Míster Ford en el Océano

Resumo

This paper seeks to approximate the development of the Fordist system in fisheries. This system, disseminated in the agro-food industry in the United States in the thirties, by assimilation of changes in the durable consumer goods industry, was replicated by the set of Western agricultural sectors after the Second World War. The changes in the industrial model allowed to increase productivity substantially, establishing a system of accumulation based on production and mass consumption. The new industrial nature also affected fishing. The demand for abundant and homogeneous resources imposed by fishing technology of Fordist type, promoted the intensification and globalization of the activity, generating new economic and ecological dynamics. In the following pages we will address, first, the diffusion of Fordism in the agri-food industry and the incorporation of fish into new forms of consumption; next, we will analyze its expression in the fishing activity, the new forms of exploitation and conservation of the fish; then, we will study the factors that provided consistency to the system in the sixties and seventies; its technological bases and its exceptional institutional and economic framework.