TRANSFORMATIONS IN WORK 277
that has spread since the 1990s, that time has been speeding up and
space is closing in—on a subjective as well as objective level—can only
be compared to the fundamental upheavals that hit the European conti-
nent in the last third of the nineteenth century, when urbanization and
industrialization turned society upside down. Back then, it was railroads
and telegraphs that transformed perceptions of time and space. They em-
bodied the revolutionary changes that were taking place and forced ev-
eryone to broaden their horizons in both a literal and metaphoric sense.
Today, the Internet is this catalytic force.
Reunifi ed Germany has been shaped by a dynamic sparked by global-
ization and digitalization, as well as the powerfully infl uential neoliberal
paradigm of seemingly unharnessed markets that has shaken the world
of work. Admittedly, the eff ects of this dynamic have diff ered depending
on the particular sector, but they have nonetheless lent credence to the
idea of a phase of “new complexity.” In a broad sense, though, work has
always been something “complex.” Even during the West German “eco-
nomic miracle,” when Fordism was at its height, for example, manual
production techniques were never completely eliminated in the manufac-
turing industries, not to mention the variety of paid jobs in the primary
and tertiary sectors. Yet, these constellations have been more mottled
than ever since the 1980s and 1990s. New markets emerged after the
federal, state, and municipal governments openly or covertly privatized a
growing number of infrastructure institutions (such as the postal service,
the railroads, the utility companies, hospitals, public swimming pools,
etc.) or sold off public properties. These formerly public institutions—
and even those who are still nominally publicly owned—now function
according to the logic of the “free” markets, which has had far-reach-
ing eff ects on employment contracts, working conditions, and employee
rights and entitlement in the workplace. But these areas were not the only
ones aff ected by such transformations. Employees in more established
economic sectors have also felt these same changes, which have been
rolling in since the 1970s or even earlier in the “old” Federal Republic.
In many places, farming has mutated into an agricultural industry, more
and more of which has been partially, if not wholly, automated, and the
employees in larger production facilities, especially meat factories, are
subject to a quasi-Fordist production regime. The start-ups of the “New
Economy” and the corporate culture that has developed along with them
have become role models for portions of the industry and service sectors.
They favor instituting new forms of fl exible organization that represent
an even harder break with the rigid Fordist fl ow-and-control system than
the Toyota model. Fostered in part by the abandonment of collective bar-
gaining agreements and the weakening of the trade unions over the long