The post-Fordist world: labour relations, international hierarchy and global ecology

Abstract

This article was first presented as the RIPE annual lecture at Durham University on 7 November 1995. It seeks to explore the transformation of the capital-labour relation in the aftermath of the postwar crisis of Fordism. It examines how various solutions to this crisis, in the developed world, the newly industrialized world and, latterly, the former socialist bloc, have brought about a radical restructuring of the world's economic hierarchy. One consequence has been the emergence of continental blocs characterized by the heterogeneity of the economic systems within their sphere. The coexistence of countries with differing labour regimes within integrated continental blocs is the primary focus, with each bloc analysed in turn for its particular aspects. This leads to consideration of the possibility of a third international division of labour. The article concludes with an examination of an unexpected consequence of this restructuring, namely the relation between systems of labour-capital relations and attitudes towards global ecological crisis.