Fordism and Post-Fordism (Fragment)

Fordism and post-fordism 43
III” (Lipietz 1982:37). Thus the dominance of mass production in a given enterprise or
sector does not exclude other labor processes or types of worker. Instead it subjects them
to its own logic. For the dominance of mass production means that, by virtue of its impact
3 on productivity and productivity growth, it is the main source of dynamism in a firm or
sector; and that other processes and activities will be organized to support, enhance, or
FORDISM AND POST-FORDISM complement it.2 This level of analysis is basically microeconomic.
A critical reformulation
Bob Jessop
As an accumulation regime, i.e., a macroeconomic regime sustaining expanded
reproduction, Fordism involves a virtuous circle of growth based on mass production and
As the language of Fordism and post-Fordism has entered everyday discussion it has also mass consumption. Many studies assume that the Fordist regime and its reproduction are
been vulgarized.1 This reduces its utility for theoretical understanding and empirical autocentric, i.e., that the circuit of capital is primarily confined in national boundaries. On
analysis and generates many confusions and controversies. This chapter critically these assumptions Fordism’s virtuous circle involves: rising productivity based on
reworks the conventional terminology of Fordism and post-Fordism by distinguishing economies of scale in mass production, rising incomes linked to productivity, increased
four levels on which they can be analyzed. It also notes a fundamental analytical mass demand due to rising wages, increased profits based on full utilization of capacity,
asymmetry between the two terms and calls for more cautious and critical use of the increased investment in improved mass production equipment and techniques, and a
notion of post-Fordism. further rise in productivity. The apparent harmony among the steps in this virtuous circle
does not guarantee its realization. Thus some analysts note the role of various margins of
flexibility3 and/or “built-in stabilizers” that help to keep the circle virtuous despite the
inevitable tendencies towards instabilities and disproportions (e.g., Boyer and Coriat
1986). Others note that these virtues themselves require at least two key proportionalities
The concept of Fordism was popularized in the USA by Henry Ford himself and was to be met. These are that:
already part of social scientific and popular consciousness in North America and Europe
in the 1920s. Even then it had different nuances and these have since become disturbingly 1 increased productivity in Department I (the capital goods sector) offsets the rising
diverse. We can introduce some order into this confusion by distinguishing four levels of technical composition of capital4 if the capital/output ratio is not to increase and
Fordism: the labor process, the regime of accumulation, and its modes of regulation and thereby depress profits; and
societalization. 2 the growth rates in wage earner consumption and in productivity in Department II (the
consumer goods sector) move in a similar range—countering tendencies toward a
crisis of underconsumption due to insufficient demand and toward a wage-induced
profits squeeze (e.g. Lipietz 1982, 1985).
As a distinct type of capitalist labor process, Fordism refers to a particular configuration Not every firm or branch of production must be dominated by Fordist techniques for this
of the technical and social division of labor involved in making long runs of standardized mode of growth to occur as long as the leading sectors are Fordist. Indeed, if mass
goods. Fordist “mass production” is typically based on a technical division of labor which
Copyright © 1992. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved.

production is to find a mass market, there must be matching growth in output of other
is organized along Taylorist lines, subject in its immediate production phase to types of goods (such as steel, oil, roads, family housing, and electricity) and services
mechanical pacing by moving assembly line techniques, and organized overall on the (such as retailing, consumer credit, and the servicing of consumer durables). Thus some
supply-driven principle that production must be unbroken and in long runs to secure authors note the dominance of an “auto-industrial complex” under Fordism to highlight
economies of scale. The assembly line itself mainly exploits the semiskilled labor of the how other production sectors complement mass production in the vehicle sector (cf.
