The End of Work by Jeremy Rifkin

What I wrote on the Canadian unemployment rate website:

“Mark is correct. Unemployment rates are only based on people who are on unemployment insurance. Only about 50% of unemployed workers today are eligible for unemployment insurance in Canada and that rate is decreasing with higher requirements set by the government. To prove that you are looking for work, people are generally required to go to unemployment offices to prove that they had gone to interviews with companies by providing contact information with their human resource departments. Alfred, it would be very difficult to measure the number of people who are not employed. For example, there are students, homeless, and rich people who do not need jobs or cannot find jobs who are not counted as unemployed.if anyone would like more information about unemployment, a good book to read would be "the end of work" by Jeremy Rifkin which can find that a local library. in this book Rifkin argues that as technology progresses and replaces laborers in both blue-collar and white-collar workforces unemployment will follow. for example, today manufacturing jobs even in China are being replaced by machines; bank tellers are being replaced by ATMs; data entry jobs are being replaced by programs; and especially middle-management jobs are being replaced by corporate restructuring. A solution tested by unions and even used in France today was to lower the workweek to 35 - 30 hours a week, this was so that more people can be employed and money could circulate more freely to keep up with the increase in productivity from machines. It's better to employ two people four hours a day then one person eight hours a day so that governments will not have to pay as much in unemployment insurance. This also makes companies happy because then they could schedule work around peak hours, more efficiently which is a highly valued strategy to stay competitive in a globalized economy today.”

Global unemployment has become a serious issue. US statistics in chronological order: 1994, 6.6%; 2000, 4%; 2003, 6%. European Union: average of 7.9%. Global statistics: 1995, 800 million; 2001, over 1 billion. US prison population: 1980, half a million; 2000, 2 million – – equal to 1.8% of the adult male workforces in prison.

Permanent Job Loss Recovery.

There has been a significant amount of job cuts and job losses. Economists have been recommending that the unemployed increase their skills for more sophisticated high-tech jobs of the future, however, 44% of the long-term unemployed in 2002 were educated beyond high school. And statistics have shown that within 2003, there's been an increase in the US GDP in all sectors. However, the unemployment continues to remain high.

Productivity Conundrum.

"Some critics blame the increase in unemployment on cheap labor and cheaper imports from abroad, and rail against American companies for relocating production and services South of the border and overseas. Well, there is been some truth to the claim, the deeper cause of the spreading unemployment in America and around the world lies with dramatic boost in productivity." (xvii)

As technology progresses, companies can now produce more with less workers every year thousands of manufacturing jobs are being replaced by advances in productivity, in the form of cheaper, more efficient technologies and better methods for organizing work. This is not limited to blue-collar jobs but also white-collar jobs, which are now being replaced by intelligent technologies such as voice recognition technologies used by telecom companies and automatic transaction machines by banks. The global economy now is being supported by a massive consumer debt because people are taking loans without jobs. Traditionally, politics would protect workers by increasing wages and benefit requirements from companies. Workers would strike with their unions, however, globalization has allowed management to move capital and plants elsewhere creating a race to the bottom.

"The result is that the productivity gains, rather than being shared with the workers in the form of increased wages and benefits, mainly accrue to the benefit of shareholders in the form of increased dividends as well as bloated salaries for senior management. Of course, in the end, the whole system suffers when the paychecks of working people shrink or disappear altogether." (xxi)

"some economists put forth the argument that even though workers' wages and benefits are shrinking, increases in productivity are making goods and services cheaper and, therefore, allowing working people to buy more with less income. If that were the case, working people would not be going deeper and deeper into debt to survive." (xxi)

it's estimated that only 5% of the adult population will be required to manage and operate traditional industry in the year 2050. "Of course, the coming era will bring with it all sorts of new goods and services that, in turn, will require new occupational skills, especially in the more sophisticated knowledge Arena. However, these new jobs, by their nature, are elite and restricted in numbers. We will never again see thousands of workers stream out of the factory gates and service centers as we did in the 20th century." (xxii)

Creating Millions of Jobs in the New Hydrogen Age.

Electricity is needed in South Africa the three people from survival based societies into productive industrial societies. The idea is to introduce hydrogen-based energy infrastructures into the poorest countries by infusing investment capital. Another way to bring investment capital into poor countries and the Third World is the privatization of real estate, which is estimated at 9 trillion.

A shortened work week in the industrialized nations means more people can be kept on the employment rolls. This was experimented on in France in 2000 with a workweek reduced to 35 hours a week, France experienced an increase in productivity and overall enjoyment. 2002, French workers produced $41.85 of output per hour or $3.02 per hour, more than American workers.

In the competitive globalized markets, "government needed to compensate companies by freeing them of payroll or whether corporate taxes in direct proportion to the expenses incurred in shortening the workweek. Governments will lose revenue at the front end, but they will pick it

up at the back end. Were people working means fewer people on welfare, more paychecks, more consumption, increase personal savings and investment, and more employed people paying both personal income and sales tax, all increasing the government's revenue base." (xxix-xxx)

the third sector also known as nonprofit organizations have significantly increased total employment growth, creating millions of jobs. Is been found that up to 50% of nonprofit is funded by fees for services and products dispelling the myth that nonprofit sectors are dependent on government or private charity to sustain themselves.

Serious consideration has been given to using tech shifting arrangements to shift the burden of tax from personal income to polluters or those that use natural resources. The increase in tax on natural resources such as gasoline, home heating, electricity, and automobile use has influenced people and industries to be more efficient and conservative.

A new concept has occurred called the kind of social currency between people stored in time banks. Every hours Someone contributes to social society is equivalent to one time dollar, no matter the expertise one dollar equals one hour. "The idea creating reciprocal obligations among equals is a far superior form of engagement than just volunteering one's services to others in need. The latter often creates an unequal relationship of dependency – – the feeling that one is being given charity – – because it does not allow the person in need a way to reciprocate. Social dollars reinforces the idea of "mutual aid": that is, bringing together many more people into cooperative relationships with one another." (xxxix) This system has been tested in health maintenance organizations and has been effective in transforming patients from passive recipients to act the providers of health care.

Man and machine have had an interesting relationship. At first machines replaced farmers and to have reduce the farming population to about 3%, after machines have taken the worker farmers. They created new jobs in manufacturing but even today manufacturing jobs are being cut by new technologies. But again, technology has offered new possibilities for employment in service sectors such as teaching, nursing, mates, babysitting, government officials, file clerks, and salesman, etc. Now computers are threatening the service sector and we're not sure what new employment may be emerging to absorb the mass of unemployed workers. "The only new sector emerging as the knowledge sector, made up of small elite of entrepreneurs, scientists, technicians, computer programmers, professional educators and consultants. While the sectors growing, is not expected absorb more than a fraction of the hundreds of millions will be eliminated in the next several decades in the wake of revolutionary advances in the information and communication sciences." (xlvii)

Part One. The Two Faces of Technology.

The End of Work

"Intelligent machines are replacing human workers in countless tasks, forcing millions of blue and white collar workers into unemployment lines." (3) "The young are beginning to vent their frustration and arrange in increasingly antisocial behavior. workers, between a prosperous past

and a bleak future, seem resigned, feeling increasingly trapped by social forces over which they have little or no control." (5)

Substituting Software for Employees.

In order to remain competitive, companies have been replacing workers with machines at an accelerated pace. Any simple repetitive jobs done by humans are in danger of being replaced.

"' Reengineering' is sweeping through the corporate community… Companies are quickly restructuring or organizations to make them computer friendly. In this process, they are eliminating layers of traditional management, compressing job categories, creating work teams, training employees and multilevel skills, shortening and simplifying production and distribution processes, and streamlining administration." (6-7).

It is estimated that reengineering can reduce 40 to 75% of the company's workforce. Middle management is particularly vulnerable to job loss from reengineering. It's estimated that up to 80% of those engaged in middle management task are susceptible to elimination.

Although it's become popular to blame the loss of manufacturing jobs in the US to foreign competition from the Third World it's truer to say that jobs are being replaced by automation. From 1979 to 1992, productivity, increased by 35% in the manufacturing sector while the workforce shrank by 15%. (8)

As computers are becoming more powerful and faster white-collar jobs are also being replaced at a rapid pace. Some economic researchers believe that small high-tech businesses are picking up the unemployed. However, more recent studies have destroyed that myth stating that the number of people employed in small businesses not changed since the 1960s.

