Empire of Illusion - Chris Hedges [73]
Toyota pioneered the new approach. “Toyota City” was built by the corporation to completely encapsulate and control the lives of its employees. “Total control over the social environment is an important component of thought reform programs,” González wrote.31 “At Toyota City, thousands of young men were housed in military-style dormitories, surrounded by a fence and a guardhouse.” He also describes how, “during the time Kamata wrote his account, visitors—including family members—were not allowed to enter the dorms to visit temporary workers. Roommate assignments often grouped men from the same town together,” because, “according to Kamata, ‘it helps them adjust to the new environment and stay put during the employment period.’”32
These techniques were adopted by “U.S. bureaucracies and corporations, such as supermarkets, schools, banks, and government offices, including the Pentagon.”33 During the 1990s, American and Japanese automakers began pursuing what they called the Southern Strategy. They set up factories modeled on Toyota City in Tennessee, Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana, where, they believed, a lack of unions and rural insularity made for a fertile environment .34
González quotes Kamata’s personal account of Toyota City in the 1970s as an example of how emotional stress and sheer fatigue can create bewildering confusion and despair reminiscent of the experiences of those who are inducted into a cult. “When I come back from work,” Kamata recounts, “I do nothing but sleep. I try not to think about the job; even the thought of it is enough to make me feel sick. Mostly, I feel too tired to think about anything.” Several weeks later, Kamata slips into trancelike states on the assembly line:
[S]ometimes I think of something totally illogical: landscapes with towns I once visited suddenly appear one by one. It’s impossible to concentrate on any one scene. . . . I’m not myself while I’m on the line. . . . It often surprises me to look up and suddenly find some strange scene in front of my eyes. In that split second I always wonder where I am. Merely seeing the light come in through a door on the opposite side of the building can bowl me over. . . . Again, for a few seconds, I’m totally disoriented.35
This peer group approach replicates the techniques used in coercive influence and control programs in Communist China, the Soviet Union, and North Korea. In these programs, the target subject “would become emotionally attached to the peer group members, who ‘came to know the target’s personality and history exceedingly well.’”36
“ . . . [A] prisoner in Communist China would develop a circle of friends among his jailers,” explains González, “who could reward or sanction him according to whether or not his behavior fit their standards. Eventually, his behavior could be conditioned through peer pressure.”37
Similar processes occur in the cooperative work groups. Kamata explains: “If Fukuyama, the worker on my right, falls behind, he’ll pull me behind, since I barely keep up with the work myself. Even if Fukuyama finishes his job in time, should I take longer on my job, then the next worker, Takeda, will be pulled out of his position. It takes enormous energy to catch up with the line, and if things go wrong, the line stops.”38
Anthropologist Alejandro Lugo, who worked at a maquiladora plant in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, describes a similar experience. He dropped behind many times in his first few days of work, and writes that “the pressure would be almost unbearable” as members of his work group would