Post-Fordism

Post-Fordism is the dominant system of economic production, consumption and associated socio-economic phenomena, in most industrialized countries since the late 20th century. It is contrasted with Fordism, the system formulated in Henry Ford's automotive factories, in which workers work on a production line, performing specialized tasks repetitively. Definitions of the nature and scope of post-Fordism vary considerably and are a matter of debate among scholars.

Post-Fordism is characterized by the following attributes:

Post-Fordism can be applied in a wider context to describe a whole system of modern social processes. Because post-Fordism describes the world as it is today, various thinkers have different views of its form and implications. As the theory continues to evolve, it is commonly divided into three schools of thought: the Regulation School, Flexible Specialization, and Neo-Schumpeterianism.

The Regulation approach (also called the neo-Marxist or French Regulation School), was designed to address the paradox of how capitalism has both a tendency towards crisis, change and instability as well as an ability to stabilize institutions, rules and norms. The theory is based on two key concepts. "Regimes of Accumulation" refer to systems of production and consumption, such as Fordism and post-Fordism. "Modes of Regulation" refer to the written and unwritten laws of society which control the Regime of Accumulation and determine its form.

According to Regulation theory, every Regime of Accumulation will reach a crisis point at which the Mode of Regulation will no longer support it, and society will be forced to find new rules and norms, forming a new Mode of Regulation. This will begin a new Regime of Accumulation, which will eventually reach a crisis, and so forth. Proponents of Regulation theory include Michel Aglietta, Robert Boyer, Bob Jessop, and Alain Lipietz.

Proponents of the Flexible Specialization approach (also known as the neo-Smithian approach) to post-Fordism believe that fundamental changes in the international economy, especially in the early 1970s, forced firms to switch from mass production to a new tactic known as Flexible Specialization. Factors such as the oil shocks of 1973, increased competition from foreign markets (especially Southeast Asia) due to globalization, the end of the post-World War II boom, and increasing privatization made the old system of mass-producing identical, cheap goods through division of labor uncompetitive.

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