Global Fordism in 1950s Urban China

This article highlights the striking similarity of underlying social forms on both sides of the 1950s Cold War divide. Urban China in the early People’s Republic is interpreted as a variant of Fordism, a coherent social system that assumed hegemony across the globe in the postwar period. Under Fordism, bureaucratic mediation of a rationalized production process was brought together with a new regime of inclusive and homogeneous work and culture, all of which supported a vision of national unity and industrial development. Such an understanding may prove useful in working through difficulties in theorizing this period and in pursuing new directions for research.