“mass worker” but other types of worker (craft or unskilled manual workers, foremen, Perez 1983:369). Even with such refinements, however, work on the Fordist
engineers, designers, etc.) are employed elsewhere. In addition Fordism ideally involves accumulation regime is firmly rooted in economic analysis. To consider its institutional
systematic control by the same firm of all stages of accumulation from producing raw and organizational supports we move to a third analytic level.
materials through to marketing (cf. Siegel 1988:5). This complex technical division of
labor is sometimes related to a complex regional division within or across national
economic spaces: in late Fordism, for example, one might find “engineering and
conception in region I, skilled production in region II, unskilled production in region Fordism can also be examined as a mode of regulation, i.e., as an ensemble of norms,
Pathways to Industrialization and Regional Development, edited by Allen J. Scott, and Michael Storper, Taylor & Francis Group, Pathways to Industrialization and Regional Development, edited by Allen J. Scott, and Michael Storper, Taylor & Francis Group,
1992. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bibliouc3m-ebooks/detail.action?docID=7244818. 1992. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bibliouc3m-ebooks/detail.action?docID=7244818.
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Pathways to industrialization and regional development 44 Fordism and post-fordism 45
institutions, organizational forms, social networks, and patterns of conduct which sustain households’ ability to purchase housing and major consumer durables and thus sustain
and “guide” the Fordist accumulation regime and promote compatibility among the demand; and state credit policies are targeted on aggregate demand and full
decentralized decisions of economic agents despite the conflictual character of capitalist employment.
social relations (cf. Lipietz 1985:121). Fordism can be specified through the forms ● Commercial capital has a key role in establishing the links between mass producers and
assumed by different moments in the circuit of capital, the ways in which these forms get mass demand via mass advertising, mass retailing (multi-branch retailing,
reproduced, and their articulation with each other. Thus one could explore the distinctive supermarkets, mail order), mass credit (installment-plan transactions, mortgage
features of the Fordist wage relation (the skill profile of the collective laborer, the finance), consumer research, etc. The mass media have acquired a crucial role in
organization of labor markets and wage-effort bargaining, the nature of the wage form, diffusing mass consumption norms (Beniger 1986). Marketing needs also feed back
and the balance between the private and collective reproduction of labor power); the into design (even at the expense of strict pursuit of the logic of mechanized mass
Fordist enterprise (its internal organization, the source of profits of enterprise, forms of production) to encourage marginal product differentiation, annual style changes, etc.
competition, other ties among enterprises, links to banking capital); the nature of money Thus design becomes a key factor in linking mass production and mass consumption
(its dominant form and its emission, the banking and credit system, the allocation of (Sparke 1986:xxi).
money capital to production); the nature of commercial capital (especially in mass ● The Fordist state is a Keynesian welfare state which has two key functions in
consumption and distribution); and the links between the circuit of capital and the state promoting the virtuous circle of Fordism. It manages aggregate demand so that the
(the forms of state intervention in different moments of the circuit of capital). This third relatively rigid, capital-intensive investments of Fordist firms are worked close to
level of analysis entails a mesoeconomic, institutionally focused analysis of the circuit of capacity and firms have enough confidence to undertake the extended and expensive
capital. It gives a middle-range link between the labor process and the basic features of R&D as well as the subsequent heavy capital investment involved in complex mass
macroeconomic reproduction and must be carefully defined for each moment in Fordism: production;6 and it generalizes mass consumption norms so that most citizens can
share in the prosperity generated by rising economies of scale. Where the latter
● The wage relation is organized around the key role of semiskilled labor in large plants
function involves only limited state provision for collective consumption, the state
or concerns;5 management recognizes unions for collective bargaining, unions in turn must ensure adequate levels of demand through the transfer of incomes. More intense
concede management’s right to control the labor process and corporate strategy; wages
intervention is likely both as Fordism rises to dominance and during its declining
are indexed to productivity growth and prices and are downwardly sticky despite
years.
