Transcript “Post-Fordist” Flexible Production

UNIT VI: Economic Geography
Core-Periphery Model
Core:
Periphery:
-wealthy
-industrialized
-MDC’s
U.S., W. Europe, Japan
-poor
-unindustrialized
-LDC’s
-the most exploited
Semi-periphery:
-developing
-newly industrializing (NIC)
China, India, Mexico, Brazil, Russia
Types of Industrial Production
Fordist Production: assembly-line industrial production for
mass consumption (post-WW I)
“Post-Fordist” Flexible Production: “post-Fordist” multinational producers can move production sites through
outsourcing (post-WW II)
-role of technology?
Textiles
Production:
Liverpool and
Manchester
Iron Production:
Birmingham
Coal Mining:
Newcastle
U.S. Manufacturing Regions
“RUST BELT”
Labor costs?
outsourcing: to relocate from higher-cost
locations to lower cost
– Why make Nike shoes in Vietnam?
3 cents per shoe…
WHO “outsources”?
multinational (or transnational) corporations:
research, factories, & sell products globally
deindustrialization:
manufacturing jobs shifting from MDC’s to
developing countries
The former Gautier rolling mills of
Bethlehem Steel Corp. in
Johnstown, PA
Abandoned street in Liverpool,
England
global division of labor:
labor pool drawn around the world (cheaper
resources & labor in the periphery countries)
just-in-time delivery:
short-term production & quick shipping
Supranational Organizations:
3 or more states form an alliance for:
-military (NATO)
-economic trade (E.U., NAFTA, WTO)
-political (U.N.)
Regional Scale – The European Union
Location Theories
Locational Theories: predicting where
business locates
1. Weber’s Model
2. Hotelling’s Model
Weber’s Least-Cost Theory:
•
•
transport costs (“optimum point of
production”)
labor costs
Hotelling’s Model
(“locational interdependence”):
location dependent on other
businesses
agglomeration economies: clustering of firms
- Silicon Valley in California (“technopole”)
- Bangalore, India (Bollywood)
- maquiladoras on the Mexican border (over 3,000 factories)
- Export Processing Zones (EPZs); Special Economic Zones (SEZ’s)
Concepts of
Development
A. Describing development
1. world of rich & poor
outdated names: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th World
today: Developed---Developing--Underdeveloped
or MDC---NIC---LDC
geographic description: “North/South line”
The Brandt Line:
distribution of MDCs & LDCs
Newly Industrialized “Pacific Rim”
• East Asia
• South East Asia
Major
Manufacturing
Regions of East
Asia
Four Asian Tigers
South Korea
Hong Kong
Taiwan
Singapore
Hong Kong
Singapore
South Korea
Taiwan
“Measuring’ Development
Economic:
“formal economy”: legal economy (measured by GDP)
“informal economy”: the illegal or uncounted economy
Noneconomic:
– Education
– Public Services (access to clean water; sewage)
– Health Services (doctors per person)
Rostow’s Economic
Modernization Theory
*assumes countries go through stages of development
MDC’s
rapid industrialization
early industrializing;
LDC
subsistence farming