A World without Workers

"For some, particularly the scientists, engineers, and employers, a world without work will signal the beginning of a new era in history, in which human beings are liberated, at long last, from a life of backbreaking toil and mindless, repetitive tasks. For others, the workerless society conjures up the notion of a grim future of mass unemployment and global destitution, punctuated by increased social unrest and upheaval. On one point, virtually all the contending parties agree. We are, indeed, entering into a new period in history – – one in which machines increasingly replace human beings in the process of making and moving goods and providing services." (12)

"Whether a utopian or dystopian future awaits us depends, to great measures, and how to productivity gains of the information age are distributed. A fair and equitable distribution of the productivity gains would require shortening of the workweek around the world and a concerted effort by central governments to provide alternative employment in the third sector – – the social economy – – for those whose labor is no longer required in the marketplace. If, however, the dramatic productivity gains of the high-tech revolution are not shared, but rather used primarily

to enhance corporate profit, the exclusive benefit of the stockholders, top corporate managers, and the emerging elite of high-technology workers, chances are the growing gap between the haves and have-nots will lead to social and political upheaval on a global scale." (13)

Chapter 2: Trickle-Down Technology and Market Realities.

Economists don't say but imply the old trickle-down technology argument written by neoclassical French economist John Baptiste, which states that as soon as one product is created a new market for that product is also created, furthering both the demand for the product and the demand for labor. Example, phones led to phone cases. The trickle-down technology theory assumes that any job lost by technological improvement will be replaced by the new market to keep up with the extra demand.

The trickle-down theory also assumes that increased unemployment will lower wages and encourage employers to hire additional workers. David noble argues that producers will continually attempt to reduce labor costs with technology and will eventually eliminate the worker altogether.

The Roaring 20s. (18)

The trickle-down theory of technology was put to the test in the roaring 20s. Products were being produced with fewer worker hours and more people were being laid off, this caused a buyers strike in the 1920s which the national Association of Manufacturers attempted to and by convincing people to put money back to work to keep "America employed."

The Gospel of Mass Consumption.

Today, the average American consumes twice as much as he or she did at the end of World War II. Before World War II people were content, earning just enough money for a few luxuries and to survive. Businessmen were looking for ways to convert the psychology of existing wage earners from thrifty spenders to full consumers. A huge marketing campaign was created to convince consumers that they were dissatisfied with their current products, which were outmoded, with new products. "The common men and women were invited to emulate the rich." (20) The new psychology changed America into a status conscious consumer society. A New marketing ploy was coupled the introduction of brand names to consumers. Product branding was revolutionary because even as late as 1900 most general stores sold staple goods, such as flour, sugar, and oats in unmarked bins and barrels. (21)

Another way to give instant gratification to customers was to allow them to buy merchandise and other goods on installment credit with monthly or weekly payments. By the time the 1920s hit the market crash, 60% of radios, automobiles, and furniture was being purchased on installment credit. A new classic consumer was also idealize, the suburban homeowner, who was effectively a middle-class aristocrat. The market crash was a results of the income of wage earners not rising fast enough to keep up with production. Most employers prefer to pocket the extra profit from productivity gains rather than pass the savings along to the workers in the form of higher wages. Henry Ford argued that if his workers could not buy the products they produce who would be able to buy his cars?

Even during the depression years, productivity gains continue to result in labor displacement, greater unemployment, and the further depression of the economy. The economic system seemed caught up in a terrible and ironic contradiction which there appeared no escape, trapped by an ever worsening depression, many companies continue to cut costs by substituting machines for workers, hoping to boost productivity – – only to add fuel to the fire. Trade unionists, business leaders, economists, and government officials began looking for a way out. "Organized labor began lobbying for a shorter work week as an equitable solution to the crisis, arguing that working people have a right to share in the productivity gains brought on by the new laborsaving technologies. By employing more people at fewer hours, labor leaders hope to reduce unemployment, stimulate purchasing power, and revived the economy." (25)

Share the Work Movement.

"Labor leaders at the time turned to the notion of matching productivity gains with reduction in hours worked as a way of putting people back to work, increasing purchasing power, and jumpstarting an idle economy.… If new technologies increase productivity and led to fewer workers and overproduction, the only appropriate answer was to reduce the number of hours worked, so that everyone would have a job and enough income and purchasing power to absorb the increases in production." (26)

the black bill, was a bill to mandate a 30 hour workweek in America that nearly passed in 1933 until Pres. Roosevelt killed the bill with the zone that would guarantee worker rights with federal protection. Later, Roosevelt voiced a regret that he did not get behind the black bill and pushing it through Congress. He said, "What does the country ultimately gain if we encourage businessmen to enlarge the capacity of American industry to reduce unless we see that the income of our working population actually expands to create markets to absorb the increase production." (29).

The New Deal.

Before being elected into office. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt enacted the first in a series of legislative programs designed to put America back to work. A few strategies of the Roosevelt and ministration was to create light projects which were labor-intensive to put paychecks in the hands of many laborers; past the Social Security act of 1935; pass the Fair Labor Standards Act to guarantee minimum wage standards and the National Labor Relations Act to make it easier for unions to organize; manipulate tax policies by increasing taxes on income, gifts, corporate profits, and the states to take money from the wealthy, who were more likely to over save, and give more money to the middle working class and the poor, who are more likely to spend. The new deal was only partially successful and it was actually World War II that brought America out of the depression.

The Postwar World.

The government became the largest employer through major defense contracts. In the 1980s, the US spent more than 2.3 trillion on military security. Nearly $46 out of every $100 of new capital went to the military economy.

New Realities.

"The new economic realities of the coming century make it far less likely that either the marketplace were public sector will once again be able to rescue the economy from increasing technological unemployment and we can consumer demand. Information and telecommunication technologies threaten the loss of tens of millions of jobs in the years ahead… The information age is making older products and services obsolete, they require far fewer workers to produce and operate.… The new data superhighway will employ an increasing number of computer scientists, engineers, producers, writers, and entertainers… Nonetheless, their numbers will pale in contrast to the millions of employees in the wholesale and retail sectors whose jobs will be made redundant and irrelevant by the new medium." (33)

", but global corporations are engaged in a fierce battle to lower trade barriers and pushing new untapped regions in search of markets for the expanding production of goods and services.… Corporate efforts to create new markets, however, are being met with only marginal success for the simple reason that the same technological and economic forces at work in America are affecting much of the global economy. In Europe, Japan, and a growing number of developing nations, reengineering and automation are replacing human labor at an ever accelerating rate, reducing effective demand in scores of countries." (34)

"with demand seriously weakened by rising unemployment and underemployment in most of the industrial world, the business community has turned to extending easy consumer credit in an effort to stimulate purchasing power. Installment buying, loans, and credit card purchases had become a way of life in many industrial countries." (35)

"between the mid-1950s and early 1980s, the fast growing service sector was able to reemploy many of blue-collar workers displaced by automation. Today, however, as always sectors fell victim to rapid restructuring and automation, no significant new sector has developed to absorb the millions were being displaced. The only new sector on the horizon is the knowledge sector, an elite group of industries and professional disciplines responsible for ushering in the new high-tech automated economy of the future.… While their numbers will continue to grow, they will remain small compared to the number of workers displaced by a new generation of "thinking machines"." (35)

Retraining for What?

The Clinton Administration pinned its hopes on retraining millions of Americans for high-tech jobs, however a study in 1993 by the Department of Labor found that less than 20% of those who were retrained under federal programs for dislocated workers were able to find new jobs paying at least 80% of their former salary. The truth is, the technology and knowledge required to run the new machines is beyond the grasp of the average American.

90 million Americans are so poorly educated, they cannot even write a brief letter explaining an error on a credit card, figure out a Saturday departure on a bus schedule or use a calculator to determine the difference between a sale price and the regular price. One out of every three adults in the United States is functionally, marginally, or completely illiterate. More than 20

million Americans are either unable to read or have less than a fifth grade reading level. 35 million have less than a ninth grade reading level. And it is said that employment qualifications for all but a handful of domestic jobs begins at the ninth grade level. For these Americans the hope of being retrained or school for a new job in the elite knowledge sector is painfully out of reach. (37)

The Shrinking Public Sector

for the past 60 years increase government spending has been the only viable means "to cheat the devil of ineffective demand" says economist Paul Samuelson. Every year the federal budget has run in the red the US government currently borrows one dollar for every four dollars that it spends.

All over the world nations are beginning to cut their budgets in order to address the problem of deficits and national debts, including the US. In the United States. Many of the cuts are occurring in defense. In the 1980s, the Pentagon budget was $371 billion by 1999 and declined to $276 billion. The number of government employees is also being reduced by the government downsizing and automating their services.