fluctuations in demand for labor; collective bargaining and/or minimum wage
legislation spread rising wages to employees in non-Fordist sectors and thereby Analysis of the mode of regulation is concerned with the economy in its integral sense,
maintain relativities and demand; and indexed welfare benefits financed from i.e., the social context in which expanded economic reproduction occurs.7 It specifies the
progressive taxation generalize mass consumption norms to the economically inactive. institutional and organizational conditions which secure Fordism as a national
Even in a largely autocentric Fordist regime this pattern is compatible with dual labor accumulation regime and is especially helpful in defining the peculiarities of different
markets and/or non-unionized firms or sectors—as long as there is adequate overall Fordist regimes. But it should not be divorced from work on the more general dynamics
social demand for mass-produced goods. of capitalism. For the latter defines the basic tendencies and counter-tendencies, structural
● The ideal-typical Fordist enterprise is a large concern in which ownership and control contradictions, strategic dilemmas, and overall constraints which inevitably shape modes
are separated. It has a distinctive multidivisional, decentralized, market-oriented of regulation, which find a provisional, partial, and unstable resolution in the latter, and
organization overseen by a central board which engages in long-range planning. This whose continued presence and even development eventually undermine any given
pattern was pioneered at General Motors and became the norm for other large US institutional and organizational solutions. In short, while this level is distinct from

industrial firms in the 1920s and 1930s. Elsewhere mass production was often coupled Fordism as an accumulation regime, it cannot be properly understood without considering
with trusts and cartels. The main source of profits of enterprise in Fordism is relative how modes of regulation modify and yet remain subject to the generic laws of capital
surplus-value based on continual improvements in productivity and economies of accumulation.
scale. Those firms at the forefront of Fordist process and product innovation can also
earn “technological rents.” In both cases the main form of capitalist competition is
monopolistic rather than liberal. Rather than participating in a flexi-price system in
which prices vary with demand, firms engage in cost-plus pricing, price leadership Other analysts approach Fordism in terms of its overall social impact. They go beyond its
behavior, and competition through advertising. microeconomic base, its meso-level institutional preconditions, and its macroeconomic
● Money is fiduciary and national in character rather than an international commodity effects to explore its general repercussions on other institutional orders (such as the
money; private credit is supplied by a hierarchically organized banking system political system or cultural life) and/or other axes of societal organization (such as its
overseen by a central bank; corporate expansion depends on access to private credit as spatial patterning). Such concerns involve not only the direct impact of Fordism but also
well as reinvestment of profits of enterprise; consumer credit is a major factor in its indirect effects. Among the latter one could explore measures adopted to deal, for
example, with its adverse effects on social cohesion and institutional integration. The Harvey 1989). There was also a Fordist “politics of place” centered on “a consumerist
recursive pursuit of these effects and their further repercussions has no inherent limits. representation of urban life as manifest in ideals about the nuclear family, suburban
Thus one could study the impact of growing social welfare expenditures on the labor residence, and private car ownership” (Storper and Scott 1988:30).
process and employment, the structure of demand, the dynamic of central-local Somewhat further removed from its economic logic are the specific forms of political
government relations, or the rise of social movements oriented to welfare issues. With life associated with Fordism. State intervention was reorganized to facilitate the Fordist
these direct and indirect effects we reach the fourth level of analysis. mode of regulation through economic and social programming and increased
Considered as a generic mode of “societalization,” i.e. pattern of institutional administrative discretion as well as an expanding role for the local state in collective
integration and social cohesion, Fordism moves social relations further towards a mass consumption and social welfare. Forms of representation and the social bases of the state
société salariale in which the vast majority of the population depend on an individual were also modified. Thus trade unions and business associations had a key role in
and/or social wage to satisfy their needs from cradle to grave (Aglietta and Brender economic management and political bargaining over social welfare; and, as the parties of
1984). This contrasts with the pre-Fordist period, when workers were involved in government accepted the Fordist compromise between capital and labor, they tended to
capitalism primarily as producers and met their consumption needs mainly from petty become “catch-all,” people’s parties. In northwest Europe this pattern was closely linked
commodity and/or subsistence channels. Fordism itself promotes two complementary to the dominance of social democratic or labor parties but similar policies were pursued
trends in consumption: first, growing private consumption of standardized, mass- elsewhere by regimes with more conservative governing parties (cf. Hirsch and Roth
produced commodities in nuclear family households and, second, provision of 1986; Roobeek 1987).
