ABSTRACT
In this chapter I turn to an industry that differs sharply from the cotton and steel industries in its level of technical complexity. The industry is complex both in the continuous and varied streams of new science-based innovations that it has produced and in the need for extensive and precise technical coordination across products needed to make electrical systems work. We shall see that this technical complexity has led to the ongoing domination of the world’s electrical industry by the same top four or five firms since its beginnings in the late nineteenth century. Technical complexity has both required the type of coordination and scientific initiatives that these large firms have been capable of, and provided the opportunity for these firms to retain their dominance. As with steel, there have been persistent attempts by firms to control markets through cartels and other inter-industry collaborative practices. However, unlike the steel industry, technical complexity allowed leading firms to engage in these collaborative practices without state assistance. There never was a “European Electrical Community”, nor were there systems of state-negotiated export restraints or widespread nationalizations. The technological profile of the international electrical industry has allowed powerful private firms to retain their lead, forestall the competitive pressures that come with maturation, and rely on their own initiatives rather than the actions of states to provide a source of predictability and order in the industry.