In the 1980s, the US government employs 17.9% of total employment. The Clinton administration announced that it intends to reengineer the government and intends to eliminate 12% of the current federal workforce, and save taxpayers billions in the process. The intention of cutting government spending has been to reduce interest rates and hope to increase consumer spending and business investment, however, "a number of economists believe that "job creating investment is influenced more by market demand and profit prospects than by interest rates." Low interest rates become increasingly irrelevant if there are insufficient customers to buy the products." (39)

"Despite mounting evidence of the destabilizing impacts of the new high-technology revolution, government leaders continue to champion the idea of trickle-down technology, believing, against all evidence to the contrary, that technological innovations, advances in productivity, and falling prices will generate sufficient demand and lead to the creation of more new jobs that are lost.… Holding onto an old and outmoded economic paradigm and the new postindustrial, post service error could prove disastrous for the global economy and for civilization in the 21st century." (39-40).

"Two very different ideas about technology's relation to worker coming into increasing conflict with one another on the eve of the new high-technology revolution.… The vision of the entrepreneurs keeps us locked in a world of market relations and commercial considerations. The second vision, the one championed by many of America's best-known utopian thinkers, brings us into an era in which the commercial forces of the marketplace are tempered by the communitarian forces of an enlightened society." (41)

Chapter 3: Visions of Techno-Paradise.

The invention of electricity and light bulbs sparked thoughts of utopia in the 1800s. Machines, once the novelty, were becoming a ubiquitous and essential component of the new modern way

of life. René Descartes was the first to advance the radical idea of nature as a machine. In his utilitarian world, God the Creator and Shepherd of Christianity was replaced with God, the remote angle technician who created and set in motion a machinelike universe that was orderly, predictable, and self-perpetuating.

The technological frame of reference became a permanent feature of American life… The glorified view of the machine did everything that was a life and part of the organic world appeared technological in nature. In less than half a century, the technological vision has succeeded in converting the American masses from foot soldiers of the Lord to factors of production and from sentient beings created in the likeness of God to tools fashioned in the image of machines.

Engineering Utopia.

Popular science fiction writers create utopias of material pleasures and unlimited leisure. Overnight a hungry populace embraced a new secular tech theology. Utopian as envisioned grand concentric megalopolises powered by electricity and serviced by machinery. They correctly predicted electric clothes washers and dryers, vacuum cleaners, air conditioners, refrigerators, garbage disposal, even electric razors. Most of the technological utopians thought their visions of the future would be realized in the United States and elsewhere within 100 years. Rather than their novels, Utopians were most influential in their staging of seven elaborate World Fairs that excited the masses of Americans, and captivated several generations of Americans.

The Cult of Efficiency.

"Engineers, experimenting with power driven machinery, began to use the term efficiency to measure energy flows and entropy losses. Efficiency came to mean the maximum yield that can be produced in the shortest time, expending the least amount of energy, labor, and capital in the process." (49)

Taylorism. Divided each worker's task in this most visibly identifiable operation and timed it, offering suggestions to become more efficient. Taylorism became incredibly popular affecting many portions of society from housekeeping, school administration, to government branches. At one point the push for efficiency attack schools and blame them for producing students who couldn't cope with technology; wanted to remove mayors and replaced them with civil engineers, urban planners, and architects.

In the 1920s, the engineer became the hero of post-Civil War America. Everybody wanted to be an engineer in the survey of 6000 high school seniors show up 31% of the boys choosing engineering as your occupational choice. When the depression hit in 1929 in the mayors wanted to defend efficiency and blamed businessmen for creating waste and inefficiency. The engineers claim that if they were in charge they would maximize production of goods and services that was being mishandled by ignorant businessmen. They envisioned a country run by professional engineers who, using the most rigorous standards of efficiency, would root out inefficiencies and operate the country like a finely tuned Megamachine.

The technocrats wanted a society ruled by science rather than ruled by Matt and very nearly got what they wanted, that was until Hitler came to power with his own fanatical session. What technological efficiency and this gave voters and other social thinkers second thoughts. Technology showed its dark side won the atom bomb was exploded on Japanese cities and serves as a constant reminder of modern technology is awesome power to destroy as well as to create the future. Other technological mishaps such as the crash of the Challenger space ship, the nuclear power plant explosion in Chernobyl, and the terrible environmental for modern technologies and exacted on the environment in the name of progress.

Part two: The Third Industrial Revolution.

First Industrial Revolution coal powered textile machinery. The steam revolution.

The second industrial revolution, Oil and electricity combat coal to light up cities and run motors. The second industrial revolution continues to shift the burden of economic activity from man to machine. In mining, our culture, transport, and manufacturing, inanimate sources of power combined with machines to augment amplified, and eventually replaced, more and more human and animal tasks in the economic process.

The third Industrial Revolution merged immediately after World War II. Numerically controlled computers and advanced computers and software are invading the last remaining human sphere – – the realm of the mind. Properly programmed, these new Thinking Machines are increasingly capable of performing conceptual, Nigeria, and administrative functions and coordinating the flow production, from extracting of raw materials for the marketing and distribution of final goods and services.

Machines That Think.

"An ambitious effort has been put forward by the Japanese to create soft logic. Using new computers equipped with massive parallel processing, neural networks, and optical signals, the Japanese people hope to create a new generation of intelligent machines that can read text, understand complex speech, interpret facial gestures and expressions, and even anticipate behavior." (61)

Already there are computer programs that can recognize casual speech and even carry on meaningful conversation. There are currently more than 100 million computers in the world, and computer companies predict that more than 1 billion will be in use by the turn-of-the-century. Many computer scientists look today. One intelligent machines will be sophisticated enough to evolve on their own – creating, in effect, their own consciousness – – without the need of constant human intervention.

In the future, scientists hope to humanize their machines, creating lifelike computer-generated images of human faces that can converse with the user from a video display screen. By the end of the first half of the 21st century, scientists believe it will be possible to create life-size holographic images of computer-generated human beings capable of interacting with human beings in real time and space. They hope that the partnership between human beings and

computers is not that of master and slave but rather to associates that have potential and desire for self-fulfillment.

The Plugged in Species.

Engineers across Europe have built automata to replicate the motions of animals and humans. The most complicated automata ever created was a mechanical duck which could drink puddle water or eat bits of brain and within a special chamber duplicate the process of digestion. Other machine enthusiasts wrestled with the idea of creating complex mechanisms that can mimic the human mind and even solve complex problems requiring intelligence. Blaise Pascal in 1642 created an arithmetic machine. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz augmented Pascal's machine by adding multiplication to the calculation machine' s repertoire.

In 1890 U.S. Census Bureau of competition defined a new, more innovative way of tabulating the national census. The floor. The census took 78 years just to tabulate the data. The winner of the competition was an engineer named Herman Hollerith. However, this invention used punch cards and a card reader he called a pin press. His invention cut the time required for tabulation of data by two thirds. Hollerith set up his own company called International Business Machines IBM.

The first programmable digital computer was invented in 1941 by German civil engineer, Konrad Zuse. At the same time British intelligence invented its own computer, a non-programmable model to help decode German military messages during World War II.

The early computers were cumbersome, required high-voltage inputs, and generated a great deal of heat. Complex and costly to make, they were continually breaking down. It wasn't long, however, before scientists were able to substitute the more expensive vacuum tube components with smaller solid-state semiconductors, or transistors. The second Jen computers revolutionized the industry, dramatically reducing the size and cost the computers while increasing both their efficiency and capacity. The third generation of computers emerged in the late 1950s, with the introduction of integrated circuitry in a single manufacturing process. In the early 1970s for Jen computers based on microtechnology and microchips emerged, once again, reducing costs and streamlining processes, making the computer a ubiquitous part of daily life in every industrial countries.

Putting Computers to Work.

One. The Ford Motor Company for spot the computers talk about an automated factory was in the air. In Fortune magazine. They ran a provocative article entitled to. She's without men, in which workerless factories in the future ran automatically. Workers in unions continued to strike for higher wages. "Issues of hiring and firing, promotion, discipline actions, health benefits, and safety concerns were brought into the collective bargaining process in every industry.… America's industrial giants turned to the new technology of automation as much to rid themselves of rebellious workers asked to enhance their productivity and profit. The new corporate strategy succeeded." (67)

The statistics from 1961 are: the Steelworkers union reported a loss of 95,000 jobs; the United Auto Workers reported more than 160,000 members being displaced by automation; the international union of electricians claim the loss of 80,000 jobs between 1956 in 1962, more than 1.5 million people lost their jobs in the manufacturing sector in the US. (67)

The new approach to computer aided automation was called numerical control. With numerical control, instructions on how a piece of metal should be rope, late, welded, bolted, were painted are stored on a computer program.

Technology and the African-American Experience.

