numerous other financial services, such as futures and derivatives, expanded the range of opportunities to acquire credit and circumvent (declining) Fordist capital controls. As credit became increasingly internationalized and capital controls were slowly liberalized, states relinquished their ability to determine interest rate policy, thereby causing the "erosion of the (political institutional) regulation of the whole Fordist system." This left the Fordist government with a very limited toolbox to combat the exigencies of the market.Another pillar of the global Fordist economic structure, the GATT, undermined in many developed states the cumulative accumulation process. As tariffs and other trade barriers were lifted, imports of cheaper and more technologically refined goods successfully competed with domestic industries, causing widespread political tension and dissent. The international failure of Fordist industries with relatively high wages, combined with increased attention to exports as a source of foreign exchange and a stabilizer of the balance of payments, caused wages to be seen less a contributor to the cumulative economic cycle and more as an impediment to competitiveness. The focus on sustaining national aggregate demand via social wage policy was overwhelmed by the drive for competitiveness and export growth.Perhaps the single biggest failure of Fordism was its inability to contain capitalisms inherent push to overcome Fordist rigidities. Fordist regimes of production and consumption are inherently inflexible. The long-term and large-scale fixed capital investments in mass-production systems, as well as long-term labor contracts, collective bargaining, and state commitments to aggregate demand management all presumed stable consumer demand and growth over a long period of time. As global finance and international trade began to circulate at a greater speed across more diverse spaces, rigid Fordist economic st...
