ABSTRACT
A combination of continuing low rates of profit had coincided with a downturn in the economic cycle to produce the most serious crisis since the 1930s. The examples of the transforming economies are similarly remarkable for both their diversity and the parallel attempts by both state and employers to deal with the legitimized demands of labour by alternative methods of incorporation and control. In South Korea the economy had contracted by 3.8 per cent in the first three months of 1998 alone, sparking a wave of industrial unrest including a workers' and relatives' occupation of the huge Hyundai works. In Britain, for example, the South Korean conglomerates Hyundai and Lucky Star have both frozen their investments, while both the German giant Siemens and Fujitsu of japan had closed 'state of the art' semi-conductor factories in the depressed north-east of England.
