It is widely argued that the era of Fordism began with the development of the model T motor car, the world’s first successfully mass-produced car, at Henry Ford’s Piquette Avenue manufacturing plant in Detroit, Michigan (Bryson and Henry, 2001). From this, a new age of production developed, changing both the economic and the political landscape of manufacturing globally, and establishing the progression to a new form of capitalism. This essay will first aim to describe the key aspects of Fordism, how these aspects manifested themselves socially and spatially from the early 20^th century through to the post-war years, and the way in which the crisis of Fordism, that led to huge shifts in the global economy, can be linked to the progression of increasingly neoliberal economic and political systems. Further to this, the essay will draw links between the current, modern system of capitalism (a so-called ‘Post-Fordist’ society), that is characterised by major innovations in technology and increasingly flexible forms of production, and the spatial elements of such a system. This restructuring of the geography of production can be seen on a global scale, and this essay will explore the decline of previously extremely important industrial areas (namely the US Midwest and the UK Midlands) as well as the emergence of regions and cities that now drive international innovation and production – most famously, Silicon Valley, California (Mead, 2004). The effects on the global economy will be examined consistently throughout, with focus on both micro and macro-economic scales.

The key characteristics of Fordism centre around the major industrial paradigm of mass production that involves production of standardised goods by unskilled labour through the use of assembly-line techniques (Bryson and Henry, 2001). This principle of ‘continuous-flow production’ (Coriat, 1980) as a new regime of accumulation inherently involved a rise in

mass consumerism, that was encouraged by the supply of relatively cheap products, intelligent advertising and, arguably most importantly, through changes to social conditions of low-skilled employees. This originated from Henry Ford himself, who notoriously raised minimum pay to $5 a day and reduced working hours to an 8-hour day, in doing so managing to reduce employee turnover rates and therefore reduce costs further, as well as transforming the workforce into consumers themselves (Bryson and Henry, 2001). The main economic processes associated with Fordism were underpinned by key political developments, importantly a well-paid, stable labour force that became increasingly unionised and labour market policies that supported the relationship between consumers and producers (Gertler, 1988). State intervention to secure full employment of the workforce and the establishment of a welfare state, possibly seen most famously in the United Kingdom with the creation of the National Health Service in 1948 (National Health Service, 2018) among other welfare policies, was a significant development in post-war Fordism. This illustrates how many of the economic processes that were so pervasive during this time were strengthened by political shifts.

The spatial implication of new modes of production can be seen clearly through the development of areas that experienced explosive growth as manufacturing plants for industries became ever-larger. Detroit, Michigan, is a prime example of this, once the United States’ fourth most populous city and the largest car manufacturer in the world (Safransky, 2014) it grew in size largely through the influx of migrant workers looking for jobs in the growing automobile industry. Across the global economy, the key characteristics of Fordism can be viewed as a number of changing socio-economic conditions produced by a new mode of production. These were matched by political ideologies of the time that have led, in turn

to the emergence of changing landscapes, the legacy of which is still persistent to the modern day.

It was arguably the social conditions promoted by Fordist society that ultimately led to its own demise, with a society increasingly focussed on consumerism coupled with a rigid mode of production that was unable to confront new forms and sources of demand and competition in a dynamic marketplace (Schoenberger, 1987). The transition to Post-Fordism was two-fold, involving a new means of production due to technological innovations and changes in consumer behaviour developing alongside major political shifts that would come to define a new era of capitalism (Gertler, 1988 and Bryson and Henry, 2001). The adoption of new, more flexible forms of fixed capital in production meant more cost-efficient machinery, that permits a significant degree of product flexibility without sacrificing economies of scale (Schoenberger, 1987) as well as a new mode of production – ‘just-in-time’ or ‘kanban’ production – originating in Japan, that allows for integr