Sociological aspects of post-fordist industrial organisation in Malta

Abstract

The transition from Fordism to Post-Fordism in the centres of what Wallerstein calls the 'world system' has impacted on the economy and society of the periphery in a variety of ways. This impact has been transmitted mainly through trade and the mechanism of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) but it has done so unevenly and, more importantly, it has not led to the replacement of Fordist forms of industrial organisation with Post-Fordist forms on a global scale. In fact Fordist forms co-exist with Pre-Fordist and Post-Fordist forms in the same manner as different modes of production co-exist with each other in a single social formation. This is also visible in Malta where the rhetoric of post-modernity and post- industrial society hides the persistence of pre-modern cultural, social, economic and political features. FDI has been a driving feature of Malta's economy since the 1960s. One FDI driven development hailed as an example of transition of Fordism to Post-Fordism in Malta has been the establishment of outsource supplier networks linking small Maltese owned firms with largely foreign owned large export industries, many of which are themselves linked to bigger global brand leaders as outsource suppliers. This preliminary study aims at looking through the rhetoric of Post-Fordist clusters; flexible specialisation and 'small is beautiful' in the case of outsource suppliers in industry in Malta.