TRANSFORMATIONS IN WORK 279
taken place in what are often referred to as emerging or newly industrial-
ized countries.^89 Yet even on the margins of Europe in places like Roma-
nia or Bulgaria, or even in some supply companies in Germany, this kind
of “dirty Fordism” (as Alain Liepitz has called it) still persists in cases in
which it is more cost-eff ective to pay low wages than invest in expensive
production technology. The tendency of many sociologists and historians
to focus on the frontrunners of modernization while neglecting the “grey
zones” comprised of midsize and smaller businesses potentially overes-
timates the depth and breadth of the changes that have been unleashed
by rationalization, automation, and digitalization, off ering a skewed im-
pression of a fundamental transformation in paid work. Consequently,
the brief outline off ered here should only be read as a work in progress
because there is still much work to be done to understand all the many
facets of the world of work.
Rüdiger Hachtmann is a senior research associate and project direc-
tor at the Center of Contemporary History (ZZF) in Potsdam, and asso-
ciate professor at the Technische Universität Berlin. He has published
numerous monographs and essays on German and European history of
the nineteenth and twentieth century. Recent monographs include Das
Wirtschaftsimperium der Deutschen Arbeitsfront (2012), Wissenschafts-
management im Dritten Reich (2007), Tourismus-Geschichte (2007), and
1848/49: Epochenschwelle zur Moderne (2002). Recent edited books in-
clude Ressourcenmobilisierung. Wissenschaftspolitik und Forschungspraxis
im NS-Herrschaftssystem (with Sören Flachowsky and Florian Schmaltz,
2016), and Detlev Peukert und die NS-Forschung (with Sven Reichardt,
2015).
NOTES- Francesca Weil, Herrschaftsanspruch und soziale Wirklichkeit: zwei sächsische
Betriebe in der DDR während der Honecker-Ära (Cologne, 2000), 172 (Inter-
view colleague S.). - Ibid., 179 and 185 (colleagues I. and G., colleagues W. and Y.). On the back-
ground to experiences of unemployment in the GDR, see especially Berthold
Vogel, Die Spuren der Arbeitslosigkeit. Der Verlust der Erwerbsarbeit im Um-
bruch der ostdeutschen Gesellschaft zwischen Wohlstandssteigerung und neuer
Ungleichheit, in Ostdeutsche Arbeitswelt im Wandel 1945–2015 (Dresden
2015), 58–73. - See “Labour Market: Employment (National Concept) by Industries. Ger-
many,” (Facts & Figures > National Economy & Environment), DEStatis