Abstract
It has become a cliché to say that the world economy is in crisis, or, that it has been in crisis for over 20 years. Or that existing theories, whether of the neo-classical or Marxist variety, are no longer adequate to comprehend this crisis, and to predict how it is being resolved.
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Notes and References
K. Mannheim, Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1940) p. 174 (first published in German in 1935).
J. P. Womack, D. T. Jones and D. Roos, The Machine that Changed the World (New York: Rawson Associates, 1990) p. 27.
D. Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989) p. 142.
For a discussion of these concepts and the role of technical change in economic theory, see G. Dosi et al., Technical Change and Economic Theory (London & New York: Pinter, 1988) especially the contribution by C. Freeman and C. Perez, ‘Structural Crises of Adjustment, Business Cycles and Investment Behaviour’, pp. 38–66.
K. Dohse et al., ‘From “Fordism” to “Toyotism”? The Social Organisation of the Labour Process in the Japanese Automobile Industry’, Politics and Society, 14 (2) (1985) pp. 115–46.
A. Toffler, Powershift, Knowledge, Wealth and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century (New York: Bantam Books, 1992) p. 102 and p. 239.
W. C. Kester, Japanese Takeovers, the Global Contest for Corporate Control (Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press, 1991) especially Chapter 3, ‘Japanese Corporate Governance’.
Note, however, the discussion by other writers on the subject of Japanese assembler—supplier relationships in the automobile industry. Womack et al. seem to describe a rather stylised picture of market price minus system. See for example B. Asanuma, ‘The Organization of Parts Purchases in the Japanese Automotive Industry’, in Japanese Economic Studies (Summer 1985) pp. 32–53.
A good example of such advocacy is J. MacDonald and J. Piggot, Global Quality, The New Management Culture (London: Mercury, 1990).
For a discussion and critique, see P. N. Dale, The Myth of Japanese Uniqueness (London: Routledge, 1988) pp. 105–6;
see also K. van Wolferen, The Enigma of Japanese Power, People and Politics in a Stateless Nation (New York: Vintage Books, 1990) pp. 165–7.
For a deeper analysis of cultural and psychological factors in Japanese industrial organisation, see A. Hoogvelt and M. Yuasa, ‘Going Lean or Going Native? The Social Regulation of “Lean” Production Systems’, Review of International Political Economy 1(2) (1994) pp. 281–303.
UNCTC, Transnational Corporations, fourth report, ‘Trends and Prospects’ (New York: UN, 1988) p. 42.
My discussion on the emulation of Japanese practices in Britain owes much to the thorough PhD thesis of one of my PhD students, Masae Yuasa, ‘Autonomy or Dependency? The Reality and Discourse of Social Relations of Japanese Production Systems in UK Manufacturing Industry during the 1980s’ (University of Sheffield, January 1995).
J. Tidd, Flexible Manufacturing Technologies and International Competitiveness (London: Pinter, 1991).
N. Oliver and B. Wilkinson, The Japanization of British Industry, New Developments in the 1990s (Oxford: Blackwells, 1992).
Commision of the European Communities, Directorate General Science, Research and Development, What are Anthropocentric Production Systems? Why are they a Strategic Issue for Europe? (Brussels: Report EUR 13968 EN), 1992.
Labour Research Department, Human Resource Management Survey, Bargaining Report (London: February 1995).
T. Elger and C. Smith (eds), Global Japanization: The Transnational Transformation of the Labour Process (London: Routledge, 1994) p. 32.
For a comprehensive review of the diverse approaches loosely federated under the label Regulation School, see R. Jessop, ‘Regulation Theories in Retrospect and Prospect’, Economy and Society, 19 (2) (May 1990) pp. 153–216. For a critical review of regulation theories in comparison with other contemporary crisis and transformation theories, see P. Hirst and J. Zeitlin, ‘Flexible Specialization versus post-Fordism: Theory, Evidence and Policy Implications’, Economy and Society, 20 (1) (February 1991)
A. Lipietz, ‘New Tendencies in the International Division of Labor: Regimes of Accumulation and Modes of Regulation’, in A. Scott and M. Storper et al., Production, Work, Territory (London: Allen & Unwin, 1986) pp. 16–39, p. 19.
M. Aglietta, A Theory of Capitalist Regulation: The US Experience (London: Verso, 1979);
and A. Lipietz, Mirages and Miracles (London: Verso, 1987).
For a very informative array of case studies of these new flexible systems across the western world, see T. Elger and C. Smith, Global Japanization?, op. cit., note 29 (1995).
S. Gill, ‘Theorizing the Interregnum: The Double Movement and Global Politics in the 1990s’, in R. Cox et al., The International Political Economy of the Future (London: Zed Press, 1995) pp. 51–77.
K. Ohmae, Triad Power, the Coming Shape of Global Competition (New York: The Free Press and Collier Macmillan, 1985) pp. xvi–xvii.
M. Hergert and D. Morris, ‘Trends in International Collaborative Agreements’, in F. Contractor and P. Lorange (eds), Cooperative Strategies in International Business (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1988) pp. 99–110.
Cited in P. Lorange and J. Roos, Strategic Alliances, Formation, Implementation, and Evolution (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), pp. 13–14.
R. Jaikumar and D. M. Upton, ‘The Coordination of Global Manufacturing’, in S. P. Bradley, J. A. Hausman, and R. L. Nolan (eds), Globalization, Technology, Competition: The Fusion of Computers and Telecommunications in the 1990s (Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School, 1994) pp. 169–84.
M. J. Piore and C. F. Sabel, The Second Industrial Divide (New York: Basic Books, 1984).
P. Hirst and J. Zeitlin, ‘Flexible Specialisation versus post-Fordism: Theory, Evidence and Policy Implications’, Economy and Society, 20, no. 1 (February 1991) pp. 1–55.
See, for example, B. Jessop, ‘Regulation Theories in Retrospect and Prospect’, Economy and Society, 19, no. 2 (May 1990) pp. 153–216.
Also R. Boyer, ‘Technical Change and the Theory of “Regulation”’ in G. Dosi, C. Freeman et al. (eds), Technical Change and Economic Theory (London & New York: Pinter, 1988).
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© 1997 Ankie Hoogvelt
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Hoogvelt, A. (1997). From Fordist to Flexible Production. In: Globalisation and the Postcolonial World. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25671-6_5
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