The New International Division of Labor:Re-evaluation

신국제노동분업의 재평가

As an exit to solve the economic depression of the development countries in the early twentieth century, the 'old international division of labor' developed. The economic crisis(i.e., under-consumption crisis) was due to the absence of the mode of regulation compatible with the extensive regime of accumulation(i.e., "Fordist" regime). The crisis was solved by the state intervention through the creation on institutions in order to increase the level of consumption. Until the late 1960s when "high Fordism" reached(i.e., a harmonious relation between the monopoly mode of regulation and the intensive accumulation of capital), the developed core countries enjoyed a remarkable economic growth. The external market was not a necessity for the economic growth because there were increases in labor productivity and proportional increases in real wages and thus increases in consumption level. In the 1970s, however, the core faced with economic crisis again. Due to the breakdown of the postwar "Fordist" regime of capital accumulation and the post 1973 world depression, the core needed the Third World as a solution for their internal and international economic crisis. Thus the 'new international division of labor'(NIDL) arose. The "Fordist" method of production(i.e., the divisions of production process) led to the territorial division of labor and to the detailed division of labor. The aim of the NIDL is to exploit reserve armies of labor on a world scale and thus to reduce production costs. According to the NIDL model, the Third World countries have been developing by the core countries' investment on mainly labor-intensive industries and thus have been playing an important role in the global economy. And the NIDL theorists argue that multinational corporations have increasingly invested in the Third World nations and contributed to the economic growth in those regions. Tables presented in the paper show that the global trend since the 1970s does not follow the argument exactly as the NIDL theorists predicted. On the contrary, the core countries focus on developing technology, adopting the automation of production process, and trading within the core countries rather than on investing in the periopheral countries. The continuing investment of multinational corporations into the periphery is not because of cheap labor force but because of the market potentials in the regions. Majority of corporations of the core tries to reduce production costs by investing in technological development more intensively and also by changing regional strategies (i.E., investment from metropolitan areas to medium - or small - size cities, focusing on agglomeration economy, boosting regional diversification, etc.) within their own countries. The main purpose of the paper is to review and to criticize the NIDL theory based on some empirical data.IDL theory based on some empirical data.