Jobless Future: Sci-Tech and the Dogma of Work

Examining the job market of the future this book goes behind the headlines to challenge the idea that a high-tech economy will provide high-paying jobs for all who want them. The authors demonstrate that continued layoffs and job displacements are more likely. Reviewing a vast body of encouraging literature about the post-industrial age, Aronowitz and DiFazio conclude that neither theory, history, nor contemporary evidence warrants optimism about a technological economic order. Instead, they demonstrate the shift toward a massive displacement of employees at all levels and a large-scale degradation of the labour force. As they clearly chart a major change in the nature, scope and amount of paid work, the authors suggest that notions of justice and the good life based on full employment must change radically as well. They close by proposing alternatives to our dying job culture that might help us sustain ourselves and maintain our well-being in a science-based, technological economic future. One alternative discussed is reducing the work day so that fewer hours are worked with pay remaining constant.