ABSTRACT
We labelled the third and final form of production reorganization ‘rationalization’. Unlike intensification and technical change, this strategy produces job loss as a direct result of disinvestment. The term ‘rationalization’ has become one of the theme-tunes of recession; its connotations of more sensible organization and of order are frequently appealed to in explanation of cutbacks in production and closures of plant. In this study the term is used to refer to disinvestment. Rationalization thus involves complete or partial plant closure, the scrapping of capital equipment and cutbacks in the labour force. No major reinvestment in plant and machinery, or new factory premises is undertaken. The only alteration to existing production and labour processes is thus one of scale, the end result being a reduction in the productive base of the industries in which it is undertaken.
