Generally used to refer to the organizational structure of production and consumption, the concepts of Fordism and post-Fordism have been applied to describe other institutional arrangements from the state to education to culture, art, and the media. Historically, the Fordist mode of production and consumption emerged in America during the turn of the twentieth century, when Henry Ford established mass production techniques in his automobile factories. Ford based his production techniques on a model of scientific management that was informed by the research of Frederick Taylor. According to Taylor, the productivity of workers could be increased if each component of the production process was broken down into simple, repetitive tasks. This assemblyline labor method meant that workers did not need to acquire specialized skills to ...