Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
nineteenth century, constantly encouraged bigger firms and units for capitalist
production, replacing an older organization of workshop industries in industrial
districts. Big firms and factories spawned big labour, in the form of trade unions
seeking to improve their members' conditions of work. Over time, the conflict
between labour and capital grew over the structure of production, the allocation
of jobs, the rights of workers and their pay. This became more insistent as the
actual jobs became less meaningful, with less skilled work and less responsibility
for the individual workers. Crises were thus produced partly by labour. They
were also produced by capital, which tended to produce ever-larger quantities of
standardized goods, and was unable to reduce or to change materially the kind of
production. This led to crises of overproduction when tastes moved away or were
reduced. Piore & Sabel saw a way out of this problem, not in the Marxist radical
solution of revolution to overturn capitalism altogether, but through the
adaptation of the older nineteenth century organization of production, under
principles of flexible specialization. In this older system, industrial districts were
made up of many firms in the same general sector of industry, such as textiles or
light engineering. Each firm had a degree of specialization, but used simple
machinery to turn out batches, and was able to be converted to a different product
at relatively short notice. Further flexibility in such a system was endowed by
moving the work amongst the different specialist firms. In textiles, for example,
a different kind of dye process was needed when the material was changed from
heavy to light grade wool. This could be met by using a different firm
specializing in the process. If a normal run of business was disrupted by a sudden
demand for a large quantity, flexibility in cooperation allowed the contracting
firm to share the order with several firms in the same business, or to subcontract
some of the business to outside firms. External economies were also available in
the industrial district, which might have specialist colleges offering relevant
courses to train workers, and offices to act as an employment exchange.
The social context
Industrial districts were also normally characterized by a degree of social support
to the economic system, with a variety of organizations which could help firms
to keep in contact with each other, such as trade organizations and chambers of
commerce; or employee organizations, providing insurance and help to the
unemployed, or finding job opportunities. Beyond the direct organizations of
business, a broader measure of support might be available through organizations
such as the Catholic Church, cited in the case of the Italian examples of flexible
specialization. Another source of social support is the great urban municipalities,
which in the Italian cities, and elsewhere in Europe, made special efforts to
support their chief industries, providing them with a high level of physical
infrastructure, but also going beyond this to support, for example, colleges to
train young entrants to the industry, or exhibition centres to display the
products.