While the Civil War had given black Americans their political emancipation, they still remain due to an exploitive economic system that kept them in a state of near servitude. Plantation owners were able to reassert control over their former slaves by instituting the share crop system. The share crop system leased farmland and provided housing, see, farm tools, and meals. In return, 40% of their heart. This had to be given over to Orlando. But to cover monthly expenses. They forced attendance to pour on credit from the plantation Gen. store. As a result, by the time the harvest was in and counted, the sharecroppers. Oh the landowners more than their share of the harvest was worth.

Most share cropper's planted cotton. A growing number of blacks again migrating to northern cities during and immediately after World War I. With foreign immigration cutoff during the war years, Northern manufacturers desperately needed unskilled labor and began recruiting heavily among southern blacks. Then in October 1944 the mechanical cotton picker was made in a single hour or machine can do the work of 50 people. In 1949 6% of the continent itself was harvested mechanically; by 1964, with 70%. Eight years later, 100% cotton, was picked by machines. Overnight, the share crop system was made obsolete by technology. Planters evicted millions of tenants from the land, leaving them homeless and jobless.

Can't Between Technologies.

As African-Americans move north to cities like Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and New York. They were locked out of gainful employment. At first, blacks were used to break strikes and fill the vacuum left by the decline in immigrant workers from abroad. In the mid-1950s automation began taking its toll on the nation's manufacturing sector. Manufacturers attempted to lower the power of unions by moving more manufacturing plants to the suburbs and increasing their investments on automated plants. Equally important, because the black workers made up the bulk of the unskilled labor force, they were first to be let go because of automation. As businesses fled to the suburbs, millions of white male in working class families followed suit, relocating a new suburban subdivisions. The central cities became increasingly black and poor in the 1960s and 1970s.

"In the 1980s many of the nation's northern cities partially revived by becoming hubs for the new information economy. Scores of downtown areas made the transition from "centers of production and distribution for material goods to centers of administration, information exchange and higher order service provision. The emerging knowledge-based industries have meant

increased jobs for high skilled white-collar and service workers. For large numbers of African-Americans, however, the newer Renaissance has only served to accentuate the ever widening employment and income gap between highly educated whites and poor, unskilled blacks" (76)

the only significant rise in employment among black Americans in the past 25 years has been in the public sector.

Automation and the Making of the Urban Underclass.

Technological unemployment has fundamentally altered the sociology of America's black community. Permanent joblessness has led to an escalating crime wave in the streets of American cities. In Washington DC, 42% of black male population between 18 and 25 years of age is either in jail, on parole, awaiting trial, or being sought by the police. The leading cause of death among young black males is now murder. Single-parent households headed by women are typically locked in a cycle of welfare dependency that is self-perpetuating generation after generation. Today, 62% of all black families are single-parent households. There is only expected to worsen with the current waiver reengineering and downsizing. The African-American was no longer needed by the economic process, their change from being exploited to being outcasts.

Chapter 6: The Great Automation Debate.

During the 60s it American government has ignored the debate between automation and the economy by plunging further into the Vietnam conflict. The increases in military expenses had given a boost to the economy.

Labor's Capitulation.

The father of cybernetics, Norbert Wiener, warned auto manufacturers that the complete automation of their factories would be detrimental to unemployment. Employers agreed willingly with unions to retrain their workers. By agreeing to retraining unions lost much of their effective bargaining power and could no longer bargain for shorter work weeks and increases in wages tied to increases in productivity. Because of retraining, unions lost many of their members because there were simply too many displaced workers and too few high-tech jobs being created. Eventually automation destroyed their most important single weapon – – the strike. Blue-collar unions began their historic retreat and now exist as a mere hollow reminder of their once prominent role in American economic life.

Today, concerns over automation are being heard. Once again. But now, the field has grown dramatically to encompass the whole United States economy and much of the global marketplace. Automation used to affect blue-collar laborers. But now, worry is being raised in every sector of the economy and by virtually every group and class of workers.

Chapter 7: Post–Fordism

By the 1980s most American homes that all the household products they needed, refrigerators, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, radios, electric irons, and toasters. There was a large

downturn in corporate profits because of every dollar American families earned $.45 were spent on imported goods. Increases in both corporate taxes and wage benefits on American workers, reduce corporate profits still further the OPEC oil embargo increase the cost of energy, driving corporate profits lower in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The decision to deregulate protected US industries during the Reagan years – – especially the airlines, telecommunications, and trucking – – heightened competition for market share between traditional corporate giants and newcomers anxious to expand their niche. Again, profits decline. Company started the poor tens of thousands of dollars into information processing hardware and hopes to increase productivity and profits. But there simply was no increase in profits. Those only in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the information technologies have begun to turn a profit. Analysts notice that companies were simply not structured to take advantage of computers and were using them the wrong way.

Old-Fashioned Management

the modern Corporation is a hierarchical management structure. Virtually every modern Corporation chart appears as a., With field staff and production workers at the bottom of the hierarchy and ascending staff of professional managers rising up the hierarchy, with a Chief Executive Officer, perched on top of the pyramid. By the 1980s the American corporate power was being challenged by new global competitors armed with very different organizational arrangements better equipped to take advantage of new technologies of the information revolution.

The Switch to Lean Production.

Toyota invented a new management process called lean production.

Craft production: Highly skilled workers using hand tools, crafting each product to design specifications of the buyer.

Mass production: unskilled, or semi skilled workers tend expensive single-purpose machines. They turn out standardized products and very high-volume. In mass production the machinery so expensive that downtime has to be avoided at all costs. As a result, management at buffers in the form of extra inventory and workers to make sure of not running out of inputs are slowing down the production flow. Finally, the high cost of investment in machinery precludes quick retooling for new product designs. The customer benefits from cheap prices but at the expense of variety.

Lean production: combines the advantages craft in mass production, while avoiding the high cost and rigidity of mass production. "To meet these production objectives, management brings together teams of multiskilled workers at every level of the organization to work alongside automated machines, producing high volumes of goods with a great degree of variety to choose from.… It uses less of everything, compared with mass production – – half the human effort in the factory, half the manufacturing space, hefty investment in tools, engineering hours to develop a new product in half the time. Also, it requires keeping far less than half the needed inventory on-site, resulting in many fewer defects, and produces a greater and ever-growing variety of products." (96).

In lean production traditional managerial hierarchy is replaced with multiskilled teams at the point of production. Design engineers, computer programmers, and factory workers interact face-to-face sharing ideas and implementing joint decisions directly on the factory floor. This is the opposite of Taylorism, which favored the separation of mental from physical labor and the retention of decision making in the hands of management. Under a new system of lean production, the factory floor becomes in effect the research and development laboratory, a place where the combined expertise of everyone in the production processes utilized to make "continual improvements" and refinements in the production process and final product. The notion of continuous improvement is called kaizen and is considered the key to the success of Japanese production methods.

"Worker teams on the factory floor given much more latitude over to production process. If the machine breaks down or line slows, the workers themselves often repair the equipment and clear any bottlenecks in the process – – a far different approach and that of the Detroit auto manufacturers, word machine breakdowns require notification of supervisors, who, in turn, some technicians to afford six equipment. The result is far fewer breakdowns and more smoothly running line, because the workers closest to the production process are better prepared to anticipate problems, and when they do come up, resolve them quickly and efficiently." (98)

but having multiskilled workers in the lowering them complete access to all information within the company. It creates a more egalitarian atmosphere within the factory with far less friction between management and workers. After regular work hours Japanese workers spend time in special quality circles to form bonds between workers. The Japanese production model also placed high priority on just-in-time production, or stock less production. The American manufacturing philosophy is just in case production, where manufacturers store large and redundant inventories and materials and equipment along the entire production line in anticipation of having to replace defective parts or faulty equipment.

Reengineering the workplace.

Middle management has become increasingly unnecessary and costly and is being replaced by sophisticated new computer technologies. For example, IBM, which used to take seven days to process a credit check actually went through and found out that it only should've taken four hours set of seven employees through only one employee. Reengineering the economy could result in an unofficial unemployment figure as much as 20% of the time, the current reengineering phenomenon runs its course. For example, reengineering is affected even the retail sector. Quick response systems that cuts both time and labor from the entire distribution process barcoding allows retailers to keep it continuous updated record of exactly what items are being sold and in what quantities. Point of sales data eliminates pricing and cashier errors and greatly reduces the time spent on ticketing products barcode markings on shipping containers allow the customer to login and verify contents of packages without having to open them for inspection. Electronic data interchange allows companies to substitute electric transmission of information, like purchase orders, invoices, and payment for proper correspondence, reducing the need for both transportation and clerical handling.

The giant discount chain Walmart posts some measure of its success to its pioneering role in harnessing these new information technologies. Walmart uses information gathered by scanners to transmit data directly to its suppliers who in turn make the decision to ship items directly to the store by passing the warehouse altogether. The process eliminates purchase orders, bills, large inventories on hand, and reduces clerical cost by eliminating the labor needed at each step of the traditional process to handle orders, shipping, and warehousing.

