In the last decade or so it has become clear that significant changes are occurring in the organization of economic activities, work and employment, and living conditions in the advanced capitalist economies, They raise important theoretical questions as to the most appropriate way of interpreting them, Many of the answers that have been offered draw heavily, i one guise or another, upon notions of increased ‘flexibility’, a transition from a Fordist to a flexible regime of accumulation, from Fordist mass-production systems to flexible production systems. In this paper, these theoretical claims are set against the evidence of changes in the ‘old industrial regions' of the capitalist world. Whereas there undoubtedly are some economic activities and localities that can validly be characterized as exhibiting symptoms of flexible production systems or flexible accumulation, the evidence for the old industrial regions does not point to such a conclusion, This raises further important questions as to how to characterize the changes that are currently in progress.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AgliettaM, 1979A Theory of Capitalist Regulation (New Left Books, London)
2.
AgliettaM, 1982, “World capitalism in the Eighties”New Left Review1365–42
3.
AshtonD NMaguireM J, 1987, “Young adults in the labour market”, RP 55, Department of Employment (HMSO, London)
4.
Benwell Community Development Project, 1978, “Slums on the drawing board”Final Report Series Number 485–87Adelaide Terrace, Newcastle on Tyne, NE4 8BB
5.
BeynonDHudsonRLewisJSadlerDTownsendA, 1985, “Middlesbrough: Contradictions in economic and cultural change”Middlesbrough Locality Study WP 1, Department of Geography and Sociology, University of Durham, Durham
6.
BeynonDHudsonRSadlerD, 1986, “The growth and internationalization of Teesside's chemicals industry”, Middlesbrough Locality Study, WP 3, Departments of Geography and Sociology, University of Durham, Durham
7.
BeynonDHudsonRSadlerD, 1987Planning to Close: Nationalization and the Destruction of Jobs in the North (Open University Press, Milton Keynes) forthcoming
8.
BouldingP, 1987Reindustrialization Strategies in Steel Closure Areas: A Comparison of Corby, Ebbw Vale and Hartlepool unpublished PhD thesis, Department of Geography, University of Durham, Durham (forthcoming)
9.
BulmerM, (Ed.), 1978Mining and Social Change (Croom Helm, Beckenham, Kent)
10.
ByrneDParsonD, 1983, “The state and the reserve army: The management of class relations in space”, in Redundant Spaces in Cities and Regions? Eds AndersonJDuncanSHudsonR, (Academic Press, London) pp 127–154
11.
CarneyJHudsonR, 1978, “Capital, politics and ideology: The North East of England, 1870–1946”Antipode1064–78
12.
ClarkG, 1987, “Enhancing competitiveness in the US steel industry—the steelworkers and National Steel's Cooperative partnership”, unpublished manuscript, Center for Labor Studies, School of Urban and Public Affairs, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburg, PA 15213–3890, USA
13.
de VroeyM, 1984, “A regulation interpretation of the contemporary crisis”Capital and Class2345–66
14.
DunfordM FPerronsD, 1986, “The restructuring of the post-war British space economy”, in The Geography of Deindustrialisation Eds RowthorneBMartinR, (Macmillan, London) pp 53–105
15.
Financial Times1987, 5 May, page
16.
FriedmanA, 1977Industry and Labour (Macmillan, London)
17.
FrobelFHeinrichsJKreyeO, 1980The New International Division of Labour (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge)
18.
HarveyDScottA J, 1987, “The nature of human geography: Theory and empirical specificity in the transition from Fordism to flexible accumulation”, paper presented to the Quantitative Methods Study Group of the Institute of British Geographers, 10 April 1987, available from HarveyD, School of Geography, University of Oxford, Oxford
19.
HudsonR, 1980, “Women and work in Washington New Town”, OP (new series) 16, Department of Geography, University of Durham, Durham
20.
HudsonR, 1983, “Capital accumulation and chemicals production in Western Europe in the postwar period”Environment and Planning A15105–122
21.
HudsonR, 1986, “Producing and industrial wasteland: Capital, labour, and the State in North East England”, in Deindustrialization and the British Space Economy Eds MartinR LRowthorneB, (Macmillan, London) pp 169–213
22.
HudsonR, 1987, “Changing spatial divisions of labour in manufacturing and their impacts on localities”, paper presented to the 8th Conference of Nordic Radical Geographers, Elmsta, 24–27 September
23.
HudsonR, 1988aState Policies, Party Politics and Regional Change: A Study of North East England (Pion, London) forthcoming
24.
HudsonR, 1988b, “Producing a divided society: State policies and the management of change in housing and labour markets in a peripheral region”, in Studies in Housing and Labour Market Change Eds AllenJHamnettC, (Hutchinson, London) forthcoming
25.