standardized, collective goods and services by a bureaucratic state. The first trend is tied So far we have not questioned the common assumption that the Fordist accumulation
to the strategic marketing of “ideological commodities” (such as cars, televisions, regime, whether or not it is autochthonous, is at least essentially autocentric in character.
washing machines, refrigerators, or mass tourism) whose individualized consumption But small, open economies (such as Denmark, Sweden, Austria, or Canada) actually
becomes a mechanism of permanent self-normalization as consumers adopt the moved towards a mass consumption society after 1945 by occupying growing non-
“American way of life” (Haug 1986; Luescher 1986; Wolf 1987). The second trend Fordist niches in an emerging supranational productive system. In short, under global
reflects the growing socialization of the social reproduction of labor power as well as Fordism not all economies had to be Fordist in all respects. Rather, in a global division of
efforts to manage the individual and social costs of the Fordist model (cf. Jessop 1986). labor whose dynamic was mainly determined by the leading Fordist sectors in the leading
Thus, in addition to the state’s role in such activities as general education and economies, economic success could occur in at least two ways. First, national economies
vocational training, unemployment and retirement insurance, health care, or housing could themselves assume a mainly Fordist dynamic, with growth being largely based on
provision, it often deals with such side effects of Fordism (or Fordist forms of an expanding home market; or, second, they could occupy one or more niches which
modernization) as drastic falls in the rural population, destruction of traditional working allowed them to enjoy rising standards of mass consumption based on growing export
class milieux, the privatization of family life, the depopulation of inner cities, or the demand and profits in non-Fordist sectors (small batch capital goods, luxury consumer
environmental and social impact of the automobile. One major effect of Fordism here goods, agricultural goods, shipping or financial services, and/or raw materials). Where an
was to expand the local state as the vehicle for socializing consumption, coping with the economy is not itself primarily Fordist, however, its mode of growth must complement
side effects of the Fordist mode of growth, and managing its local crises-regardless of the dominant Fordist logic. In this way it can still be involved in the Fordist growth
whether local accumulation itself was mainly Fordist or not. Closely related to this was dynamic rather than being (increasingly) excluded from it.
the growth of the new middle classes (including state employees) who serve Fordist
expansion and/or deal with some of its social repercussions. In turn this growth prompted

crisis to the extent that such services were less amenable to productivity boosting Fordist
techniques.
Another dimension of societalization is its spatial patterning. Fordism involved the Besides these different levels of Fordism we can distinguish their structural and strategic
growth of core industrial regions comprising large metropolitan areas surrounded by moments. The former refer to the actual organization of the level in question, the latter to
networks of smaller industrial cities. These regions were dominated by the leading the strategic perspectives and discourses which are currently dominant on that level.
Fordist firms and their suppliers; drew in raw materials and, on a growing scale, migrant Structure is the legacy of a complex historical process and often embodies major
or foreign labor, from the rest of the world; and churned out mass-produced goods for structural contradictions, strategy could well be short-term or ephemeral and involve
global markets (Harvey 1989:132; Storper and Scott 1988:10). As the Fordist regime irrational means and objectives. Indeed, structures rarely have a simple, unequivocal
developed, firms allocated activities, sourced supplies, and sought markets on an relation to a single strategy and they often prove recalcitrant in the short term to attempts
increasingly global scale. Urban life also assumed Fordist characteristics. This can be to recompose them. Conversely, even when strategies are long—term and organic in
seen in suburbanization (especially in the USA) and/or high-density urban renewal based character, they may not yet have been institutionally embedded in structures nor have
on industrial construction techniques, especially in Europe (Florida and Feldman 1987; constituted new “worlds of work” in practical consciousness.8 New conceptions of work
usually emerge ahead of their time and become hegemonic and embedded in common- sectors without itself being Fordist. Its utility would be confirmed where a failure to
sense practices only through complex historical practices. The same holds for adopt Fordist techniques is linked to manufacturing decline in open competition. Britain’s
accumulation regimes and modes of regulation. In addition, of course, many strategies combination of “flawed Fordism” and continuing economic decline would seem to fit the
are “irrational, arbitrary, and willed” and so will sooner or later fail if they remain Fordist model. So does Germany’s ability to translate a strong capital goods sector and
unmodified (for good illustrative studies of these points, see Elam and Borjeson 1989; high value-added consumer durable sectors into continuing export success. But Japan
Jenson 1990; Kristensen 1990; and Williams, Haslam, Wardlow, and Williams 1986). poses problems. Indeed Sayer has claimed that “while Japan has forms of organization
This suggests that we must establish whether the Fordist era really involved the not unlike those described as ‘flexible specialization’, it also has other characteristics
predominance of Fordist structures. Or was it just marked by the hegemony or dominance which cannot usefully be subsumed under western versions of fordism or
of Fordist strategies which lent coherence and direction to what would otherwise have postfordism” (Sayer 1989:667).
