Rethinking Canadian Economic Development: The Political Economy of Canadian Fordism, 1880–1914

Abstract

Introduction Starting in the 1880s, intensive development occurred in the organization of capitalist industry in the United States. A new form of Fordist organization of production developed that “spread outwards from the USA and inspired large-scale production everywhere in the twentieth century.”1 The new form of production involved a range of changes in the organization, scale, and management of industrial production. New state structures also developed to regulate and coordinate the new form of capital.2 The crucial period of change was between the 1880s and the First World War. As noted by Chandler in relation to the new forms of managerial organization that were integral to Fordist production, “By the time the United States entered World War I, the revolutionary transformation of American industry that had taken off in the 1880s had stabilized.”3