HudsonRSadlerD, 1985, “The development of Middlesbrough's iron and steel industry, 1841–1985”Middlesbrough Locality Study WP 2, Departments of Geography and Sociology, University of Durham, Durham
26.
HudsonRSadlerD, 1986a, “Contesting works closures in Western Europe's industrial regions: Defending place or betraying class?”, in Production, Work, Territory Eds ScottA JStorperM, (Allen and Unwin, Hemel Hempstead, Herts)
27.
HudsonRSadlerD, 1986bForging a United Engineering and Steels Industry?Sheffield City Council, Sheffield
28.
HudsonRSadlerD, 1986c, “Communities in crisis: The social and political effects of steel closures in France, West Germany, and the United Kingdom”Urban Affairs Quarterly21171–186
29.
InghamG, 1982, “Divisions within the dominant class and ‘British exceptionalism’”, in Social Class and the Division of Labour Eds GiddensAMackenzieG, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge) pp 209–227
30.
Inward (publisher), 1987Labour Performance and Productivity in North West EnglandInward, Duxbury Park, Chorley, Lancs PR7 4AT
31.
KenneyM, 1987, personal communication to R Hudson, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, Ohio State University, 2120 Fyffe Road, Columbus, OH 43210-1099, USA
32.
LäppleDvan HoogstratenP, 1980, “Remarks on the spatial structure of capitalist development: The case of the Netherlands”, in Regions in Crisis Eds CarneyJHudsonRLewisJ, (Croom Helm, Beckenham, Kent) pp 117–166
33.
LipietzA, 1979Crise et Inflation, Pourquoi? L'Accumulation Intensive (Maspéro, Paris)
34.
LipietzA, 1984, “Imperialism or the beast of the apocalypse”Capital and Class2281–110
35.
LipietzA, 1986, “New tendencies in the international division of labour: Regimes of accumulation and modes of regulation”, in Production, Work, Territory Eds ScottA JStorperM, (Allen and Unwin, Hemel Hempstead, Herts)
36.
MandelE, 1975Late Capitalism (New Left Books, London)
37.
MarshF, 1983Japanese Overseas Investment—the New Challenge SR 142 (Economist Intelligence Unit, London)
38.
MorrisL, 1986, “Redundant populations: Deindustrialization in a northeast English town”, in Redundancies, Layoffs and Plant Closures Ed. LeeR M, (Croom Helm, Beckenham, Kent) pp 40–61
39.
NairnT, 1977The Break-up of Britain (New Left Books, London)
40.
OsterlandM, 1986, “Deregulation and erosion of the standard employment pattern: The spread of gray-zone work in the Federal Republic of Germany”, unpublished manuscript available from Zentrale wissenschaftliche Einrichtung Arbeit und Betrieb, Universität Bremen, Postfach 330440, 2800 Bremen 33, FRG
41.
OsterlandM, 1987, “Declining industries plant closing and local markets: A case study of the city of Bremen”, unpublished manuscript available from Zentrale wissenschaftliche Einrichtung Arbeit und Betrieb, Universität Bremen, Postfach 330440, 2800 Bremen 33, FRG
42.
PuglieseE, 1985, “Farm workers in Italy: Agricultural working class, landless peasants or clients of the welfare state?”, in Uneven Development in Southern Europe Eds HudsonRLewisJ, (Methuen, Andover, Hants) pp 123–139
43.
RobinsonJ F FSadlerD, 1984, “Consett after the closure”, occasional publication (new series) number 19, Department of Geography, University of Durham, Durham
44.
RowthorneB, 1983, “The past strikes back”, in The Politics of Thatcherism Eds HallSJacquesM, (Lawrence and Wishart, London) pp 63–78
45.
SengenbergerWLovemanG, 1987Smaller Units of Employment New Industrial Organization Programme, DP3/1987, International Institute for Labour Studies, International Labour Organization, Geneva
46.
Steel News1982, September, page 3
47.
StorperMScottA J, 1988, “The geographical foundations and social regulation of flexible production systems”, in Territory and Social Reproduction Eds DearMWolchJ, (Allen and Unwin, Hemel Hempstead, Herts) forthcoming
48.
TaylorP J, 1979, “‘Difficult to let’, ‘Difficult to live in’, and sometimes 'Difficult to get out of: An essay on the provision of council housing, with special reference to Killingworth”Environment and Planning A111305–1320
49.
TownsendA R, 1986, “Spatial aspects of the growth of part-time employment in Britain”Regional Studies20313–330
50.
WintertonJ, 1985, “Computerized coal: New technology in the mines”, in Digging Deeper Ed. BeynonH, (Verso, London) pp 231–244
