New Geography in the Global Automotive Industry

This book is a valuable contribution for all those interested in the functioning of the historical geography of capitalism. As sociology has been emphasizing for some years now, throughout the 20th century, capital has perfected its mobility capacity, subjecting communities, workers and territories, increasingly susceptible to locational blackmail, that is, to the constant threat of plant closures. This process is due, for example, to union pressure and the reluctance of other agents to ensure production stability. As these plants adopt increasingly modern practices, characterized by highly compact industrial organization models such as Completely Knock-Down (CKD) and its prefabricated and imported kits, the attachment of these companies to their locations weakens. Consequently, the trend of investment becomes more frequent. This book accurately identifies these movements, above all, in terms of Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs), which flood countries and regions lacking 'indigenous' automobile groups and transform them into low-cost production and export platforms.