Fordism and post-fordism in relation to the labour
force
Patrick Baloyi
PUBLISHED ON 2024/04/12
INTRODUCTION
The world's work has been changing drastically since the early 20th century and such change has
affected how people work. The introduction of machinery has challenged the workplace and
means of production at large. . This assignment will argue on the bases of fordism and
post-fordism in relation to the labor force. The argument will be substantiated by the prescribed
reading in the module .
The labor and how people are working today changed compared to the olden days , this change
has been brough by the introduction of machinery and technological advancement in the 20
century. For one to understand the change , one to understand these two concepts fordism and
post-fordism . Firstly, let's unpack what is fordism. The concept of fordism was firstly
introduced by Henry Ford with the idea to create a market that is supported by the workers . The
whole idea was based on the notion that people who should buy the things that are produced are
the ones that are producing them. According to Grant and Nixon (2015:259) fordism is
explained as a mass production that involves a mass market but it had limitations when it came
to consumer demands. This type of market had limitations because there was no variability of
products, for example there was only one care with one colour.
Fordism is a mass production that only recognised the relationship between people it employs
and the market of its production, this means that people it employs were the one buying the
products ( Watson,2017: 97). According to Watson (2017:98) fordims, this type of market
developed working class social consumption norms in order to stabilize the market and maintain
the mass production in the market .According to Vidal (2010:3) , the concept of fordism was
, linked with fixed dollar system introduced by Henry Ford , whereby workers will earn five
dollars everyday to minimize resistance at work. The other aspect was that fordism was also
linked with taylorism based on the assembly line production of standardized goods( Vidal,
2010:3). As paying workers five dollar pay day was a great idea, one could argue on the basis
that under fordism workers were only paid high wages to solve labour issues which are
sustainable in the future . Vidal (2010:3) asserts that fordism was not just viewed as mass
production but it was also viewed as a way to capital growth characterized by mass production
and mode of mass production . The labours were able to live and provide for their families and
upgrade from low social class status to middle social class status and this also affected the
means of production in such a way that high wages had relationship with mode of production and
mass production art large.( Vidal, 2010:3). Vidal (2010:23) implies that the labour process in
the fordism era was based on rigid machinery, tayrlorism ,supply driven and that employment
relations were based on vertical intergration /internalzing employment accompanied by strong
trade unions .
The idea was based on the idea that how employees are treated has an important effect on work
efficiency which may affect the success of the enterprise Watson ( 2017:98) . However, this type
of market was not serving its purpose because there was also no quicker response to consumer
demands which affected the means of production and the profit made from that. The best
solution to fix this was to introduce technological advancement to aid with variability, flexibility
and quick response to consumer demand and more skilled workers were a necessity (Grant &
Nixon, 2015: 259). The introduction of technological advancement in the market is regarded as
neo-fordism. According to Grint and Nixon ( 2015:260) neo-fordism was a new way of
representing a new technological production system that introduced flexibility and the expansion
of the range of products . However this system was not that effective since it was a new
introduction to the market.
This gave rise to a third concept called post fordism. Post-fordism means the use of new
technological ways to produce smaller batches, and an industrial organization whereby skilled
labour is a need in the production of the products ( Wtson, 2017: 98) . Straglmen and Warren (
2008:129) argues that the post-fordist production is better than the fordist production because of
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