Fordism and its crisis
0.0 / 5
- Created by: sikemi__
- Created on: 29-05-21 16:07
What is Fordism?
- Term used to capture economic growth from mid 1930s to late 1970s
- Seen by many as golden age of economic growth where inequality wasn't as great as today and working people were unable to unionise and make a living wage
- Term used in three ways:
- As an era - end of WW2 to mid 1970s, period characterised by high economic growth around norms of industry established by firms such as Ford
- Socio-economic system - production system, reorganisation of the production system that revolutionized industry (manufacturing, clerical services)
- Broader system of capitalism and social relations - revived Gramsci's notion of Fordism - as the political economy of capitalism - particular combination of industrial organisation, state policies, and worker representation that characterised the period
- Fordisms is the term used to describe the dominance and spread of Fordism in different countries
- Fordism is a socio-economic system characterised by...
- Mass production
- Highly structured labour relations (rise of unions)
- Mass consumption (workers were making more money and could consumer more)
- Monopoly or oligopoly power
- State regulation
1 of 11
Ford as a paradigm
- Ford as an exemplar - formed in 1903 in Michigan
- Business model was about economies of scales
- Henry Ford and the Model T - cheap and functional
- Ford was an early, multinational
2 of 11
What made Ford Fordist?
- New structures of management and control
- Taylorism - severe technical and social division of labour to increase worker productivity
- Moving assembly line started in Highland Park in 1913
- Dedicated machinery and tasks for each worker
- Machinery operation deskilled workers
- Time to make a Model T reduced from 12.5 hours to 93 mins
- Hierarchical control
- Centralised all work-floor knowledge into management rather than a skilled workforce
- Original craftworkers found this troubling as they lost jobs to unskilled workers
3 of 11
Working at Ford
- High levels of intensity and stress
- By the late 1920s, work intensified- pace of the assembly line was constantly increased
- No talking allowed on the line
- Constant surveillance - informers and spies in factory, streets and at home
- Adversarial industrial relations
- Labour relations
- High rates of labour turnover, low productivity, labour unrest
- Forced to introduce profit sharing in 1914 - employees could earn $5/day for 8 hour day, forging link between production and consumption - pay workers enough so they could aspire to buy a Ford themselves, but still little security (no pension, no job security, no social welfare)
- Extreme paternalism - demands on production and social reproduction (ways in which workers renew themselves for the job and produce the next generation), tied up with class and ethnicity
- However...
- Extra pay was conditional - workers (often immigrants) had to display strict discipline' loyalty (anti-union), efficiency (no drinking) and stable family life. They had to be deemed suitable to handle extra money by strict adherence to Ford's do's and don'ts
- Early expansion of Ford happened with the big, new River Rogue plant which became synonymous with speeding up the line and the fear that workers had
- Fights against unionisation...
- Biggest don't was joining the union - enforced by Ford's Service Dept
- Early attempts to unionise the industry failed - Detroit was the 'graveyard of organisers'
- 1993 - new Roosevelt administration passed the National Recovery Act, including provision that guaranteed workers the right to organise and bargain collectively
- 1935 - United Automobile Workers formed by American Federation of Labour
- First union - 1941 - Ford becomes unionised at Highland Park
- 1944 - union also accepted at Ford's plant in Dagenham
- Violence - Battle of the Overpass (1937)
4 of 11
Understanding Fordism as a production system
- By the 1950's workers were unionised and commanded a relatively good wage
- Union contracts ensured that workers shared in the tremendous productivity increases
- Commanded a 25 fold wage increase and 40% reduction in working hours
- Allowed workers to consumer industrial products on a mass scale
5 of 11
Success of Fordism
- By 1962, Ford alone accounted for approc 1.5% of total nonfarm GDP in US ($8.1 billion in sales)
- System progressively widespread in other manufacturing sectors
- Spread to other firms and industries
- Growth of Fordisms: wide variation found from firm to firm, region to region, industry to industry and country to country
6 of 11
Fordism as social relations (Detroit)
- Detroit became somewhat paradigmatic of the particular type of economic/social/cultural growth of workimg class culture
- Racial history of Detroit...
