World of Possibilities: Flexibility and Mass Production in Western Industrialization (Studies in Modern Capitalism)

This book presents a bold and original reinterpretation of Western industrialization from the eighteenth century to the present day in terms of the interplay between flexibility and mass production. Drawing on extensive new research by a multinational and multidisciplinary team of scholars, the volume challenges standard views about the inevitable triumph of the large-scale, vertically-integrated corporate enterprise. In contrast, World of Possibilities highlights the plurality of forms of successful industrial organization, past and present, throughout the Western world. Stories, Strategies, Structures: Rethinking Historical Alternatives To Mass Production: Charles F. Sabel And Jonathan Zeitlin -- Fashion As Flexible Production: The Strategies Of The Lyons Silk Merchants In The Eighteenth Century / Carlo Poni -- The Fate Of Collective Manufactures In The Industrial World: The Silk Industries Of Lyons And London, 1800-1850 / Alain Cottereau -- The Rise And Decline Of Flexible Production: The Cutlery Industry Of Solingen Since The Eighteenth Century / Rudolf Boch -- Manufacturing Flexibility In Nineteenth-century Switzerland: Social And Institutional Foundations Of The Decline And Revival In Calico-printing And Watchmaking / Beatrice Veyrassat. (cont.) Between Flexibility And Mass Production: Stategic Ambiguity And Selective Adaptation In The British Engineering Industry, 1830-1914 / Jonathan Zeitlin -- The Lost Paradigm: An Italian Metalworking Empire Between Competing Models Of Production, 1900-1920 / Alain Dewerpe -- Have A Heart For The Manufacturers!: Production, Distribution And The Decline Of American Textile Manufacturing / Philip Scranton -- The Small-holder Economy In Denmark: The Exception As Variation / Peer Hull Kristensen And Charles Sabel -- In Search Of Flexibility: The Bologna Metalworking Industry, 1900-1992 / Vittorio Capecchi -- Local Industry And Actors' Strategies: From Combs To Plastics In Oyonnax / Jean Saglio -- Producing Producers: Shippers, Shipyards And The Cooperative Infrastructure Of The Norwegian Maritime Complex Since 1850 / Hakon With Andersen. Edited By Charles F. Sabel And Jonathan Zeitlin. Papers From An International Seminar On Historical Alternatives To Mass Production. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. This book retells the history of Western industrialization, revealing possibilities unexplored in the nineteenth century, variants of which have come to transform present day economies. It shows that economic actors have historically been more aware of the great strategic choices they faced than standard theory credits them with being, and this surprising acuity allows them to imagine and put into practice solutions which current theories of industrial organization have scarcely anticipated. The book is therefore at one and the same time a contribution to a substantive revision of the history of mechanized production and a propaedeutic in a form of explanation that approximates the knowledge of the actor to the knowledge of the theorist. The volume groups essays presented by a multinational team of historians and social scientists drawing on intensive primary research on a wide range of firms, regions, sectors and national economies in Western Europe and the United States from the eighteenth century to the 1990s Historians of the industrial revolution and capitalism have emphasized the importance of mass production, a concept almost invariably associated with a series of related notions such as "low prices," "modest or inferior quality" and "extensive market." The central theme of this book is that the experience of economic fragility that seems unique to our day has in fact been the norm for many countries and sectors throughout economic history