British factory, Japanese factory

British factory, Japanese factory

Ronald Philip Dore · 1990

2 ideas

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1. Market-based employment isn't destiny

   Hiring and paying workers through an open labour market grew out of the particular conditions of nineteenth-century capitalism, not out of industrialisation itself. So there is no reason to assume every modern economy will converge on it as countries develop. Other ways of organising work can be just as modern.

2. The familiar case may be the outlier

   When one country's way of work looks strange, the habit is to treat the observer's own country as the norm. But the supposedly normal system may be the unusual one, and the 'odd' one closer to where industrial work is heading. Comparing two systems should start by questioning which one needs explaining.

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