An article in today's paper sums up the first half of this class nicely. It is the tale of two tire factories in France, one doomed to failure due to a powerful union who will not agree to conditions designed to make the plant more competitive, the other with a future because its workforce is more amenable to change. The prevalent theme: a European country trying to save its industrial base in the face of global economic forces that necessitate massive increases in efficiency (car sales in Europe are the lowest in 20 years) and flexible workers; an objective at odds with a labor force used to the generous conditions of the welfare state. In the context of the theory we have been reading, this story feels like a clash of centuries: the union workers symbolising mid-20th fordism, the restructuring factory acknowledging the reality of 21st century neoliberalism and the global market. I enjoy the juxtaposition of this sad tale of the economic reality of globalisation with an advertisement for a luxury hotel in Miami, the page as a whole symbolising the inequalities created by capitalism on a global scale.
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