FORDISM

POSTFORDISM

THE PRODUCTION PROCESS

Mass production of homogeneous goods

Small batch production

Uniformity and standardization

Flexible and small batch production of a variety of product types: the modular factory

Large buffer stocks and inventory

"Zero inventory" production

Resource driven

Demand driven

Vertical and (in some cases) horizontal integration

(Quasi-) vertical integration subcontracting

Functional spatial specialization (centralization/decentralization)

Spatial clustering and agglomeration

LABOR

Single task performance by worker

Multiple tasks

High degree of job specialization

Elimination of job demarcation

Emphasis on diminishing worker's responsibility

Emphasis on worker's co-responsibility

Primary and secondary labor markets: white-collar and unionized labor vs. everyone else

Flexible labor markets: self-programmable vs. generic labor

THE STATE

Regulation/Keynesianism

Deregulation/Neoliberalism

Rigidity

Flexibility

Collective bargaining

Division/individualization, local or firm-based negotiations

Socialization of welfare (the welfare state)

Privatization of collective needs and social security

Centralization

Decentralization and sharpened interregional/intercity competition

IDEOLOGY

Norms of social solidarity: job security, political entitlement (e.g., welfare)

Norms of free market individualism: "There is no such thing as society" (Thatcher)

Class politics

Identity politics

Mass consumption of consumer durables: the consumption society

Individualized consumption: "yuppie" culture

Modernism Postmodernism

Source: Adapted from David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (1989), and Richard Sennett, The Corrosion of Character (2000).