieth century, in a process that historians of Europe have called “Americanization.” Finally, Fordism is used in a third way that focuses more narrowly on what goes on inside firms and on shop floors. To labor historians, Fordism means the shop regime associated with mass production: a focus on unskilled laborers working monotonous tasks on assembly lines. The chapter then details how the spread of Fordism during the interwar years arose from an antagonistic development competition that was initially triggered by the rise of the United States and then accelerated by the Great Depression. It looks at how Detroit became the destination of engineering delegations bent on wholesale technology transfer.Less
This introductory chapter provides an overview of Fordism. Fordism, in its most common usage, was a term that first originated in the 1970s and then boomed in the 1980s, when social scientists sought ways to theorize the structural crises of the industrialized West. Henry Ford in fact never used the term — his global admirers created it. Fordism enjoys a second popular usage: as a shorthand for a distinctively American modernity that is said to have spread across the world in the twentieth century, in a process that historians of Europe have called “Americanization.” Finally, Fordism is used in a third way that focuses more narrowly on what goes on inside firms and on shop floors. To labor historians, Fordism means the shop regime associated with mass production: a focus on unskilled laborers working monotonous tasks on assembly lines. The chapter then details how the spread of Fordism during the interwar years arose from an antagonistic development competition that was initially triggered by the rise of the United States and then accelerated by the Great Depression. It looks at how Detroit became the destination of engineering delegations bent on wholesale technology transfer.
Stefan J. Link
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780691177540
- eISBN:
- 9780691207988
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691177540.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Russian and Former Soviet Union History
This chapter discusses how European postliberals on both the left and the right grasped Fordism as a compass by which to navigate the economic and ideological confusions of the 1920s. It studies ...
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This chapter discusses how European postliberals on both the left and the right grasped Fordism as a compass by which to navigate the economic and ideological confusions of the 1920s. It studies Henry Ford's My Life and Work (1922). What accounts for this book's astonishing impact? Part of the answer lies, as historians have long recognized, in the fascination that all things American exerted upon the world after the Great War. Dazed and diminished by the war, Europeans squinted across the Atlantic and saw an image of the future: a new type of civilization, characterized by mass production and mass-consumption, skyscrapers and Hollywood, assembly lines and flapper dresses. Like no other phenomenon, Henry Ford's factories seemed to exemplify this new American modernity: here the machine-like uniformity of modern industrial production begot a high standard of living and new possibilities for extravagant consumption and cultural expression. Ford's book went straight to the heart of the fierce Soviet debates about socialist industrial development. In essence, My Life and Work and its successor volumes elaborated a producerist agenda for the twentieth century.Less
This chapter discusses how European postliberals on both the left and the right grasped Fordism as a compass by which to navigate the economic and ideological confusions of the 1920s. It studies Henry Ford's My Life and Work (1922). What accounts for this book's astonishing impact? Part of the answer lies, as historians have long recognized, in the fascination that all things American exerted upon the world after the Great War. Dazed and diminished by the war, Europeans squinted across the Atlantic and saw an image of the future: a new type of civilization, characterized by mass production and mass-consumption, skyscrapers and Hollywood, assembly lines and flapper dresses. Like no other phenomenon, Henry Ford's factories seemed to exemplify this new American modernity: here the machine-like uniformity of modern industrial production begot a high standard of living and new possibilities for extravagant consumption and cultural expression. Ford's book went straight to the heart of the fierce Soviet debates about socialist industrial development. In essence, My Life and Work and its successor volumes elaborated a producerist agenda for the twentieth century.
Stefan J. Link
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780691177540
- eISBN:
- 9780691207988
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691177540.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, Russian and Former Soviet Union History
This chapter examines how the Soviet Union strove to acquire American mass production technology in order to create their own version of Fordism in the 1930s. It traces the origin and operation of ...
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This chapter examines how the Soviet Union strove to acquire American mass production technology in order to create their own version of Fordism in the 1930s. It traces the origin and operation of one of the prestigious objects of the First Five-Year Plan: the automobile factory at Nizhnii Novgorod. After 1933, when the city changed names in honor of its scion Maxim Gorky, the Soviet River Rouge went by the official name of Gaz (Gor'kovskii Avtomobil'nyi Zavod); but to the Soviet press, it was known simply as the “Auto Giant.” The chapter then follows four men who helped the Auto Giant awaken and rise. Economist Nikolai Osinskii pushed through an ambitious agenda for Soviet motorization that culminated in the foreign technical assistance contract with the Ford Motor Company of May 1929. In fulfillment of this agreement, Stepan Dybets traveled to Detroit and led a group of Soviet engineers who were in charge of transferring Ford technology and know-how from the Midwest to central Russia during the years of the First Five-Year Plan. Meanwhile, as director of Gaz between 1932 and 1938, Sergei D'iakonov oversaw the uneven and troubled implementation of Fordism during the Second Five-Year Plan. Finally, Ivan Loskutov ascended to the helm of Gaz after Stalin's purges, and presided over the factory's redoubled embrace of Fordism in the late 1930s and World War II.Less
This chapter examines how the Soviet Union strove to acquire American mass production technology in order to create their own version of Fordism in the 1930s. It traces the origin and operation of one of the prestigious objects of the First Five-Year Plan: the automobile factory at Nizhnii Novgorod. After 1933, when the city changed names in honor of its scion Maxim Gorky, the Soviet River Rouge went by the official name of Gaz (Gor'kovskii Avtomobil'nyi Zavod); but to the Soviet press, it was known simply as the “Auto Giant.” The chapter then follows four men who helped the Auto Giant awaken and rise. Economist Nikolai Osinskii pushed through an ambitious agenda for Soviet motorization that culminated in the foreign technical assistance contract with the Ford Motor Company of May 1929. In fulfillment of this agreement, Stepan Dybets traveled to Detroit and led a group of Soviet engineers who were in charge of transferring Ford technology and know-how from the Midwest to central Russia during the years of the First Five-Year Plan. Meanwhile, as director of Gaz between 1932 and 1938, Sergei D'iakonov oversaw the uneven and troubled implementation of Fordism during the Second Five-Year Plan. Finally, Ivan Loskutov ascended to the helm of Gaz after Stalin's purges, and presided over the factory's redoubled embrace of Fordism in the late 1930s and World War II.
