Production and Consumption

 

Post Fordism

            The phenomenon labeled either post-industrial or post-Fordist can be divided into three groups. The first comprises technological advances and changes in economic structure – these include the shift from manufacturing to services, the emergence of a global economy and the information technology/hyper-automation in industry. The second embraces wider social and cultural shifts; these include the intensification of consumers, the ambiguous rise of so-called post materialism and the replacement of class-determined life chances by individualized lifestyles as the primary source of social identity. The third group includes intermediate phenomena, such as changes in the structure of organizations and the pattern of employment, which link work, or the economy, and life or society (2000).

 

The Nature of Fordism

           

 

Macroeconomic changes, labor market alterations, the growth of a more integrated world economy, and micro-electronic innovations in communication technology have in recent years undermined the effectiveness of Fordist systems of mass production (1984;  1988;1990;1993). Predicated on the use of mechanized technology to facilitate high-volume standardized output in long production runs, Fordism embodies a work design using unskilled and semi-skilled workers performing reutilized simple tasks to produce standardized products.

To escape the rigidities implicit in Fordism, as well as improving their competitive position in increasingly segmented markets, some firms have experimented with flexible production systems that are better suited to fluctuating demand, the need for shortened product development time, and competition based on quality rather than price ( 1992). In terms of work organization, such changes have resulted in the creation of innovative human resource management strategies, most of which are associated with “high performance workplaces” (1992). Such workplaces suggest radically different ways of organizing the work and production process, principally built around the notion of flexibility and often referred to as “post-Fordism.”

 

BEYOND FORDISM

Attempts to explain organizational changes in mass production systems and whether or not a discernable post-Fordist pattern is emerging have focused on

1 technological innovation ( 1986; 1988),

2 market-driven changes (1984; 1989)

3 institutional transformations and new modes of capitalist regulation (1979; 1987; 1988).

Neither the first nor the third of these offers a full explanation. While the technological determinism of the first ignores the social context of innovation, the writings of the third (French “regulation” school) on institutional transformations delineate the origins of the current structural crisis but remain ambiguous as to the shape of post-Fordism today (1990).

Flexible Specialization

It is , building upon earlier studies of industrial dualism (1968;1971; 1982) who offer a more comprehensive technological paradigm rooted in market transformation and the reorganization of work. Specifically, they explain the origins of the current Fordist problems through reference to external shocks (1970s market uncertainty generated by the oil and exchange rates crisis) and internal structural problems (market saturation and the collapse of demand for standardized products). Their paradigmatic “second industrial divide” refers to the emerging system of flexible specialization by firms whereby a technologically transformed workplace has skilled workers producing customized goods.

Central to the efficiency of flexible specialization are multi-skilled workers, capable of initiating procedures in keeping with the need to autonomously adapt to changing contingencies. Such workers are given extensive discretion and the work organization is built around new production technologies that have eliminated much of the repetition of deskilled jobs. Such a setting is a marked departure from Fordism where workers performed reutilized differentiated tasks that were both boring and often dangerous.

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