- New assembly line techniques required little prior training or education to get a job in the industry
- Rapid growth in 1920s - workers came from Eastern and Southern Europe
- Black workers came from US south
- Racial riots to protest black racism
- Racialised housing segregation - maintained with redlining (workers couldn't get mortgages in particular neighbourhoods, no matter what their income was
- Union wasn't welcoming to black workers
- White population and jobs move to suburban ring
- Majority black city by 1970s - black mayor in 1974
- Labour relations systems, which black people became part of much later on were very adversarial. It did however have a relatively stable relationship between labour and management over time.
- For most years, they were able to negotiate wage increases that were a proportion of the increase in productivity
- This led to a virtuous cycle or a wage led demand
- Increased production - unions - increased wages - welfare state and state demand - increased demand
7 of 11
The role of the state
- Rise of the welfare state - Keynesian policies to directly stimulate demand (consumer goods, infrastructure, housing, health and education)
- Welfare state broadens the base of individual consumption and allows govt spending to counter low demand
- The state directly promotes production
- Industrial policy/state owned industries (Europe), defence spending (US) or Military Keynesian (Markusen)
- Oligopoly power - litttle compettiion or differentiatio
- State institutions structure the market in each country
- Legal system (disputes, property law, corporate law)
- Financial system (funds through stock market, parent firms, venture capital)
- Labour market (minimum wage? part time workers, handling of strikes, public healthcare)
- Education system (social reproduction of labour)
- Structure of govt (which level has the power to tax, attratc firms or determine spending)
8 of 11
Gender and Fordism
- Based on stable working class - the nuclear family supported by a male breadwinner and women's domestic labour underpinned by Keynsian economic and welfare policies that ensured reproduction of the working class (McDowell)
- Women increasingly working under Fordism - full and part time - drawn into tight labour markets
- Women often in bottom of occupational hierarchy in less skilled jobs - paid less
- 1970 - Equal Pay Act and 1975 - Sex Discrimination Act
- 1971 - female employment rate was 53% whilst males was 92%
- Women 'ghettoised' in female dominated occupations
- Often part time employment with less security and fewer rights and benefits at work
- Often forced to leave work/work part time
- Change facilitated by rise of social welfare (state income support, some childcare, care for the elderly)
9 of 11
Geographies of Fordism
- Locally - communities grow up around an industry (e.g. factory)
- Nationally - Early Fordist production was regionally concentrated in a few industrial centres
- US - autos in Detroit and the midwest, metal working industries in Milwaukee and steel in Pittsburgh
- UK - Birmingham, west Midlands specialised in automobiles, aerospace and engineering. Wales dominated by coal and metal manufacturing industries
- By 1960s, growth of branch plants and spatial division of labour internally (low cost periphery) and internationally
- Internationally - 1960s: beginnings of off shore production when firms first start to move production overseas to new makets and less expensive countries
10 of 11
Weakening of Fordism
- Declining corporate profits and productivity rates
- Marked the end of the post war boom
- International character of economic relations
- New economic competitors
- Changing international patterns of trade and investment
- Increasing importance of imported goods
- Inflation and rising unemployment
- Firms laying off workers, closing down, leaving the country
11 of 11
Related discussions on The Student Room
- Predictions for AQA A Level Economics paper 1,2,3 2023 »
- AQA Alevel geography NEA help »
- Edexcel A Level Politics Paper 3B: 9PL0 3B - 17 June 2022 [Exam Chat] »
- AQA A Level Geography Paper 2 (7037/2) - 6th June 2023 [Exam Chat] »
- Edexcel A-Level Geography Paper 2 | [6th June 2023] Exam Chat »
- AQA A Level Economics Paper 2 (7136/2) -22th May 2023 [Exam Chat] »
- Aqa sociology paper 1 »
- what do i pick for 6th form ????? »
- UCL Politics and IR Applicants »
- What is a level economics like?? »
Similar Geography resources:
0.0 / 5
0.0 / 5
0.0 / 5
0.0 / 5
0.0 / 5
0.0 / 5
Comments
No comments have yet been made