Stefan J. Link
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780691177540
- eISBN:
- 9780691207988
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691177540.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, Russian and Former Soviet Union History
This chapter investigates Nazi Germany's efforts to acquire American mass production technology in order to create their own version of Fordism in the Thirties. Unlike the Soviet Union, Germany ...
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This chapter investigates Nazi Germany's efforts to acquire American mass production technology in order to create their own version of Fordism in the Thirties. Unlike the Soviet Union, Germany boasted a highly developed industrial base in its own right, centered around classic producer goods, such as coal, steel, machine tools, and instruments. Though Germany's machine tool builders were a proud and venerable branch with considerable export clout, they were unequipped to supply mass production factories. Acquiring automotive mass production was of neuralgic significance: it not only harbored the potential of a growth-generating consumer and export sector, but it was also — more immediately urgent to the Nazi regime — of primary military-strategic significance. Accordingly, the Nazi regime did not purchase bulk machinery and entire technological systems wholesale, Soviet-style. Instead, it resorted to targeted industrial reconnaissance and the recruitment of American specialists — that is, to Detroit missions such as those of Ferdinand Porsche, Otto Dyckhoff, and William Werner. The Nazi regime ensnared the American multinationals operating in Germany in a web of political pressure and economic incentives, and in doing so found ways to appropriate the Americans' technology without spending significant amounts of US dollars.Less
This chapter investigates Nazi Germany's efforts to acquire American mass production technology in order to create their own version of Fordism in the Thirties. Unlike the Soviet Union, Germany boasted a highly developed industrial base in its own right, centered around classic producer goods, such as coal, steel, machine tools, and instruments. Though Germany's machine tool builders were a proud and venerable branch with considerable export clout, they were unequipped to supply mass production factories. Acquiring automotive mass production was of neuralgic significance: it not only harbored the potential of a growth-generating consumer and export sector, but it was also — more immediately urgent to the Nazi regime — of primary military-strategic significance. Accordingly, the Nazi regime did not purchase bulk machinery and entire technological systems wholesale, Soviet-style. Instead, it resorted to targeted industrial reconnaissance and the recruitment of American specialists — that is, to Detroit missions such as those of Ferdinand Porsche, Otto Dyckhoff, and William Werner. The Nazi regime ensnared the American multinationals operating in Germany in a web of political pressure and economic incentives, and in doing so found ways to appropriate the Americans' technology without spending significant amounts of US dollars.
Stefan J. Link
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780691177540
- eISBN:
- 9780691207988
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691177540.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, Russian and Former Soviet Union History
This chapter evaluates how both regimes of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany put Fordism to use during World War II. William Werner's ascent to the commanding heights of Nazi Germany's wartime ...
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This chapter evaluates how both regimes of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany put Fordism to use during World War II. William Werner's ascent to the commanding heights of Nazi Germany's wartime industrial complex illustrates how the state-led pursuit of mass production that began in the 1930s intensified under the conditions of total war. With greater force than before, the Nazi regime sought to bind industry to the war economy. The bureaucracy of the armaments began telling firms what to produce, how to produce, and whom to hire. Werner's career, then, sheds light on a crucial but little-explored realm of the Nazi war economy: the institutional interface that bridged the ministries and the shop floors. Like the Nazi war machine, the Soviet armaments industry had to find ways to achieve, in the words of William Werner, “higher output with fewer skilled workers.” How this worked can be illustrated by looking, once more, at Gaz.Less
This chapter evaluates how both regimes of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany put Fordism to use during World War II. William Werner's ascent to the commanding heights of Nazi Germany's wartime industrial complex illustrates how the state-led pursuit of mass production that began in the 1930s intensified under the conditions of total war. With greater force than before, the Nazi regime sought to bind industry to the war economy. The bureaucracy of the armaments began telling firms what to produce, how to produce, and whom to hire. Werner's career, then, sheds light on a crucial but little-explored realm of the Nazi war economy: the institutional interface that bridged the ministries and the shop floors. Like the Nazi war machine, the Soviet armaments industry had to find ways to achieve, in the words of William Werner, “higher output with fewer skilled workers.” How this worked can be illustrated by looking, once more, at Gaz.