Some auto manufacturers in showrooms or using made-to-order rather than made to inventory. In Japan, for example, a customer can have their entire body scan to fit a bicycle and customize every aspect. This information is then relayed to a factory, which assembles the bicycle in less than three hours. Ironically, the company has discovered there's marketing studies that it's responses to quick and dampens enthusiasm of its customers, so it purposely delays delivery for a week so that the customer can experience "the joy of anticipation".

In Japan, research estimates there are more than 1 million redundant employees that Japanese companies can replace by reengineering and new information technologies.

Part Three: the Decline of the Global Labor Force.

No More Farmers.

"The mechanization of our culture began more than 100 years ago. In 1880. It took more than 20 man-hours to harvest nature of Wheatland. By 1916 the number of man-hours was reduced to 12.7. Just 20 years later, only 6.1 man-hours was required. The productivity gains than agriculture were so swift and effective that by the late 1920s economic instability was no longer fueled by crop failures, but, rather, by overproduction." (109)

in 1850, 60% of the working population was employed in agriculture. Today, less than 2.7% the workforce is engaged directly in farming. Most people would probably be surprised to learn that the food and fiber industry is the single largest industry in the United States. More than 20% of the GNP and 22% of the workforce is dependent on crops grown on America's ever cultural lands animals raised on feedlots and in factory farms.

"Mechanization of agriculture went hand-in-hand with new plant breeding techniques designed to introduce righties and strains that were more uniform and easier to manipulate by machines.… The first mechanical picker proved ineffective because cotton balls open air regularly over a period of many weeks, making it difficult to run a machine through partially on harvestable fields. Plant breeders were finally able to develop a strain upon in which the balls through higher up on the stocks and open up more quickly, making the machine picker feasible for the first time." (111)

the tomato was also an example of this symbiotic relationship that developed between breeders and engineers in agriculture. A new variety of tomato was introduced in 1960s would ripen at the same time and be strong enough to withstand machine handling. Aside from being more uniform and easier to manipulate, virtually all the new varieties being developed by plant biologists for high-yield crops, often tripling the yield per acre. Thanks to chemical fertilization fields could be reused here in year again, instead of having to be fallowed.

This is not limited to plants only animal husbandry pack practices became increasingly mechanized industrialized over the course of the current century. Today, we have Carol feedlots and the poultry companies produce more than 3.7 billion chickens a year.

Higher yields and greater output have created a crisis of oversupply for most of the current century, continually pushing prices down for farmers. Ever since the depression years of the 1930s, pricing commodity supports it been used to artificially prop up the price of farm commodities and pay farmers not to produce in order to curtail production. In this situation the supply does not create its own demand. There are currently more than 9 million persons living under the poverty line and depressed rural areas across the United States – – all casualties of the great strides in farming technology that made the United States the number one food producer in the world.

Soil and Software.

New expert systems are being created to assist farmers by collecting data on weather changes, soil conditions, and other variables from computer-based sensors to make recommendations to the farmer. Programs exist to recommend crop rotation, crop management, irrigation, and even account for different plant types such as cotton. Expert systems, even exists for animal husbandry management, manure management, and disease diagnosis. Only 15 to 27% of farm managers are using computers as management tools. Scientists predict that within 20 years, virtually every aspect of farming will have come under the control of computers.

Israel, they are experimenting with manual laborers, machines designed to go between rows of plants, spray pesticides on crops, and some even to pick ripe vegetables and fruit. Other robots are being developed to shear sheep for wool. Another systems being developed to monitor cows with necklaces, the necklaces would carry information about the cattle, on whether they have eaten or the health of the cattle. If the cow gets sick, the system could automatically include medication inside the next feed. Researchers predict that fully automated factory farms will exist in less than 20 years.

Molecular Farming.

DNA recombination has been used on both plants and animals to reengineer new species. Some argue that the reengineering simply follows classical breeding technologies. However, many of the new breeds are simply impossible with traditional breeding. For example, a tobacco plant with the genes of a firefly glows 24 hours a day, the DNA of human growth hormone for human growth hormone creates rats two times their normal size, and the DNA of a goat combined with the sheep has created a new species, a geep with the head of a goat, the body of a sheep.

"The tremendous economic potential of biotechnology has drawn chemical, pharmaceutical, agribusiness, and medical companies together into a new life-science complex whose commercial clout is likely to equal or surpass that of the petrochemical complex of the past century." (119)

in 1987. The patent and trademark office extended patent protection to any man-made creature, recognizing life, for the first time, as a manufacture. Today, thousands of microorganisms and plants have been patented as well as six animals.

The End of Outdoor Agriculture.

As biotechnology moves further into the food and agriculture industry. They are also attempting to remove food from soil. An example is bioengineered vanilla. Normally vanilla is created on four small islands around Madagascar and these islands rely on the vanilla plant for their livelihood, and as their main source of income.

"Many Third World nations rely on the sale of one or two key export crops. Tissue culture substitution could mean the near collapse of national economies, unprecedented unemployment, and defaults on international loans, which, in turn, could lead to the destabilization of commercial banking and to bank failures in first world nations." (127).

Other foods that genetic engineering is targeting is orange juice grown in vats and reproducing powerful sweeteners from the Thaumatin plant. (125)

the ultimate goal of chemical and pharmaceutical companies is to genetically engineer technologies to eliminate the farmer altogether to convert the production of food into a holy industrial process by bypassing both the organism and the outdoors, and farming at the molecular level in the factory. The companies find it far less troublesome to control genes in the laboratory then to control climate, land, and workers in a Third World country. If the company could grow biomass crops and send them to factories for processing. They could convert those crops into any texture or flavor they want creating a multitude of foods on the competitive market (126-127)

Hanging up the Blue-Collar

The first continuous process machines were designed to create a continuous single product that would be sliced up into individual portions, and often operated so efficiently that less than 100 machines for each product were needed to match the national demand. Continuous process machines were designed to operate 24/7 and with very minimal human supervision, these machines were replacing blue-collar workers in droves. (128-129)

The automobile industry is looking to automate automobile factories by replacing workers with robots. "Industrial engineers are currently developing even more events machines surrogates "with such capabilities as voice communication, and general-purpose programming language, learning from experience, three-dimensional vision with color sensitivity, multiple hand-to-hand coordination, walking and self navigating skills, and self-diagnostic and correction skills." The goal, says sociologist Michael Wallace, "is to approach, as closely as possible, the human capabilities to process environmental data and to solve problems, while avoiding the problems (e.g. absenteeism and turnover) presented by human agents." (131)

"it is estimated that each robot replaces for jobs in the economy, and if in constant use 24 hours a day, will pay for itself in just over one year." (131)

Computing Steel

cold rolled steel is what turned the US into an industrial superpower in the 1890s. Today, however, the US steel industry has been overtaken by Japanese manufacturers because the US failed to automate their factories. What would've taken an old US factory 12 days and many man hours to create an cold rolled steel is now done in a single hour by a continuous process done entirely by numerically controlled computers and monitored by a few technicians. (132-133). In 1980 United States steel employed 120,000 workers by 1990 was producing the same output using only 20,000 (134) Japanese companies have restructured and reengineer traditional plant operations and reduced job classifications. Answer entry-level, intermediate, and advanced. Workers operate in self-managed teams with greater control over the shop and have been taken off hourly wages and put on salaries. (134)

The Silicon-Collar Workforce.

Every form of manufacturing has reduced its workforce considerably. Some manufacturing plants operate with as few as two human laborers who simply supervise the operations. A significant number of examples exist between pages 136 - 140.

Chapter 10: the Last Service Worker.

For the past 40 years as manufacturing jobs are being automated, the service sector was expected to absorb the mass of obsolete employees. "In February 1994, the Wall Street Journal ran a front-page story warning that a historic shift is occurring in the service sector, with growing numbers of workers being permanently replaced by the new information technologies. According to the Journal, "much of the huge US service sector seems to be on the verge of an upheaval similar to that which it farming and manufacturing, where employment plunge for years, while production increased steadily… Technological advances are now so rapid that companies can shed for more workers than they need to hire to implement the technology or support expanding sales." (141)

this first happened with AT&T, who announced that it is replacing many of his long-distance operators with a computerized voice recognition technology. In 1991 computerized visual sorters were created to read street addresses on mail faster than any humans could, this has already revolutionized the way mail is delivered.

