Industrial Restructuring: Public Policies for Investment in Advanced Industrial Society

The American economy is undergoing a fundamental process of industrial restructuring. The manufacturing sector is being reorganized and deindustrialized, the location of capital investment is changing, labor markets are becoming increasingly polarized, and new job-displacing technologies are rapidly being introduced. Although this restructuring process maintains profitability for large corporations, it imposes heavy costs on workers and their communities and adversely affects the nation's long-term economic and social stability. As a consequence of restructuring, concern about job retention and creation is higher now than it has been since the 1930s. However, the authors argue, the current policy responses of liberal, industrial policy advocates and conservative less-government proponents are inadequate because they subordinate the needs of workers and their communities in order to restore the conditions of capital accumulation. The authors outline an alternative strategy based on a new national framework for investment, greater community involvement, and increased worker control and certainty over their own livelihoods.