remained rather inchoate and disconnected economic, political, and social changes? It is The limited spread of Fordism also reflects certain social limits making it impractical
essential but hard to disentangle Fordist myth from Fordist reality. or unacceptable even where it is applicable. For existing labor market institutions and
It is indeed problematic that Fordist concepts were often hegemonic even when social traditions could well prevent or block penetration of Fordism even for that
national economies were less often clearly Fordist in their organization and dynamic. The “classic” Fordist sector—cars. Several recent studies demonstrate how Fordist mass
history of many national economies both before and after World War II could well be production has been blocked here by such factors as skill structure, managerial capacities,
written in terms of successive attempts to impose Fordist principles on non-Fordist market size, labor market conditions, and union organization (e.g., Tolliday and Zeitlin
economies. This led to some interesting hybrid economies which have placed national 1987).
economies in very different positions to exploit post-Fordist opportunities. The vitality of We might also ask whether studies of the Fordist labor process have been too
the “Third Italy” is often cited here—although both its reality and relevance are often concerned with manufacturing or, indeed, in this sector, with mass consumer durables
contested too. There are also many more general questions about the heuristic value of generally or even cars and trucks alone.11 For this diverts attention from the growth
the whole debate about Fordism and post-Fordism. Indeed, as the ensuing remarks might generated since 1945 by other sectors (such as aerospace, petrochemicals, or synthetic
suggest, there is a risk of getting bogged down in mainly taxonomic discussion.9 Whereas materials) and biases studies of mass production itself towards some, possibly atypical,
this might help in clarifying some of the issues at stake in disputes over Fordism, it does manufacturing sectors. A less restrictive definition of Fordist mass production helps us
not as such advance our understanding of the dynamics of postwar growth, the origins or find it elsewhere. Defined as the production of standardized goods or services through a
nature of the crises which emerged in the mid—to late 1960s, or the way out of the crisis. Taylorized technical division of labor, the use of dedicated machinery, and a focus on
For this we must move beyond taxonomy to consider the causal mechanisms and economies of scale,12 forexample, Fordism occurs in sectors ranging from battery
connections implied in different approaches to Fordism. farming to tax collection, mass retailing to mass incineration, multiple choice testing for
the mind to mass screening for the body, fast food to mass transit (on US agriculture, see
Kenney et al. 1988; on agriculture in general, Kamppeter 1986; on office work, Beniger
10 1986:432f).
Regarded as a labor process, then, Fordism can be variously defined.
