Changes from Fordism to post-Fordism[edit]
Post-Fordism brought on new ways of looking at consumption and production. The saturation of key markets brought on a turn against mass consumption and a pursuit of higher living standards.[8] This shift brought a change in how the market was viewed from a production standpoint. Rather than being viewed as a mass market to be served by mass production, the consumers began to be viewed as different groups pursuing different goals who could be better served with small batches of specialized goods.[9] Mass markets became less important while markets for luxury, custom, or positional good became more significant.[10] Production became less homogeneous and standardized and more diverse and differentiated as organizations and economies of scale were replaced with organizations and economies of scope.[11]
The changes in production with the shift from Fordism to post-Fordism were accompanied by changes in the economy, politics, and prominent ideologies. In the economic realm, post-Fordism brought the decline of regulation and production by the nation-state and the rise of global markets and corporations. Mass marketing was replaced by flexible specialization, and organizations began to emphasize communication more than command. The workforce changed with an increase in internal marketing, franchising, and subcontracting and a rise in part-time, temp, self-employed, and home workers. Politically, class-based political parties declined and social movements based on region, gender, or race increased. Mass unions began to vanish and were instead replaced by localized plant-based bargaining. Cultural and ideological changes included the rise in individualist modes of thought and behavior and a culture of entrepreneurialism. Following the shift in production and acknowledging the need for more knowledge-based workers, education became less standardized and more specialized. Prominent ideologies that arose included fragmentation and pluralism in values, post-modern eclecticism, and populist approaches to culture.[12]
Examples[edit]
Italy[edit]
One of the primary examples of specialized post-Fordist production took place in a region known as the Third Italy. The First Italy included the areas of large-scale mass production, such as Turin, Milan, and Genoa, and the Second Italy described the undeveloped South. The Third Italy, however, was where clusters of small firms and workshops developed in the 1970s and 1980s in the central and northeast regions of the country. Regions of the Third Italy included Tuscany, Umbria, Marche, Emilia-Romagna, Veneto, Friuli, and Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. Each region specialized in a range of loosely related products and each workshop usually had five to fifty workers and often less than ten. The range of products in each region reflected the post-Fordist shift to economies of scope. Additionally, these workshops were known for producing high quality products and employing highly skilled, well-paid workers. The workshops were very design-oriented and multidisciplinary, involving collaboration between entrepreneurs, designers, engineers and workers.[13]
Japan[edit]
There were several post-World War II changes in production in Japan that caused post-Fordist conditions to develop. First, there were changes to company structure, including the replacement of independent trade unions with pro-management, company-based unions; the development of a core of permanent male multi-skilled workers; and the development of a periphery of untrained temporary and part-time employees, who were mostly female. Second, after World War II, Japan was somewhat isolated because of import barriers and foreign investment restrictions, and as a result, Japan began to experiment with production techniques. Third, as imported technologies became more available, Japan began to replicate, absorb, and improve them, with many improvements deriving from modifications for local conditions. Fourth, Japan began to concentrate on the need for small-batch production and quick changeover of product lines to serve the demand for a wide range of products in a relatively small market. Because of informal price-fixing, competition was based not on price but rather on product differentiation. As a result, production became less standardized and more specialized, particularly across different companies. Fifth, Japan began to build long-term supply and subcontracting networks, which contrasted with the vertically integrated, Fordist American corporations. Sixth, because small and medium-size manufacturers produced a wide range of products, there was a need for affordable multipurpose equipment as opposed to the specialized, costly production machinery in Fordist industries in the United States. Technology for flexible production was significant in Japan and particularly necessary for smaller producers. The smaller producers also found it necessary to reduce costs. As a result, Japan became one of the main users of robots and CNC.[14] Over time, these six changes in production in Japan were institutionalized.
Criticisms[edit]
The main criticism of post-Fordism asserts that post-Fordism mistakes the nature of the Fordist revolution and that Fordism was not in crisis, but was simply evolving and will continue to evolve.[15] Other critics believe that post-Fordism does exist, but coexists with Fordism. The automobile industry has combined Fordist and post-Fordist strategies,[16] using both mass production and flexible specialization. Ford introduced flexibility into mass production, so that Fordism could continue to evolve. Those who advocate post-Fordism, however, note that criticism that focuses primarily on flexible specialization ignores post-Fordist changes in other areas of life and that flexible specialization cannot be looked at alone when examining post-Fordism. Another criticism is that post-Fordism relies too heavily on the examples of the Third Italy and Japan. Some believe that Japan is neither Fordist nor post-Fordist and that vertical disintegration and mass production go hand in hand.[17] Others argue that the new, smaller firms in Italy did not develop autonomously, but are a product of the vertical disintegration of the large Fordist firms who contracted lower value-added work to smaller enterprises.[18] Other criticisms argue that flexible specialization is not happening on any great scale, and smaller firms have always existed alongside mass production. Another main criticism is that we are too much in the midst to judge whether or not there really is a new system of production.[19]
The term "post-Fordism" is gradually giving way in the literature to a series of alternative terms such as the knowledge economy, cognitive capitalism, the cognitive-cultural economy and so on. This change of vocabulary is also associated with a number of important conceptual shifts (see sections above).