ABSTRACT
This chapter sketches out the intellectual biography and history of the key flexible specialisation theorists – Michael J. Piore and Charles F. Sabel. It examines the pre-history and intellectual concerns of these two economists and social scientists regarding industrial dualism, migration, and broader issues of modernisation, industrialisation, and development specifically relating to the United States; in turn, the chapter examines and introduces the broad debates around Taylorism (Scientific Management) Fordism, neo-Fordism, and post-Fordism from the late 1970s onwards. The chapter introduces some of the major themes regarding the notion of the ‘Second Industrial Divide’, flexible manufacturing systems, industrial districts, and so on. It goes on to outline some of the themes introduced and developed by Piore in his book Beyond Individualism How Social Demands of the New Identity Groups Challenge American Political and Economic Life (1995), which opens up the argument to looking at the strategic and political aspects of the FSRP (Flexible Specialisation Research Programme) particularly regarding debates around regulation theory and the emergence, consolidation, and, arguably, decomposition of capitalist neoliberalism, but more importantly still – the sketching out of a strategy and plan for constructing a more egalitarian and just socio-economic world.
