Fordism is a concept that often crops up in academic reading and discussion. But what does Fordism mean, where did it come from and how does it relate to tourism? This article explains all.
What is Fordism?
‘Fordism’ is a manufacturing technology term that is often referenced in academic discussion. It refers to a specific stage of economic development, which occurred in the 20th century. The term is linked to the Ford Motor Company, as explained below.
Fordism – defined
According to Britannica, Fordism is a term widely used to describe (1) the system of mass production that was pioneered in the early 20th century by the Ford Motor Company or (2) the typical postwar mode of economic growth and its associated political and social order in advanced capitalism.
Merriam-Webster goes a little deeper with its definition of Fordism, defining it as: a technological system that seeks to increase production efficiency primarily through carefully engineered breakdown and interlocking of production operations and that depends for its success on mass production by assembly-line methods.
Where the term Fordism comes from
How did the term come about? It gained prominence in 1934, when Antonio Gramsci wrote an essay called “Americanism and Fordism” in his Prison Notebooks. The term has since been used a lot over the years, generally in an academic sense, by economic and sociological writers. The name itself comes from the engineer and car manufacturer Henry Ford.
Who was Henry Ford?
To understand Fordism, it helps to understand the man himself. Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company, was an American business magnate and industrialist. He was and is a prominent figure in the history of transport, as the Ford Model T was the first affordable automobile available to the American public. This revolutionised the world of transport, making car-travel accessible to the middle classes. The relatively low price was said to be, in part, due to Ford’s efficient production methods, including assembly line production instead of individual handcrafting – which is a huge part of what we now refer to as Fordism.
Ford began working as an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit in 1891, and devoted much of his spare time to experimenting with gasoline engines. By 1896 he had built a self-propelled vehicle, the Ford Quadricycle. He then worked with investors in the Detroit Automobile Company, but its cars were of lower quality and higher price than Ford was happy with, and he went on to partner with other engineers and businessmen before founding the Ford Motor Company in 1903.
The Ford Model T was launched five years later, in 1908. Demand was so high that Ford needed to find faster ways to build it, and in 1913 the company introduced the moving assembly line at its Highland Park plant in Michigan. This sped things up immensely – the time taken to assemble a Model T chassis fell from more than 12 hours to around 93 minutes – and by 1914 Ford was producing more cars than all other car manufacturers combined.
The three major principles of success
When it comes to any type of manufacturing process – not just within the automobile industry – there are three principles of success. These were defined in the book The Automobile Industry and Its Workers: Between Fordism and Flexibility written by Steven Tolliday and Jonathan Zeitlin. They are:
- The standardization of the product (nothing is handmade; everything is made using machines and moulds operated by unskilled or semi-skilled workers)
- The employment of assembly lines, which use special-purpose tools and/or equipment to allow unskilled workers to contribute to the finished product
- Workers are paid higher “living” wages so that they can afford to purchase the products they make
The book came out in 1987, but these principles existed prior to this. Coupled with the fast-moving technological revolution taking place when Henry Ford was at the top of his game, these principles allowed Fordism to be born.
How Fordism changed the industry
Henry Ford was not the very first person to utilise an assembly line. ‘Disassembly lines’ had already been used in Chicago’s meatpacking plants, but Ford adapted and modernised the idea, allowing this revolutionary type of labour to succeed. Ford broke complicated tasks into much simpler ones, using specialised tools to help with this. By using interchangeable parts, there was a level of adaptation and flexibility that formed a working assembly line. Components could be changed to specifically meet the need of whichever product was being assembled at the time. This enhanced the effectiveness of the assembly line method. As mentioned above, this made it much quicker to build each car. This method has since been applied to many other industries, from food to fashion. As new industries were developed, this methodology was used and transformed time and time again.
Fordism also made production cheaper. Greater efficiency meant that the Model T could be sold at an affordable price – its price fell from $850 in 1908 to under $300 by the mid-1920s – which created huge demand. At the same time, in 1914 Ford famously introduced the ‘$5 day’, roughly doubling many workers’ pay, which reduced staff turnover and helped workers to become consumers of the products they made.
The four levels of Fordism
British academic Bob Jessop described four levels of Fordism in a paper called Fordism and post-Fordism: A critical reformulation. This was published in Pathways to Industrialization and Regional Development in 1992. He said they are:
- Capitalist labour process: Through implementing highly organized, Taylorist methods of production, designed to produce higher output, output can be increased and workers fully utilized.
- Accumulation regime: Under the adherence to a belief in a ‘virtuous circle of growth,’ by increasing productivity, wages rise resulting in higher productivity, demand, investment, and operational efficacy.