At Your Service

"Economist Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley says that "the service sector has lost its role as America's unbridled engine of job creation," and cautions that we have yet to see the emergence of any new industries to replace it. Global service centers like new york city have been the first to feel the economic aftershocks in the new electronic innovations." (143)

"Elizabeth Holtzman, painted the employment picture in stark contrasts. "What we may be moving towards here," she said, "is a tale of two cities: growth and higher paying jobs in a shrinking in lower paying jobs." Holtzman warned that unless new low skilled jobs can be found

until the vacuum created by new displacement technologies, the city will face "turmoil – – more social dislocation, more crime, more poverty." (143-144)

National banks are now replacing tellers with automatic transaction machines that can create the same amount of productivity with little downtime. Insurance companies are reengineering their old system with new ‘caseworkers’ who have reduce claim times from 22 days to 2 to 5 days, by placing caseworkers at PC workstations designed with expert systems to help answer questions. (144-145)

The Virtual Office

"The paperless electronic office has now become the goal of modern business." (146). The paperless office saves businesses millions of dollars in the year in paper alone and increase the efficiency of office clerks. Some advanced computer programs can operate as receptionists and others can even delete review resumes. Other companies are attempting to create the virtual office, which uses instant communication technologies to you remove the need of a physical office, allowing workers to operate completely from home. While this does take away some of the human factor. There have been attempts to reform social ties by creating virtual water coolers, which allow company employees to interact with face-to-face communications.

Downsizing the Wholesale and Retail Sectors

While some companies like Walmart like to bypass wholesalers and warehouses altogether by sending their orders directly to the manufacturers, some wholesalers who do deal with warehouses have decided to computerized warehouses with automated robotic storage and retrieval systems. It's predicted that wholesalers will be completely eliminated in the next century as electronic transmission bypasses them.

Retail establishments are also attempting to reengineer their operations by eliminating useless store clerks, increasing the efficiency of cashiers by using electronic barcode scanners, and some have gone as far as replacing the cashier altogether with robots.

The retail sector has acted as an unemployment sponge for the manufacturing industry. Now that retail is undergoing their own automation. Economists are looking towards the fast food industries to save workers. However even there, technology is slowing down the employment rate.

Another serious threat to retail employment is electronic shopping, which aims to destroy many brick-and-mortar stores that output digital media on compact discs with online distribution. Electronic shopping is not limited to digital media, multilateral stores such as Amazon.ca compete with brick-and-mortar stores by offering lower prices and free shipping with significantly reduced overhead.

Digitizing the Professions, Education, and Art.

Intelligent machines are already invading the professional disciplines and even encroaching on education and the arts. For example, robots equipped with CT scans drills and other equipment

can perform a significant amount of surgeries needing only the supervision of a doctor. Librarians are increasingly concerned as entire libraries can become digitized and accessible on the Internet.

"Even the art of book writing is falling victim to intelligent machines. In 1993, the publishing industry was taken aback when the first computer-generated novel was released. Using software equipped with artificial intelligence, Scott Finch was able to program an Apple Macintosh computer to pump out nearly 3/4 of the prose in a torrid potboiler entitled Just This Once. This prose is simple and intelligible: "her heart leapt into her throat and she jumped involuntarily as a stranger approached in front of her. Then it all came back in a rush. No wonder she thought she had been dreaming."" (158-159)

Even the music industry is under attack. Piano sales are down and digital synthesizers and electric pianos are on the rise. Today synthesizers make more than 50% of all the music on television commercials. A new music genre dubstep is entirely synthesized.

Digital sampling technologies could take footage from Hollywood studios and record the facial expressions of many actors, even dead ones, and rearranged them along with a digital body to create new content. This is already used in video games today. Digital imagery can even create extras in the backgrounds of movies and television shows to save money.

Part Four: the Price of Progress

Chapter 11: High-Tech Winners and Losers

Virtually every business leader in most mainstream economists continue to assert that the dramatic technological advances of the third Industrial Revolution will have a trickle-down effect. Obviously, this theory is proving untrue as more and more jobs are being replaced with automation and increases in https://www.library.yorku.ca/find/Record/276305productivity.

Squeezing the little guy.

"Government figures on unemployment are often misleading, masking the true dimension of the excellent job crisis. For example, in August 1993 the federal government announced that nearly 1,230,000 jobs had been created in the United States in the first half of 1993. What they fail to say was that 720,000 of them – – nearly 60% – – work part-time, for most part in low-wage service industries." (167)

People who once enjoyed high-paying secure jobs of ample benefits are now going to work 7-Eleven's and McDonald's.

"In 1994 report, the Census Bureau released figures showing that the percentage of Americans working full-time earning less than the poverty level income for a family of four – – about $13,000 a year – – rose by 50% between 1979 in 1992." (169)

The Declining Middle

Middle-management as well as CEOs are being laid off in droves. A middle-age man out during working hours – – once an uncommon sight – – has now become a regular phenomenon as middle-class workmen sitting at home wait for a call back after being laid off. Now the former middle-class must accept part-time low income labor, slowly the middle-class is dwindling and falling into the lower class. Today 35% of college graduates settle for jobs that only required a high school education, which is up from 15% five years ago.

The New Cosmopolitans

During John F. Kennedy's time in office the average CEO of a Fortune 500 company was earning $190,000 a year. In 1992 the average compensation topped $1.2 million. (173)

CEOs and executives are being disproportionately paid at an increasing rate. "Had the nation's manufacturing worker shared in the productivity gains and profits to the same extent as management, the average factory laborer today would be earning more than $81,000 a year." (173)

An Upper-Class Cosmo Politan elite has emerged as the middle-class has dwindled into lower-class ranks. Less than half of a percent of the American population owns 37.4% of all corporate stocks and bonds and 56.2% of all US private business assets.

"Below the super-rich is a slightly larger class consisting of 4% of the working population of the United States. Their ranks are made up largely of the new professionals, though highly trained symbolic analysts or knowledge workers who managed the new high-tech information economy. This small group, numbering fewer than 3.8 million individuals, earns as much as the entire bottom 51% of American wage earners, totaling more than 49.2 million." (174)

"In the early industrial era, those who controlled financial capital and the means of production exercise near total control over the workings of the economy. For a while, during the middle decades of the century, they had to share some of that power would labor, his critical role in production assured that some influencing decisions governing both the ways and means of doing business and the distribution of profits. Now that labor's clout has significantly diminished, the knowledge worker becomes the most important grouping in the economic equation. They are the catalysts of the third Industrial Revolution and the ones responsible for keeping high-tech economy running. For that reason, top management and investors have had increasingly to share at least some of their power with the creators of intellectual property, the men and women whose knowledge and ideas feel the high-tech information society. It is no wonder, then, that intellectual property rights have become even more important than finance in some industries. Having a monopoly over knowledge and ideas ensures competitive success in market position. Financing that success becomes almost secondary." (175)

"Peter Drucker has warned his business colleagues at the critical social challenge facing the emergent information society is to prevent a new ‘class conflict between the two dominant groups in the post capitalist society: knowledge workers and service workers.’ Drucker and concerns are likely to become even more pronounced in the years ahead, as an increasing

number of service jobs now performed by working-class are replaced by machines, forcing even more workers into growing urban underclass." (176)

the new professionally have very little attachment to place, where they work is of far less importance than the global network they work in. They have become increasingly nomadic and are estimated to account for more than 60% of income earned in United States in 2020. Sec. of labor Robert Reich speculates that the new professional elite will pool their resources rather than share them with other Americans. The places where they work and live will become increasingly different and bear no resemblance from the rest of America

the other America

the new technology revolution has created a significant amount of tension between people making massive salaries and people making just barely enough to feed themselves living right next to each other in metropolitan areas such as New York.

In order to reduce overhead many employers have eliminated benefits such as medical insurance. Other employers have switched over to part-time or temporary labor and outsourcing of work to avoid paying for healthcare coverage.

"Today, millions of families live with constant fear that a single major medical crisis might force them into increased debt, bankruptcy, and a free fall into the permanent underclass." (179)

there has been a correlation between poverty and increased health risk. At any one time there are 600,000 Americans homeless in any given month.

Chapter 12 Requiem for the working class

High-Tech Stress

in new high-tech factories workers are rendered powerless and serve merely as observers. "The shift from scheduling production to programming production has profoundly altered relationship of workers to work." (182) The factory technician has no input on production or method because the manufacturing process has already been preprogrammed into the machinery.

