ABSTRACT
In this chapter we consider the general role played by lean production as an integral element of capitalist globalization. Struna (2013) identifies “the global capitalism perspective” as an emergent research program. This program is based on analyzing and theorizing the capitalist practices of transnational corporations (TNCs) and the rise of various other connected transnational social and material dynamics. We analyze in particular how the processes and practices of lean production are employed by a major TNC in the automobile industry to systematically undermine the security and well-being of workers in a newly industrializing nation in Asia (India). We develop the argument that worker subjugation and vulnerability are the hallmarks of global lean production, relentlessly systematized by ideologically indoctrinated managers who impose greater uniformity and standardization of the codes and rules of the global economy in their pursuit of capitalist accumulation through the exploitation of labour as a naked commodity.
The “global capitalism perspective” or school of thought has placed the activities of TNCs as the driving element of today’s dominant social forces. Different approaches within this school of thought have been propounded, from a network approach, to historical-materialist approaches and a Foucauldian-inspired approach (Sprague, 2011). In regards to the dominant social forces of the global capitalism epoch, scholars have looked for example at the network relationship between the transnational capitalist class (TCC) and the exercise of corporate power (Carroll, 2010; Harris, 2013). In pursuing research on the TCC, Sklair (1996) distinguishes between the concepts of national/international (which rests on nation-state centrist approaches) and transnational/global (which rests on transnational approaches). Robinson and Harris (2000) explain that the extension of trade and financial flows between national states is referred to as internationalization (arm’s-length, shallow integration), but the globalization of the production process itself represents transnationalization (deep integration) that supersedes the confines of national states. They propound that groups and classes from different transnational and national orientations conflict with one another, including through state apparatuses and various institutions. Whereas Robinson