Descriptively this does no harm as long as each definition is relatively precise and
different definitions are clearly distinguished.13 But problems occur in causal explanation
Fordism à la Henry Ford was actually quite limited in diffusion and was never fully because more inclusive definitions entail different chains of argument and/or causation

realized even in Ford’s own plants in North America—let alone those in Europe. Indeed from less inclusive definitions. Here too clarity is essential. For each definition, given
two common criticisms are that only a small part of manufacturing output is produced in certain assumptions about the capital-labor relation and forms of capitalist competition,
Fordist conditions and only a small proportion of the labor force is employed in Fordist one could generate arguments about the dynamics of class conflict in the enterprise
manufacturing. Both charges hold even for the supposed golden years of Fordism. In part and/or the course of capital accumulation. We also need a more complex set of
this reflects basic technical limits of assembly line techniques for automated and distinctions which does not residualize all but a small subset of labor process relations.
continuous-flow processes, jobbing or small batch production, or even potentially high Even the dichotomy between “flexible specialization” and “mass production” with its two
volume goods whose composition and level of demand are too varied to justify using positive terms is not much better. A multi-valued typology would generate rich
product-specific techniques. This means the potential for Fordism depends on the weight descriptions and explanations.
of specific sectors and the nature of their products. Thus, before judging the utility of
“Fordism” for understanding the labor process in a given economy, we should examine
both its industrial profile and its competitive performance. Its explanatory force would be
cast in doubt where an economy managed to compete successfully in supposedly Fordist To put the historical cart before the conceptual horse, we can ask whether there was ever
a Fordist regime of accumulation and how one might identify it? Emphasizing the potentially self-reinforcing effects of rapid growth in productivity and output) has been
virtuous circle of mass production and mass consumption in an autocentric national repackaged and sold (in some cases misleadingly) as Fordism.15 If this type of
economy means that few national economies could be described as Fordist. Only the explanation holds, the key to growth in mass consumption would be rising mass incomes
American economy had the continental scope and range of resources to be virtually self- from rapid economic expansion rather than mass production as such. In turn this would
sufficient and develop something like a true Fordist accumulation regime. In these terms direct attention to the general conditions of postwar economic growth. Perhaps Fordism
it might be better to argue that Fordism occurs mainly on a local or regional scale in the could then be brought back as an accumulation strategy or organizing myth giving shape
form of Fordist industrial districts or else panregionally or supranationally in the form of and coherence to economic growth. But this would be to emphasize strategic issues rather
Fordist circuits of capital.14 Fordist regional economies, pockets of flexible than merely describe the actual growth dynamic. The origin and spread of Fordist ideas,
specialization, and other local regimes can all be found inside national boundaries. This projects, and strategies would still be important fields of enquiry but should not be
poses problems about their role in the national mode of growth and their insertion into the mistaken for actual modes of growth in different postwar economies. Equally important
dominant mode of regulation. A further complication arises because advanced capitalist would be studies of the real driving forces behind growth—contrasting the roles of
economies were significantly involved in foreign trade from the formation of Fordism military spending,16 Keynesian welfare spending, and so forth.
through its heyday into its declining years. This holds above all for small, open A longer historical perspective is valuable here, as it shows the experimental,
economies. Thus, whatever the virtues of an ideal-typical, autocentric Fordist regime, accidental development of the dominant Fordist paradigm. For, if Fordism’s history is
ideal and reality were often far apart. limited to the domestic consolidation of Americanism and its diffusion, one ignores
The idea of a Fordist accumulation regime could be rescued if one agreed that its attempts to develop alternative models of Fordism in the interwar period. Taylorist and
virtuous circle need not actually occur through a close coupling of mass production and Fordist paradigms were significant in the Soviet Union, for example; and, voiced in
mass consumption within national economies but could be secured instead where a various productivist, technocratic, and futurist projects, they also enjoyed wide cultural
national economy has the following features. Its dynamism would be based on intensive and political appeal in Western Europe—especially “where representative government
accumulation in one or more leading sectors, rising productivity due to economies of was deemed to be working badly” (Maier 1970:29). Nazism and Fascism gave Taylorism
scale and/or other sources of relative surplus value, rising wages indexed to rising and Fordism a distinctive political gloss. They proposed state-sponsored “rationalization”
productivity and profitability, a corresponding growth in mass consumption, rapid of all economic and social life as a prelude to winning mass markets elsewhere through
