141
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
1 collections
    0
    shares

      If you have found this article useful and you think it is important that researchers across the world have access, please consider donating, to ensure that this valuable collection remains Open Access.

      Prometheus is published by Pluto Journals, an Open Access publisher. This means that everyone has free and unlimited access to the full-text of all articles from our international collection of social science journalsFurthermore Pluto Journals authors don’t pay article processing charges (APCs).

      scite_
       
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      THE NEW, RUTHLESS ECONOMY

      Published
      other
      Prometheus
      Pluto Journals
      Bookmark

            Content

            Author and article information

            Journal
            cpro20
            CPRO
            Prometheus
            Critical Studies in Innovation
            Pluto Journals
            0810-9028
            1470-1030
            December 1996
            : 14
            : 2
            : 195-206
            Affiliations
            Article
            8629218 Prometheus, Vol. 14, No. 2, 1996: pp. 195–206
            10.1080/08109029608629218
            4e1214eb-2f96-4897-bd92-6a09f3a4e06c
            Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

            All content is freely available without charge to users or their institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission of the publisher or the author. Articles published in the journal are distributed under a http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

            History
            Page count
            Figures: 0, Tables: 0, References: 39, Pages: 12
            Categories
            Miscellany

            Computer science,Arts,Social & Behavioral Sciences,Law,History,Economics

            Notes and References

            1. The Wall Street Journal, January 2, 1996. Relying on the government's new methods for calculating GDP, the consensus of the economists polled is for growth of 1.8 to 2 percent for 1996, or 2.4 to 2.6 percent using the previous method of calculation.

            2. “Business Outlook”, Business Week, July 10, 1995. These government figures almost certainly understate the strength of investment; they do not, for example, include software as an investment, and they have found no adequate way of taking account of the vastly enhanced powers of computers, even as their prices fall. Perversely, the new methods of calculation of investment, productivity, and GDP introduced in December make matters worse by further downgrading the real value of computers, along with their price. The prolonged shutdown of parts of the federal government in December and January has delayed these changes, and statistics based on the old methods of calculation will be used here.

            3. “Capital Spending Slows to a Canter”, Business Week, August 14, 1995.

            4. Economic Report of the President 1994, pp. 127, 129.

            5. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), productivity grew by 2.55 percent during the first three quarters of 1995.

            6. For example, in 1995 total compensation for American workers, which includes health and pension benefits as well as wages, rose by approximately 2.7 percent. This was the lowest increase for any year since this statistic was first compiled in 1981. (The New York Times, January 4, 1996.)

            7. BLS, January 29, 1996. Earnings for 1995 are based on figures for October. Productivity for 1995 is derived from the average of productivity growth during the first three quarters. Figures for CEO earnings are given by Lawrence Mishel and Jared Bernstein, The State of Working America 1994 (Economic Policy Institute, Washington, D.C., 1994). This indispensable work, published biannually, brings together and analyzes all the available data on family income, wages, taxes, employment, and the distribution of wealth.

            8. BLS, January 29, 1996.

            9. BLS, January 29, 1996.

            10. The Wall Street Journal, July 20, 1995.

            11. “Dr. Rivlin's Diagnosis and Mr. Clinton's Remedy”, The New York Review, March 25, 1993, p.12.

            12. “Requiem for a Democrat”, speech delivered at Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, N.C., March 17, 1995.

            13. For more on Hammer, see Section 3, below.

            14. McKinsey Global Institute, Manufacturing Productivity (McKinsey and Company, 1993)

            15. See for example Eamonn Fingleton, Blindside: Why Japan is Still On Track to Overtake the U.S. by the Year 2000 (Houghton Mifflin, 1995).

            16. Manufacturing Productivity, Chapter 2A, p.8.

            17. Manufacturing Productivity, Chapter 2C, p.5.

            18. Manufacturing Productivity, Chapter 2A, p.8. Recently some German industries have been introducing aspects of lean production; and several large German firms are building plants in the US.

            19. James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones, and Daniel Roos, The Machine That Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production (Harper Collins, 1990), p.260.

            20. Manufacturing Productivity, Chapter 2B, p.9.

            21. “You'll Never Guess Who Really Makes …”, Fortune, October 3, 1994.

            22. “UAW, Ranks Thinning, Elects a Fighter as President”, The New York Times, June 15, 1995.

            23. David R. Howell, “Collapsing Wages and Rising Inequality”, Challenge, (January-February 1995). Figures derived from Current Population Survey, US Bureau of Census.

            24. Womack, Jones, and Roos, The Machine that Changed the World, p.260.

            25. Michael Hammer and James Champy, Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution (Harper Business, 1993); James Champy, Reengineering Management: The Mandate for New Leadership (Harper Business, 1995); Michael Hammer and Steven A. Stanton, The Reengineering Revolution: A Handbook (Harper Business, 1995). See also CSC Index, State of Reengineering Report (CSC Index, 1994). CSC Index is Champy's reengineering consulting firm.

            26. For an account of this early reengineering see Thierry Noyelle, Beyond Industrial Dualism: Market and Job Segmentation in the New Economy (Westview, 1986), p.84.

            27. Fortune, November 13, 1995. p.45.

            28. Hammer and Champy, Reengineering the Corporation, pp. 36–39.

            29. Hammer and Champy, Reengineering the Corporation, p.39.

            30. Hammer, The Reengineering Revolution; the quotes in the foregoing section are from pp. 32, 142-151,50,129, 119 and 128.

            31. “The Best of Times --- The Worst of Times”, remarks to the Baltimore Chapter of the Commercial Finance Association, March 7, 1994 (text provided by Federal Reserve, Washington, D.C.).

            32. “The Best of Times --- The Worst of Times”, pp. 10–11.

            33. Fortune, January 16, 1995. One of the first to draw attention to the accessible, generic nature of these “generalist” skills was the economist Thierry Noyelle (see footnote 27).

            34. See for example “Caught in Cat's Claws”, Business Week, December 4, 1995; also “Caterpillar Seen as Victor in UAW Talks”, The Wall Street Journal, December 11, 1995.

            35. See particularly Clinton's speech at the opening session of the Economic “Summit”, Little Rock, December 14, 1992, (The New York Times, December 15, 1992, p. D10.) Also Reich's testimony before the House Subcommittee on Labor Management Relations, March 30, 1993.

            36. Ed Gillespie and Bob Schellhas, editors, Contract with America: The Bold Plan by Rep. Newt Gingrich, Rep. Dick Armey and the House Republicans to Change the Nation (Times Books, 1994), pp. 14–15.

            37. See Bradley's new book, Time Present, Time Past: A Memoir (Knopf, 1996), particularly Chapter 17.

            38. Richard B. Freeman, editor, Working Under Different Rules (Russell Sage Foundation, 1994), Chapter 7, pp. 223–239.

            39. Some models for such legislation are provided by several leading steel companies that are employee-owned. See Robert Oakeshott, The United Steelworkers and Employee Ownership (London: Partnership Research, Ltd., 1994).

            Comments

            Comment on this article