-
4. Manufacturing Collapses in Chicago
- Temple University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
CHAPTER 4 Manufacturing Collapses in Chicago When I go to bed I got the pressure. When I get up I got the pressure-the same thing. I don't know if it's really through or what. But I feel so little when other people work. I feel like they are saying: "You are nothing! You're a nobody!" And that's the way I feel myself. So I just keep to myself. --Laid off Chicago steelworker, 1984 We're lean and mean. Today we have a future. --Donald D. Lennox, Chair NavistaI Corporation (which had a hand in laying off the above steelworker), 1986 There can be no doubt that part of the income and wealth polarization of the present period is rooted in the collapse of unionized manufacturing jobs in the United States during the 1980s. In Chapter 3, I attributed that collapse to the systemic strategy, which former President Bush called a new world order. But others have offered conflicting explanations. The mainstream view concerning deindustrialization is that it represents a natural and positive adjustment to a post-industrial or information age economy and new competitive conditions . Manufacturing job loss is potentially positive, in this view, because it can result in greater efficiency. Economic development strategies based on this outlook are geared to "capacity building" or being more "competitive."l One influential proponent of these ideas is Harvard economist Michael Porter.2 Porter does acknowledge that global capitalism is in a new period. But he sees this new period as one of opportunity for those nations, communities , and individuals who become competitive. His analysis of global competition posits a world of nations competing with one another through "their" respective corporations on the basis of new technologies and increasingly efficient operations. He argues that nations and inner-city communities can Copyrighted Material 72 CHAPTER 4 succeed by developing their "competitive advantage." The inner-city advantage is based on the location of communities, the existence of "clusters of competitive companies," the degree of unmet demand for inner-city goods and services, and the unemployed and underemployed people who live in these communities. A contrasting view can be found in the work of Harrison and Bluestone. Their view is that deindustrialization was the result of a "profit squeeze" in the 1970s, which was caused by declining productivity growth and increased foreign competition. In response, American management embarked on a strategy of cost containment that led to a complete elimination of certain product lines or encouraged the transfer of production to lower-cost regions.3 Unlike Porter, Harrison and Bluestone see the loss of manufacturing jobs as largely negative in terms of lost jobs and wages. Moreover, they argue, there could have been options other than the "low road" cost containment strategy for U.S. corporations if the public sector had a positive industrial policy. Another explanation for the loss of manufacturing jobs during the 1980s and I 990S is that technology has made certain kinds of occupations obsolete.4 Jeremy Rifkin, in his book The End of Work, argues that this can be beneficial because wealth created by technology can be used to pay people for less work and to compensate them for socially useful work.5 This prescription to eliminate declining living standards and poverty assumes that technological development is a neutral phenomenon, which generates wealth that can be readily distributed. In other words, the prescription depends on technology's status as an independent force. Yet technology's treatment as an independent, wealth-producing variable, as formulated in The End of Work, is an analytical assumption never critically examined by the author or by others who adopt some version of the technology thesis. One implication of Chapter 3 is that technology can be better understood as the outcome of a society's class relations. The recent development of technologies making capital more mobile, together with the use of such technologies to lower global living standards, is one chief way the owners of capital are lowering production costs at the expense of labor. It is important to consider that much technological investment has resulted in advanced forms of telecommunications and lower transportation costs. The most direct effect of this technology has not been to reduce labor but to make capital more mobile-enabling firms to move production geographically or to move investment into different industries. This mobility enables firms to lower their costs by moving to cheaper areas. In some instances, living wage jobs are eliminated in one region and...