In this book Jeremy Rifkin argues that the global labour force is declining, leading to the dawn of a new era characterised by large numbers of people not having formal, paid employment. Whether this will result in a life of leisure for many or mass unemployment with associated crime and social chaos will depend on how these technological changes are dealt with. Rifkin's arguments are backed up again and again with case studies from around the world, although the book is written mainly from a United States perspective.
Orthodox economists have argued that as technology removes jobs, new ones are created. For example, jobs in agriculture declined while manufacturing employment increased, now followed by declining manufacturing employment and increased employment in service industries. This traditional idea is challenged by Rifkin, who points out that employment levels are now (in the United States, at least) declining in agriculture, manufacturing and service industries. The only new sector expanding employment is the knowledge sector, consisting of educated technocrats. This sector is unlikely to ever absorb the masses of unskilled labour made redundant by the job losses in the other sectors of the economy.
Rifkin gives detailed and recent examples of organisations and industries which are managing to restructure themselves to manage with ever fewer employees. One of the few Australian examples mentioned is the robotized sheep shearing machine, which if perfected, will be likely to make many sheep shearers redundant. Numerous other examples, both historical and current, are given showing the impact of automation on demand for labour. Biotechnology trends are explored, possibilities ranging from orange juice grown in vats to indoor tissue-culture food production, making most farmers redundant. New developments in the steel industry are examined, mini-mills, using one twelfth the human labor of older style giant integrated steel mills, are already responsible for one third of United States steel production. United States Steel, the largest integrated steel company in the United States, employed 120,000 workers in 1980, by 1990 the workforce had been reduced to 20,000 with the same output, with further productivity improvements envisaged. Employment in the appliance manufacturing industries (in the U. S.) is shown to have halved in the last twenty years, virtually none of this decline due to falling demand or growing imports.
The standard argument that job losses in manufacturing are balanced by new jobs created in service industries is questioned and found to be lacking. Information technologies are making inroads into the service sector itself. The Wall Street Journal is quoted " Much of the huge U.S. service sector seems to be on the verge of an upheaval similar to that which hit farming and manufacturing, where employment plunged for years while production increased steadily. Technological advances are now so rapid that companies can shed far more workers than they need to hire to implement the technology or support expanding sales." Voice recognition technology is shown to be capable of displacing thousands of employees in the telecommunications industry. Machines capable of reading addresses on letters and cards have the potential to displace thousands of postal workers. Changes in banking technology have, and will continue, to eliminate the jobs of thousands.
The results of these changes is visible in the growing chasm between haves and have-nots. The author points to a range of indicators examining levels of home-ownership, income inequalities, people living in poverty, all of which show the dangers possible if the consequences of technological changes are not recognised and dealt with. The possibility of a techno-utopia is shown to have a dark side littered with alienated workers with skills that are no longer relevant.
Technological utopians have long argued that human beings would be freed from formal work by science and technology. Exactly what all these people should then do with their time has received less attention. Rifkin proposes that "third sector" (ie. non profit, non-governmental) organizations will play an increasingly important role, possibly with the government providing a social wage for those people who work as volunteers in these organizations. Again examples from around the world are given, showing how this sector is expanding already.
The End of Work is filled with detail, both historical and current, and raises issues which we will all be confronted with, either by personal experience, or through the experiences of friends and colleagues.
Copyright 1995 Brad Calvert