250 RÜDIGER HACHTMANN
up with the planned fl ow rate. The just-in-time principle is augmented by
the Kanban inventory control system. The latter deviates slightly from the
classic assembly line idea because workers who are involved in a down-
stream production step pick up the parts that they need from the respec-
tive upstream production step. As a result, a limited type of teamwork
becomes necessary. Although the Toyota production system has some
fl exibility, it is still very close to a Fordist model.^14
For one or two decades, Toyotism dominated discourses on production,
yet pragmatic considerations shaped how it was implemented in corpo-
rations. But then the even more radical teamwork model associated with
the Swedish automaker Volvo came to dominate these discourses.^15 More
so than in the Toyota production system, the members of the production
group at Volvo carried out quite diff erent tasks, which generally avoided
lopsided workloads and allowed workers to act semi-autonomously (at
least) within their teams.^16 Toyotism and the Volvo model became per-
manent fi xtures within industrial discourse thanks not least to the polit-
ical connotations of the debate over the “crisis of Fordism.” This crisis
seemed to stem from a variety of sources. In the wake of the long-lasting
phase of full employment that held on into the 1970s, corporate man-
agers began to worry about increasing labor turnover and the number
of workdays lost due to illness. They saw both of these phenomena as
indicative of widespread dissatisfaction with the monotony of working
on the assembly line, which meant that alternatives needed to be found.
But these were not the only factors that were fueling the fi res behind the
“crisis of Fordism.” The 1968 students’ movement also played an import-
ant role, although it did not attract apprentices and young workers on a
large scale until a bit later. Provoked to a large extent by these protests, a
discourse on alienation that drew on the early works of Karl Marx arose.
It primarily targeted Fordism in a historical and empirical way, infl uenc-
ing the sometimes hefty debates that took hold of the trade unions in the
1970s. Some feminists within the New Women’s Movement also objected
to the monotony of the tasks assigned to women who worked on the
assembly lines; traditionally, theories of work had discriminated against
women in this respect, justifying the assignment of such menial tasks.
The “crisis of Fordism” took a virulent turn in the core Western indus-
trial regions in the form of “attacks against supervisors, sabotage, shoddy
work, go-slow protests and wild strikes,” which, “in the eyes of experts”
(according to Der Spiegel in early July 1973), had been unleashed by the
“torture of the hamster wheel” that was the assembly line.^17 Naturally,
though, these experts also noted, a “revolt against the assembly line”
could only take place in times of full employment when no one feared
being fi red for their actions. The high rate of unemployment since the