Social – "unlike traditional scientific management practice in the United States, which denied workers any say in how the work is to be done, Japanese management decided early on to reengage its workers in order to more fully exploit their mental and physical labor, using a combination of motivational techniques and old-fashioned coercion. On one hand, workers were encouraged to identify with the company, to think of it as their home and security. As noted earlier, much of their life outside of work is involved with company related programs, including quality circles and social outings insurance. The company becomes ‘total institutions,’ say Kenny and Florida, ‘exerting influence over many aspects of social life.’ In this regard, ‘they bear some resemblance to other forms of total institutions such as religious orders or the military. ’On the other hand, in return for their loyalty, workers are guaranteed lifetime employment. Japanese workers often remain with their same company for their entire career." (184)

lean production has his own faults, management often relies on work teams and discipline each other, because workings are who are not supported with additional help to make up for absentee workers, the remaining members must work even harder to catch up. In a lean production assembly line workers are given pull chains to slow down or stop the line, management analyzes the efficiency of each station and re-balances workloads at each station to add more stress to smooth stations in order to continuously increase efficiency. Management then continues to add more work and stress to the system effectively, "mak[ing] workers willing accomplices in their own exploitation." (185) the increased pace and stress has resulted in increased injuries. Mazda reports three times the number of injuries to their American counterparts. (186)

Biorhythms and Burnout

Workers are becoming increasingly stress trying to keep up with the pace of technology. Some companies and some systems have now incorporated computer monitoring of their employee's performance. I cashier can be monitored by the speed of items put through the checkout line. Computer clerical workers are under increased stress as they have to process more information and are timed by the computer.

The New Reserve Army

Companies have a new preference to create a core set of employees and then use temporary workers only one there needed. Temp agencies supply temporary employees who were paid half the cost of core employees but do the same work. There is worry that temporary work does not build long-term relationships and diminished employee loyalty may have serious consequences in the business community. Temporary employment is not limited to the unskilled, professional plaintiff is also becoming temporary; companies are trying to save the cost of hiring a full-time permanent employee for professional jobs. Instead, individuals offer their expertise for limited time on contracts. Some temp agencies specialize in professional worker leasing.

Social – "temporary workers and outsourcing make up the bulk of today's contingent workforce… Their very existence acts to drive wages down for the remaining full-time workers. Employers are increasingly using the threat of temp hiring outsourcing to win wage and benefit concessions from unions… 42% of the growth in inequality and wages and income was directly attributed to management's decision to create a two-tier labor force of well-paid for workers and poorly paid contingent workers.”(194)

Conclusion – "depressed wages, a frenetic pace at the workplace, the rapid rise in part-time contingent work, increase long-term technological unemployment, the growing disparity in income between the haves and have-nots, and the dramatic shrinking of the middle class are placing unprecedented stress on the American workforce. The conventional optimism that propel generations of immigrants to work hard to believe that they could better their lot in life improved the prospects of the children has been shattered. In its place is a growing cynicism about corporate power and increase suspicion of the men and women who wield near total control over the global marketplace. Most Americans feel trapped by the new lean production practices and sophisticated new automation technologies, not knowing if or when the

reengineering drive will reach into their own office or workstation, plucking them from what they once thought was a secure job in casting them into the reserve army of contingent workers, or, worse yet, the unemployment line." (194)

A Slow Death

American children grow up with the idea of being a productive citizen. "Employment is far more than a measure of income: for many is the essential measure of self-worth. To be underemployed or unemployed is to feel unproductive and increasingly worthless." (195)

Psychologists are studying the hard-core unemployed – – people unemployed for longer than six months, often defined as discouraged workers to demoralize to continue looking for employment – – and notice symptoms close to dying patients. Some of the hard-core unemployed have to find employment as a way of life and without it life is not worth living. Some workers focus their anger on their coworkers or themselves, this has resulted in an increase in homicides and suicides relating to unemployment. (196-197)

Chapter 13: the Fate of Nations

Japan's estimated unemployment figures are at 7.5%. In Western Europe one and nine workers are without a job; France's unemployment is at 11.5%; English and 10.4%; Ireland 17.5%; Italy and 11.1 %; Belgian at 11%; and in Spain one in five people have no job.

High-Tech Politics in Europe

as multinational companies are reengineering and reducing their work force, other European companies has begun to follow suit by increasing their reliance on temporary or part-time workers to reduce overhead and stay competitive. In the Netherlands, 33% of the workers are part-time; in Norway 20%; in Spain one out of every three workers are part-time; and in the UK 40% of jobs are part-time. Increased competition is pushing Europeans countries to cut taxes and social spending on Social Security, unemployment compensation, pension, and medical insurance. "The lowering of the social net, at a time when growing numbers of workers are being displaced by new technologies and management restructuring, is increasing tensions throughout Europe." (203)

Automating the Third World

it's estimated that only one third of the increase in productivity and efficiency in Third World countries comes from cheap labor and two thirds comes from capital investment in automated technologies. (204) this means that as automated factories enter Third World countries they no longer produce enough jobs to help the local economy. This is especially true in Mexico, China, and India where high-tech enclaves rise next to slums. It's estimated that nearly 1 billion new workers from the Third World will be in need of jobs to participate in the global market, which is dwindling in demand for labor.

Chapter 14: A more dangerous world

Recent studies have shown a disturbing correlation between increases in unemployment and a rise in violent crime. The technological displacement of jobs is also affecting teenagers and has led to a rise in a violent criminal subculture. It's estimated that 3 million crimes occur every year on school grounds; 270,000 students are estimated to carry guns into schools; 59% of children in the sixth through 12th grade say they could get possession of a gun; all of this has turned the schools of the USA into armed fortresses patrolled by security guards and monitored by having cameras, x-ray machines, and metal detectors. The situation has gotten so bad that nearly 1,000,000 students aged 12 and 14 were raped, or robbed, or assaulted often by their peers. Psychiatrists have even noticed that students are planning their own funerals, once children do that they've given up all hope.

Teenage gangs has started to proliferate in the nation suburbs turning once safe communities into war zones with reports of rapes, drive-by shootings, drug trafficking, and robberies. Increased crime and suburbs have resulted in increased security, turning homes into small fortresses. Some suburban communities have become walled off with only one guarded entrance and exit. The rising crime rate is also turning security into one of the largest service industries expected to exceed $100 billion by 2000.

A Global Problem

Increase violence is not limited to the US. In the UK, Youth Rioting against Police – – Triggered by the Death of Teenagers Killed by a Police – – Has Been Building up Tension from Unemployment.

Social – "French sociologist Loic Wacquant, who has made an extensive study of urban rioting in first world countries, said that in almost every instance the communities that rioters share a common sociological profile. Most are formerly working-class communities that been caught up in and left behind by the transition from manufacturing to an information-based society." (214)

Political – In some European countries the working class and poor communities are being exploited by their xenophobic fears of immigrants taking away their jobs. This exploitation has created powerful Neofascist parties in today's political systems.

Rifkin believes that there are two specific courses of action you need to be pursued for industrialized nations to successfully transition into a post-market area in the 21st century.

"First, productivity gains resulting from the introduction of new labor and time-saving technologies will have to be shared with millions of working people. Dramatic advances in productivity will need to be met by reductions in the number of hours worked and steady increases in salaries and wages in order to ensure and equitable distribution of the fruits of technological progress."

Second rule governments must give greater attention should third sector: the nonmarket economy… Transferring responsibility to the third sector will help the country address personal and societal needs that can no longer be dealt with by the market economy.

Chapter 15: Reengineering the Work Week

Japanese features believe that in the future humans will give more value to time then material. It's estimated that to bring labor requirements to the same level as the new productive capacity and capital the workweek would have to be reduced to 20 hours a week. However, the opposite is happening where Americans are working longer hours per week, this is because companies prefer employing less people with additional benefits for longer hours than employing many people with additional benefits for less hours because they save more money not having to provide healthcare and pensions. It's estimated that unless the workweek is short and 20 to 30 million people in America will slip into poverty class where they will have to be maintained with food stamps and subsidies. (223) this would only externalize costs for companies to governments.

"In 1993 Volkswagen, Europe's largest automaker, announced its intention to adopt a four day work week to save 31,000 jobs that might otherwise have been lost combination of stifling global competition and new work technologies and methods that boosted productivity by 23%. The workers voted to support the management plan, making Volkswagen first global Corporation to move to a 30 hour work week. While take-home pay will be cut by 20%, lower taxes and the spreading of the traditional Christmas and holiday bonuses over the entire work here is expected to soften the impact. Peter Schilein, a spokesman for walks wagon, said that both the company and the workers accepted the idea for short work week as an equitable alternative to mass permanent layoffs." (224)

In France the four-day work week was proposed to reduce the 39 hour work week to a 33 hour work week. "The shorter workweek would mean a 5% reduction in wages, Billy increase employment by 10%, praying 2 million new jobs. To compensate for loss of wages, companies would be required to introduce profit-sharing plans to allow workers to participate in and benefit from future gains in productivity. Employee costs would be offset by the national government assuming the burden of financing unemployment insurance. Companies currently pay an 8.8% payroll tax. At the same time, the French government is not expected to suffer financially by abolishing the unemployment payroll tax, to mass at $21.8 billion a period according to plans proponents, with 2 million fewer people unemployed, the state will save $27.5 billion in payments that would have gone to unemployed workers and former various relief benefits, effectively canceling out the increased cost of abolishing the payroll tax and assuming the burden of paying for the unemployment insurance." (224-225)

The shorter work week has become a national goal for Japan to promote quality of life for its citizens and allow leisure time for Japanese people to stimulate the economy by buying more goods. American companies still remain skeptical of the shortened work week.