domestic expansion in the production of mass consumer goods and/or the various bilateral trading agreements and/or force of arms.17 As a resource-rich, continent-wide,
complementary goods and services needed to enjoy them, and, to close the circuit, and still expanding economy, the US could plausibly adopt an isolationist stance and aim
sufficient export earnings to finance the import of mass consumer goods and other inputs for autocentric growth: German and Italian policymakers felt their economies had to look
needed to keep the virtuous circle in operation. Thus a given national economy need not abroad to secure the potential of Fordist rationalization (cf. Siegel 1988). European
itself produce complex mass consumer durables as long as it generates enough export fascination with Americanism and Fordism was undermined by the Great Depression,
earnings to finance their importation and has a mode of regulation which generalizes both however, reviving only after Allied victory in its turn undermined faith in block policies
mass consumption norms and effective demand. Even so the overall economic dynamic such as the Nazi Grossraumwirtschaft or Japan’s “Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.” This
would differ from that in other regime types: for example, from those based on extensive helped the US to hegemonize postwar reconstruction and assert the virtues of Fordism
accumulation and competitive regulation or intensive accumulation without mass and the American way of life. In promoting its own model of Fordism the US was
consumption. For mass consumption would still require a supporting infrastructure and advantaged, of course, by its economic and military dominance. This enabled it to
complementary service sectors and this would modify occupational and sectoral patterns. influence institutional reform in West Germany and Japan and establish international

Treating Fordist accumulation regimes in this way involves some complex theoretical regimes which encouraged Fordist accumulation—most notably through installing an
maneuvers with somewhat ambivalent implications for the utility of Fordism as a international oil regime which secured increasingly cheap and plentiful supplies of an
concept. Positively it eschews analyzing national or regional economies in isolation and energy resource essential to Fordist expansion (Bromley 1990). Thus, even accepting that
brings into focus the complementarities among different national accumulation regimes. early postwar growth regime was mainly autocentric, various favorable international
It bans assuming that Fordism emerged through the simple diffusion of the US model and conditions were needed for this domestic takeoff to occur.
requires closer attention to its different modes of regulation. It also highlights the need to
examine how international regimes (or modes of international regulation) served to block
further exploitation of dependent peripheries and encourage trade among the metropolitan
economies. Negatively we are led to ask whether work on Fordism involves anything The key problem here is the wide variation in the modes of regulation compatible with
more than putting old growth models into a new terminological bottle. Sometimes it Fordism considered as an accumulation regime. Metro-politan Fordism has occurred with
seems that a Kaldor-Verdoorn type of explanation (stressing the virtuous effects of a shift the most varied labor market institutions. The mass Fordist worker and the mass union
from low-productivity agriculture to high-productivity manufacturing and/or the were not always the pivotal forces in industrial relations and collective bargaining. The
M-form (or Sloanist divisional company) mostly took root in Europe in the late 1960s post-Fordism is the demise of the Fordist assembly line (or even mass production as a
rather than in the take off to Fordism (Franko 1974); and Japanese company forms are far whole) or the penetration of microelectronics into an ever-growing range of economic
from Sloanist (Sayer 1989). Many European economies as well as Japan have retained a activities (including mass production). Without satisfactory answers to such questions,
sizable and politically significant petty bourgeoisie in the commercial sector long after a discussions about Fordism and post-Fordism have little point.
Fordist model would have seen a shift to mass retailing. Conversely mass consumption Nor can satisfactory answers be found in the genesis of individual elements of Fordism
emerged in the late nineteenth century in both Britain and the United States (Beniger (however this is defined) but only in discontinuities in their overall articulation. Thus we
1986; Tedlow 1990). In addition metropolitan Fordism is associated with liberal, should try to identify new configurations which have acquired a distinctive and emergent
corporatist, and dirigiste forms of political regime. Keynesian demand management dynamic as a result of this articulation. At least two problems arise here. Firstly a great
developed rather late in most countries and was applied rather ineffectively in almost all deal of effort must go into tracing the long gestation of a rather short-lived
economies. Likewise the timing and pattern of welfare state developments assumed very phenomenon—since Fordism’s heyday did not even cover the full thirty-year postwar
different forms across all the advanced capitalist economies. boom.18 Secondly, the takeoff into Fordist growth seems to depend on a long series of
Thus, rather than insist on one particular institutional configuration as comprising the chance events with the end of World War II providing only a convenient but stereotypical
Fordist mode of regulation, we should search for family resemblances. Some common reference point for later periodizations.
