Groeger, C. V. (2021). The Education Trap: Schools and the Remaking of Inequality in Boston

Abstract

debatable. The consequences of its abandonment are not. Dispersed parallel production led to an inflexible system that could only compete on labor costs and ensured deindustrialization. With so much sunk into this model, U.S. manufacturers resorted to half measures, like the GM-Toyota joint plant in California or Saturn in Tennessee. Yet these efforts occurred in the context of significant cuts and no trust was gained in the process. The results were devastating, particularly in the industrial heartland—something neither the Obama-era bailout nor Trump-era push for American manufacturing, however real, could reverse. As Murray and Schwartz demonstrate, flexible production is not sustainable when workers do not trust management. Lean and untrustworthy will not cut it.