- Social mode of economic regulation: Clarity is gained by analyzing the in/outflow of capital, both in micro- [wages, internal movement] and macro- [monetary body, commerciality, external relations].
- Generic mode of ‘societalization’: Deciphering State’s and company’s roles in the day-to-day economic lifestyles and patterns of the workforce, their economic habits, and the regional impact.
Fordism in four dimensions
The Britannica definition of Fordism includes a second meaning: the typical postwar mode of economic growth and its associated political and social order in advanced capitalism. Although it still refers to a revolution of a sort, it steps away from cars and industry and looks at wider life.
Here, Fordism has been analysed along four different dimensions. as outlined below.
Fordism: an industrial paradigm
Firstly, it is analysed as an industrial paradigm. This is Fordism as we know it, the original concept – mass production of standardised goods on a moving assembly line, using both semi-skilled labour and dedicated machinery.
Fordism: a national accumulation regime
Secondly, Fordism has been analysed as a national accumulation regime. An accumulation regime, as defined by Boyer and Saillard, is “the set of regularities that ensure the general and relatively coherent progress of capital accumulation, that is, which allow the resolution or postponement of the distortions and disequilibria to which the process continually gives rise”. Fordism as an accumulation regime is said to involve an ongoing cycle of mass production and mass consumption, and so on.
Fordism: a mode of regulation
Next, Fordism has been analysed as a mode of regulation. Here, it is made up of five parts:
- An institutionalised compromise between organised labour and big business, where workers accept the demands of management in return for wages going up;
- Competition between large firms, in a monopolised way, based on cost-plus pricing and advertising
- Centralised financial capital, deficit finance, and credit-based mass consumption
- State intervention in order to ensure full employment and establish what is known as a welfare state
- Ensuring national economies are embedded in a liberal international economic order
Fordism: a form of ‘social life’
Finally, Fordism has been analysed as a form of social life. Here, it is characterised by mass media, mass transport, and mass politics.
Fordism and crisis
Fordism as a mode of growth (or accumulation regime) became dominant in the decades after the Second World War. During postwar reconstruction, capitalism was fuelled by Fordism. But later, in the 1970s, it became obvious that Fordism had ‘crisis tendencies’. This means that as a model it is not sustainable, and can easily crash with devastating impact. There were and could be many potential reasons for this:
- Working-class resistance to alienating working conditions
- Declining profit rates
- A fiscal crisis
- Saturated consumer markets
- Internationalisation, making state economic management ineffective and difficult to manage
- American economic dominance under threat
Due to these reasons and the crisis nature of Fordism, economies began to shift towards what is known as post-Fordism – more flexible production, specialised products, service industries and globalised supply chains. That is not to say that Fordism no longer exists, but its dominance has declined.
Fordism and tourism
Fordism is highly relevant to tourism studies. The growth of mass tourism from the 1950s onwards, particularly the standardised package holiday, is often described as a Fordist form of tourism: large tour operators bought flights and hotel rooms in bulk and sold identical, mass-produced holidays to large numbers of customers at low prices. Resorts such as Benidorm in Spain grew rapidly to meet this demand.
Since the 1980s, many academics have described a shift towards post-Fordist tourism, in which travellers increasingly seek flexible, personalised and niche experiences, such as special interest tourism and independent travel booked online. Related concepts include McDonaldisation, which describes how the principles of efficiency, calculability, predictability and control have spread through society, including tourism.
Fordism: FAQs
Below are answers to some of the most common questions about Fordism.
What is Fordism in simple terms?
Fordism is a system of mass production using assembly lines, standardised products and specialised machinery, pioneered by Henry Ford in the early 20th century. It also describes the wider post-war economic model of mass production and mass consumption.
Who coined the term Fordism?
The term was popularised by Italian Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci in his essay ‘Americanism and Fordism’, written in the early 1930s in his Prison Notebooks.
What are the main principles of Fordism?
The main principles are standardised products, assembly-line production using specialised tools and less-skilled workers, and paying workers wages high enough to buy the products they make.
What is post-Fordism?
Post-Fordism describes the shift, from the 1970s onwards, towards more flexible production, specialised products, service industries, technology and globalised supply chains.
How does Fordism relate to tourism?
Mass-produced package holidays are often seen as a Fordist form of tourism, while the more recent shift towards flexible, personalised and niche travel is described as post-Fordist tourism.
Fordism: Further reading
If you found this article on Fordism useful, these articles may also be of interest:
- What is McDonaldisation?
- The mass tourism industry explained
- What is modernization theory?
- The history of transportation
- What is package tourism?
