.
In the case of the cyclical late capitalist product markets, which afflicted Caterpillar within its North American home-market, demand from the construction industry turned into fitful as infrastructural investement declined. The volume sales' peak of 85.000 units in 1973 was not surpassed because the growth of new demand weakened, and the market in which Caterpillar acted became more cyclical. The overall revenue generated in Caterpillar's product market fell, as market maturity was also combined with a sustained fall in unit costs. Indeed, as observable considering the unit value trends of the U.S. shovel loaders, in 1986 the real price per unit was only 70% of the 1972 price. This changed trajectory clearly reflects the increasingly difficult external environment represented by the saturation of the market. The repetitive manufacturing systems of the industry were stressed by switchback fluctuations in volume, and financial cost recovery were made more difficult as the final product prices diminished because of the producers' ongoing competition to keep their factories going by discounting the product (Froud et al. 1998). The cost-based competition faced by Caterpillar was further enhanced as "high volume standardized production continued its ineluctable move to where labor is cheapest and most accessible around the world" (Reich 1991, p.210). This means that competition following the maturity stage did not only develop on a national scale, but also on an international one, as Caterpillar faced an unanticipated surge of competition from overseas, especially from the Japanese company Komatsu. However, it is important to specify, as Froud et al. (1998) successfully argue, that Komatsu has never had a productive advantage over Caterpillar. Presenting a comparative flow measure for the company in terms of a value added/stocks measure, Froud et al. (1998) indeed demonstrate that the company with a constantly superior flow from 1980 to 1995 is Caterpillar, not Komatsu.
