Driving Productivity: Automation, Labor, and Industrial Development in the United States and Germany (Studies in Critical Social Sciences)

Driving Productivity reconstructs the industrial histories of the American and German automotive industries, offering a fresh perspective on their development.

From the Fordist assembly line to Japanese lean production and Industry 4.0, Anthony J. Knowles critically examines major technical developments within the historical dynamics of capitalism. Both countries face the pressure to automate, transform labor, and increase efficiency, yet their responses differ due to divergent paradigms of integrating business, labor, and government. The book makes a strong case that improving productivity is a never-ending process that becomes a compulsory social imperative that industries must respond to but that is nevertheless responded to differently between countries.

Anthony J. Knowles is Teaching Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Tennessee. His research pertains to the social and economic effects of technologies. His most recent publication "The Artificiality of Digital Scarcity" (Fast Capitalism 21(1), 2024) theorizes how online filesharing generates a "crisis of value" for media industries.