patterns can be discerned: a linkage between wages and productivity; the spread of My own conclusion is that any serious discussion of Fordism as a distinct phase in
collective bargaining; monopolistic competition; the growing role of state credit in capitalist expansion must proceed from a focus on the mode of regulation. Analyses of
investment and consumption; state involvement in generalizing mass consumption norms the labor process are too limited-especially since there are real problems in assessing the
to significant groups—peasants in Japan, farmers in Europe and the USA, the growing significance of the Fordist labor process in its strict meaning. Emphasizing the Fordist
army of state employees, and welfare recipients. There was also a growing strategic regime of accumulation is undermined by the problematic character of the claims about
concern with economies of scale, productivity, planning, “growthmanship,” etc., which autocentrism and the virtuous circle of balanced growth generated by mass production
affected social and political life as well as forms of economic activity. and mass consumption. But stressing societalization, i.e., the ramifications and
repercussions of Fordism on the pattern of institutional integration and social cohesion,
assumes the unassumable-that we already agree how to define Fordism. By a process of
elimination we must either define it in terms of a specific mode of regulation or else
The Fordist mode of regulation, if such there is or was, has proved so varied that its reject Fordism as a useless concept. Many critics would welcome the second alternative
consequences for societalization also vary massively. Moreover, since the starting points but a reasonable case can be made for the first. Thus I recommend that Fordism be
for Fordist expansion differed and sociopolitical and institutional structures are hard to defined in terms of a core mode of regulation whose minimum features comprise:
transfer across societies, we can find quite different “national Fordisms.” But it is often
unclear how far these differences are due to a generic Fordist logic working in different a) a wage relation in which wages are indexed to productivity growth and inflation,
circumstances or to preexisting structural differences fundamentally modifying the b) the state has a key role in managing demand, and
generic logic to produce different modes of growth. Thus we turn to another issue, c) state policies help to generalize mass consumption norms.
namely, periodization. Working with this basic definition we can examine the economic preconditions of the
Fordist mode of regulation in specific modes of growth (or national accumulation
regimes and their insertion into the world economy) and forms of organization of the

labor process; we can examine the crisis of Fordism in terms of changes in the circuit of
Since each of the elements in Fordism has its own prehistory and many elements will capital and/or the modalities of class struggle which help undermine the effectiveness of
survive beyond the Fordist epoch, crucial questions arise about the exact timing of this the Fordist mode of regulation as well as in terms of the distinctive, sui generis dynamic
epoch. If there is no discontinuity or rupture as the labor process, accumulation regimes, of this mode of regulation itself; we can examine the attempts to maintain this mode of
modes of regulation, or social structures of accumulation evolve, are we justified in regulation in the face of its crises and their eventual failure; and we can examine its
talking about a Fordist epoch? Even if we concede that mass production makes a broader preconditions and effects in the organization of state, economy, and civil society.
difference, it might not be the key innovation in explaining postwar growth. Research on In each case we must be sensitive to national variations among different modes of growth
long waves reveals that more periods of economic expansion have occurred than is and regulation as well as to the changing pattern of complementarities and tensions
implied in the simple contrast between pre-Fordist and Fordist regimes. It also suggests among them.
that postwar growth was based as much on abundant cheap energy, petrochemicals,
synthetic materials, other process industries, and aircraft as on mass production of
consumer durables. Likewise, we could ask whether the crucial divide in the transition to

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Fordism and post-fordism 43

Copyright © 1992. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 1992. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 1992. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 1992. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 1992. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 1992. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved.

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