Flexible Specialization
From P2P Foundation
= skilled workers used sophisticated general-purpose machinery to turn out a wide and constantly changing assortment of goods for large but constantly shifting markets
Description
From Michael Piore's book, The Second Industrial Divide:
"Our claim is that the present deterioration in economic performance results from the limits of the model of industrial development that is founded on mass production: the use of special-purpose (product-specific) machines and of semiskilled workers to produce standardized goods."
The alternative approach, according to the same book, is flexible specialization, where “skilled workers used sophisticated general-purpose machinery to turn out a wide and constantly changing assortment of goods for large but constantly shifting markets.”
Key Book to Read
- Michael Piore. The Second Industrial Divide
