The car you purchased last month in Pittsburgh may well have been financed in Japan, designed in Detroit, manufactured in ten countries as far apart as Malaysia and Germany and assembled in Mexico. Goods, capital, information and services, even whole factories, whisk around the globe at breathtaking speed, in a market increasingly dominated by vast multinational enterprises, international financial institutions and speculators. US- owned multinationals overseas employ legions of foreign workers. These corporations are increasingly free to locate wherever they wish. This new industrial revolution is also transforming the shop floor.
Similar transformations are increasingly evident in the commercial and service sectors.
The most important aspect of this process is not new technology, but the new social relations that develop in the workplace. Rote, physical labor is being replied by labor which is more mental, flexible and cooperative. In effect, the new workers are becoming managers in a much more sophisticated production system. One million are laid off each year as a result of plant closings or downswing. Although many in our corporate and financial elites belittle the loss of our manufacturing capabilities, we believe that over time that view will prove to have been terribly short-sighted.