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A Rifkin Reader
Jeremy Rifkin and The End of Work
IN HIS COMPELLING, disturbing, and ultimately hopeful book, The End of Work (1994), Jeremy Rifkin argues that we are entering a new phase in history-one characterised by the steady and inevitable decline of jobs.
Worldwide unemployment is now at the highest level since the great depression of the 1930s. The number of people underemployed or without work is rising sharply as millions of new entrants into the workforce find themselves victims of an extraordinary high-technology revolution. Sophisticated computers, robotics, telecommunications, and other cutting-edge technologies are fast replacing human beings in virtually every sector and industry - from manufacturing, retail, and financial services, to transportation, agriculture, and government.
Many jobs are never coming back. Blue collar workers, secretaries, receptionists, clerical workers, sales clerks, bank tellers, telephone operators, librarians, wholesalers, and middle managers are just a few of the many occupations destined for virtual extinction. While some new jobs are being created, they are, for the most part, low paying and generally temporary employment. More than fifteen percent of the American people are currently living below the poverty line.
The world, says Rifkin, is fast polarizing into two potentially irreconcilable forces: on one side, an information elite that controls and manages the high-tech global economy; and on the other, the growing numbers of permanently displaced workers, who have few prospects and little hope for meaningful employment in an increasingly automated world.
Rifkin suggests that we move beyond the delusion of retraining for nonexistent jobs. He urges us to begin to ponder the unthinkable - to prepare ourselves and our institutions for a world that is phasing out mass employment in the production and marketing of goods and services. Redefining the role of the individual in a near workerless society is likely to be the single most pressing issue in the decades to come.
Rifkin says we should look toward a new, post- market era. Fresh alternatives to formal work will need to be devised. New approaches to providing income and purchasing power will have to be implemented. Greater reliance will need to be placed on the emerging "third sector" to aid in the restoration of communities and the building of a sustainable culture.
The end of work could mean the demise of civilization as we have come to know it, or signal the beginning of a great social transformation and a rebirth of the human spirit.
THE END OF WORK
— The Decline of the Global Labour Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era (350pg)
by Jeremy Rifkin
published 1995 by Tarcher/Putman
ISBN 0-87477-779-8
Available from booksellers
or www.amazon.com
THE END OF WORK
— Penguin Paperback edition (pub 2000) (350pg)
with new introduction and postscript by Jeremy Rifkin
ISBN 0-14-029558-5
Available from booksellers
or www.amazon.co.uk
The End of Work is the result of a three-year study of the changing conditions and nature of work in the Information Age.
Mr. Rifkin holds a degree in economics from the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce of the University of Pennsylvania, and a degree in international affairs from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
He is the founder and current President of the Foundation on Economic Trends in Washington, DC, USA.
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