The View from Below

Accounts of the recent development of the world economy are generally in agreement that a turning point occurred at the end of the 1960s/early 1970s which marked the end of the long boom that followed the Second World War. Brenner for example argues that a long downturn ensued from falling profitability which stemmed from competition between the major capitalist powers of the United States, Germany and Japan as the products of the latter two began to penetrate the American market, this leading to a lowering of margins and, by virtue of lower profitability, a decline in investment (Brenner 1998). This process affected advanced capitalist economies differently but it was generally the case that a heightened concern about profitability, allied to the opportunity afforded by the weakening of labour through increased unemployment, brought about increased interest in the ways in which labour could be managed. More or less coincident with this, there arose in the 1970s a concern among manufacturers about the rise of Japan, and most especially about the Japanese car industry, a concern variously expressed by social scientists in writings about ‘Japanisation’ and ‘Toyotaism’.