Globalization, new production concepts and income distribution

The paper gives a brief description of the transformation on a global scale of the old international production concept of mass production towards the new global concept of lean production as an explanation for the increasing inequality in income distribution since the 1980s. The information is based on research of the electronics industry. The salient point is that mass production heavily depends on conveyor‐belt work, while lean production (batch size one) is increasingly relying on sub‐contracting (co‐makership, just‐in‐time delivery) which is part of the strategy of large suppliers to concentrate production on their core activities, on global sourcing and on coalition‐forming. The former left room for low qualified employment and “on the job training”, while the concentration on core activities etc. tends to redirect work to highly remunerated but decreasing employment in large enterprises, and to poorly rewarded work in an increasing number of smaller subcontractor and co‐maker firms. The risks involved for income distribution are self‐evident.