Fordist vs. Post-Fordist Production: A Comparative Analysis
Fordist Production
In the early twentieth century, engineering industries, especially automotive, protruded in the core countries. These industries reached an important development from a production model called “Fordist”. The Model T was so successful that the decision was made to increase production. This ideology is a system to produce more cars in less time. The assembly line or production line was implemented, where workers assembled pieces that were carried on a moving tape, hence the name “Fordism” to describe this production model. In Fordism, the work of the workers was narrowed to a specific task that they developed almost mechanically. The manufactures worked with a lot of skilled workers. The size of industrial plants was large, and these tended to be located in concentrated industrial areas. Economic expansion was also based on mass consumption. They kept good salaries, but working conditions were not always as expected, as unions were organized by industry to achieve some improvements. This model is usually classified as rigid, as the characteristics of production, labor, and consumption were fixed and did not offer major changes in the medium term. During this stage of the capitalist system, the basic raw material was oil and its derivatives. The international financial crisis of 1929-1930 marked a turning point in the dynamics of the capitalist system, generating a brake on economic growth and unemployment. After the Second World War (1939-1945), the economies of the most important countries experienced growth. But in the late 1970s, production slowed, unemployment increased, and productivity and profitability declined. The oil consumed in developed countries is produced basically in oil-producing countries of the Persian Gulf. In 1973, OPEC decided to increase the price drastically in the context of a political conflict between Egypt and Israel.
Post-Fordist Production
Since the oil crisis of 1973, developed countries started to think about business strategies and technologies that became less dependent on that resource. Other factors complicating the operation of Fordism were the saturation of domestic markets, technological stock depletion, excessive public spending, reduced consumption, increased external debt, rising taxes, and the beginning of the fall of wages. Only in the first half of the eighties did important technological innovations arise in the U.S., Japan, and the EU. Among them, microelectronics, biotechnology, robots, and new materials such as polymers, optical fibers, silicon, etc. In this new phase, the key factor is information. The world of chips enters the scene. Increasing technological innovations were occupying the role of oil and traditional industries. It is a movement, not an elimination, of running at a less dynamic economy. The basic inputs of this new phase are science and technology. The divide between rich and poor countries is accentuated to the extent that technological progress occurs precisely in the former. Under these conditions, machines are said to have more and more physical and intellectual capabilities. This is why the use of new technologies causes major changes in work and in qualifying the workforce, as well as in the territorial organization of production.