Toward a Third Industrial Divide?

Abstract

Introduction: The Second Divide Revisited The Second Industrial Divide: Possibilities for Prosperity was written in another time of great despair about the future of the American economy. Michael Piore and Charles Sabel described the mid-eighties in terms that seem to fit our own predicament: “The times are troubled indeed when thegood news is almost indistinguishable from the bad. Economic downturns no longer seem mere interruptions in the march to greater prosperity; rather they threaten to destroy the world markets on which economic success has depended since the end of World War II. Meanwhile, upturns avert disaster without solving the problems of unemployment and slow growth, which have become chronic in almost all the advanced countries. No theory seems able to explain recent events, let alone predict what will happen next.” (Piore and Sabel 1984, p. 3).