Driving Productivity

Automation, Labor, and Industrial Development in the United States and Germany
Erscheinungsjahr 2025
ISBN: 978-90-04-73670-2
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 331, 402 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 811 g

Reihe: Studies in Critical Social Sciences

Driving Productivity reconstructs the industrial histories of the American and German automotive industries in a new light. From the Fordist assembly line to Japanese lean production and Industry 4.0, Anthony J. Knowles critically examines major technical developments within the historical dynamics of capitalism. Both countries face the pressure to automate, transform labor, and increase efficiency, yet their responses differ due to divergent paradigms of integrating business, labor, and government. Driving Productivity makes the case that improving productivity is a never-ending process that becomes a compulsory social imperative that industries must respond to but are nevertheless responded to differently between countries.

Autoren/Hrsg.

J Knowles, Anthony

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Volkswirtschaftslehre Allgemein Industrielle Organisation

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Introduction: the Social Dynamics of Productivity, Automation, and Technological Displacement 1 Limits and Dynamics of Socioeconomic Transformation 2 Capital as Value in Motion among Value-Regimes 3 Production under Productivity Pressure 4 Transformations of Production over the Longue Durée

1 Fork in the Road: between Craft and Mass Production in the Early 20th Century 1 The Industrial Revolution and the Prehistory of the Automobile 2 The Automotive Idea and the Genesis of the Auto Industry 3 Earliest Craft Production Systems in the United States and Germany 4 Fordist Mass Production and German ‘Mass-Craft Production’ 5 Growth, Maturation, and Rationalization in the 1920s 6 Evaluating Outcomes of Craft and Mass Production

2 State Guided Rationalization Through Depression and World War 1 The Great Depression and World War Transforms Industry 2 German ‘Modernization’ and Motorization during the Third Reich 3 The Great Depression and Unionization 4 The Arsenal of Democracy vs the Arsenal of Fascism 5 Postwar Reconstruction and Reconfiguration 6 Fordist Transformations between Depression and War

3 Prosperity or Automation Hysteria? Contradictions of Growth, Productivity, and Mechanization in the Postwar Decades 1 Postwar Growth and the Economic Miracle 2 Transfer Machine Automation in the US and Germany 3 The Great Automation Debate 4 Pursuing Competitive Advantage: Combative vs Cooperative Industrial Relations 5 Convergent Automation, Divergent Industrial Relations

4 Productivity Gaps as Competitive Crisis: between Automation, Quality, and Lean Production in the 1970s–1990s 1 Tripartite Competition in a Stagnant Era 2 Lean Production as Japanese Challenge 3 Automation ‘Leapfrog’ and Productivity Strategies in the US 4 The Rise and Fall of the German Quality Production System 5 Productivity Trumps Automation

5 Globalization and the Race for Productivity 1 Productivity Pressure in the Age of Globalization 2 Productivity Convergence and Divergence in the 21st Century 3 Globalization and Opportunities for Growth 4 Electric Vehicles, Industry 4.0, and the Never-Ending Pursuit of Productivity 5 Global Generalization and General Globalization

6 Productivity as Social Imperative—towards a Critical Theory of Automation, Technological Displacement, and Social Domination 1 The Drivers of History 2 Productivity Pressure as Social Domination 3 Communication and the Social Logic of Capital 4 Convergence and Divergence of Productive Systems 5 Mediations and Limitations 6 Political Implications 7 Conclusion

Archival Bibliography

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Anthony J. Knowles, Ph.D. (2023, University of Tennessee-Knoxville), is Teaching Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Tennessee. His research pertains to the social and economic effects of technologies. His most recent publication "The Artificiality of Digital Scarcity" (Fast Capitalism 21(1), 2024) theorizes how online filesharing generates a "crisis of value" for media industries.