The Death of the "Labour Movement" and the "Japanization" of Industrial Relations

Abstract

The ending of the Cold War gave birth to new debates, new ideas – even an atheoretical theory that the „End of History“ had arrived. But more important was the bigger question: so what kind of capitalism had won? The urgency of the question was enhanced by the fact that, through the 1980s both the Neo-American-type political economy, and its main contender, the neo-corporatist type, had run up against numerous difficulties and shown their inherent limitations. The 1980s were a bad time for all national „models“ of the political economy. It is not surprising that academic attention turned increasingly to the two countries whose macro-economic performance seemed relatively superior – Germany and Japan. But there are, of course, important differences between the two countries, even if both are classified as similar exemplars of „Rhine-type capitalism“. Dore's attempt to characterize those differences and at the same time to foresee the future pattern of German industrial relations has much in common with the convergence thesis developed in his classic British Factory: Japanese Factory. Its provocative suggestion is: (1) that in the long run German industrial relations, like those of many other European nations, will undergo a process of devolution to the enterprise level, and (2), in the course of such devolution something comparable to the Japanese firmas-community will be created. In short, one can describe Dore's argument as – to use the word Streeck once used (1984b) – as the Japanization hypothesis. And (3), this process implies the death of any „Labour Movement“ based on class consciousness and aiming to transform society, leaving only a system of worker representation such as exists in the United States and Japan.

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