Workers Claims on Productivity

The business community has long operated under the assumption that gains in productivity belong to the stockholders and corporate management in the form of increased dividends and larger salaries. Worker claims on productivity are considered a legitimate and even parasitic. It is because of this that management considers productivity advances a gift bestowed by management.

This economic theory is put in reverse because worker pension funds hold about one third of the total financial assets of the United States economy. Management owes it to the worker, who is also the capital lender, to retain more jobs and produce higher wages so workers can reinvest their pensions into the market economy.

Modest Proposals

Economists argue that the shortening of the workweek is similar to the supplementation of agriculture by the government to adjust for overproduction against effective demand. Some reduced workweek advocates have suggested increasing overtime pay from one and a half to double or even triple to convince management to hire more workers rather than increase hours to reduce benefit costs.

New bills to increase the minimum wage have been contested, companies claim that increases in labor would reduce their global competitive prices. However, Japan's market economy continues to grow even though it has large growing annual labor costs.

Trading Work for Leisure

A significant amount of Americans are willing to trade income for leisure and even turn down promotions in order to spend more time with their families. This is become a serious issue with more woman now in the workforce with children. Some psychologists have noticed abandonment issues with children who have less time to spend with her because they are at work. Feelings of abandonment have led to, "dramatic increases in childhood depression, delinquency, violent crime, alcohol and drug abuse, and teen suicide…" (243) because parents with long work hours can I get enough quality time with their children.

Unions with a large number of female members are in higher support of a reduced workweek because they usually juggle both work at home and work to support the home. (234)

Chapter 16: a New Social Contract

One foreign forces invade the markets in the nation it is the role of the military to protect that nation's economy. However, militaries have no power over the invasion of technology as it penetrates markets and makes the majority of jobs obsolete. Multinational corporations have full control of the flow of technology and can move effortlessly between markets, thus allowing them to effectively control the direction of market economies in nations.

Governments are struggling to choose between appeasing the multinational corporations or the working class. If the government chooses to appease multinational corporations by lowering taxes, reducing wages, and reduce regulations it will lose tax revenue and absorb debt as it attempts to stimulate the economy with public works. If government chooses to increase regulation for corporations and wages for workers, MNCs could simply move to a different market economy thus eliminating a significant number of jobs. Since the government is left with few options the power and influence of government are shrinking inversely with MNCs.

Life Beyond the Marketplace

The third sector already exists and covers a wide variety of community activities from healthcare, education and research, the arts, religion, advocacy, etc. The economic activity of the United States is split up 80% to the business sector 14% to the government sector and 6% to the independent third sector which is also responsible for 9% of national employment. (240-241)

As of 2004 the private sector's assets and employment rate are equal to half of the US government and growing at twice the rate of government and private sectors. (241)

"The Internal Revenue Service defines a nonprofit organization is one in which ' no part of the net earnings… inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual.'" (241)

An Alternative Vision

Alex to Tocqueville first noticed a voluntary spirit in America which was not found in Europe in the 1830s. He noticed that the third sector helped to define the morals of society and social duties that the private and public sector were simply not willing to do. And the United States the first schools, colleges, hospitals, social service organizations, fraternal orders, women's clubs, youth organizations, civil rights groups, social justice organizations, conservation and environmental protection groups, animal welfare organizations, theaters, orchestras, art galleries, libraries, museums, civic associations, community development organizations, neighborhood advisory councils, volunteer fire departments, and civil security patrols are all creations of the third sector. (244)

Max Lerner says that it is only through volunteer organizations that Americans can hope to create a sense of real community out of the personal isolation created by capitalism. In high schools and colleges the third sector is barely noticeable in the history books, however, it has had a significant role in the creation of the American way of life. The materialist point of view grounded in market economies and capitalism claims that production and efficiency are the means of creating happiness. For materialism the exponential speed at which we consume resources is a numerical representative of consumption and thus happiness, with little foresight on the environmental impact of growing consumption rates. The third sectors vision is to provide services, services that strengthen personal relationships and loyalties

Chapter 17: Empowering the Third Sector

It's predicted that the US government will have few choices in the future: one, increase funding of police forces and prisons, or two, the subsidization of third sector activities which may pick up the slack of unemployment and reduce criminal activity by stabilizing the social and economic health of communities from technological displacement.

A New Role for Government

the new role of government in the high-tech area is to forge relationships with the third sector because as governments downsize they will no longer acts as the employer of last resort. It's important to note, "in both the Reagan and Bush White House, third sector themes were continually manipulated in a cynical effort to mass free market agenda. 'Returning the

government to the people' became a convenient euphemism to push for deregulation of industry, fewer corporate taxes, and cutbacks in social services and entitlement programs for the working poor and those trapped below the poverty line" (251) it is because of these two administrations that the third sectors had a poor image related to corporate scandal and tax evasion.

The Third Sector in Partisan Politics

President Reagan made volunteerism the key theme in his administration and even suggested that the role of government has taken over the tests performed by the third sector this has created a weakening of the third sector. In response people felt they no longer needed to do volunteer work because it was now up to the government to handle those chores. Rifkin is highly critical of Bush use points of light speech which claim to increase funding of $50 million for volunteerism however none of that money has ever reached the volunteer sector in the form of grants. (253)

Social – Liberal critics against volunteerism have noted that people often compare volunteer work to paid work claiming that volunteer work is on a lower standard than professional paid work. Other critics, such as unions, claim that some volunteer work may encroach on professional work and take away wages from the paid worker. And finally, critics say that volunteerism creates a ‘patronizing form of elitism’ which of those receiving the charity do not appreciate, this is not the case with government relief because it comes in the form of responsibility rather than charity.

Supporters of volunteerism argue that government relief efforts are often executed, with minimal standards, and done with no empathy. Those working as government relief workers do so not for the satisfaction of helping someone of a paycheck. This is in contrast to charitable organizations that, in their commitment to charity, focus on fine detail and the creation of strong relationships between those providing charity and those receiving charity. Volunteer work done without pay becomes a satisfying social contract between the giver and receiver, the receiver improves their condition while the giver improves their social well-being.

Making the Third Sector Work

Political – during the Reagan and Bush administrations the government attempted to increase restrictions on activities nonprofit organizations can receive tax deductions from.

For the third sector work the job market must: first, the workweek must be reduced to giving people more free time to participate in volunteer work; second, the third sector must provide incentive for the unemployed to join their organizations; third, legislation must be enacted to allow third sectors to rebuild neighborhoods and local infrastructures.

Shadow Wages for Voluntary Work

Political – The government should encourage greater participation in the third sector if they provide a form of tax deduction to individuals based the number of hours volunteered. Although the government may lose money in the form of taxes it will make up for that in expenses that

would've went to social relief programs if the third sector did not exist. If the government prioritizes tax deduction on activities it deems urgent or important, tax deductions can become a powerful fiscal tool to shape and form the social economy, similar to how tax deductions have shaped the market economy.

A Social Wage for Community Service

The government should consider providing a social wage as an alternative to welfare payments for the permanently unemployed. Not only would those on welfare received the support they need, they would also be given the opportunity to help themselves and their local communities.

During the Reagan administration, America's leading neoconservative economist Milton Friedman, advocated for a guaranteed annual income supplement for the poor in the form of cash payment with a system of incentives that would encourage recipients to supplement the government subsidy with their own labor. (216-261) although the idea was largely ignored it was based on assumptions that technology will continue to displace workers in the future. Most politicians shrugged it off saying that such a system would lower the work ethics of those with jobs in future generations. However, the idea was tested in pilot projects and was found that it did not reduce the incentive to work as some politicians had feared.

The idea of a guaranteed annual income has reappeared in a new configuration to both employ the unemployed and to reinforce the third sector. It is now argued that the third sector can carry out social services more effectively and efficiently than public works programs created by the government; this claim aims to create a partnership between the third sector and the government and hopefully create additional funding from government to third sector groups.

Another way of creating a guaranteed annual income is to have the permanently unemployed forced to either find a job or perform community service work after two years of welfare. A guaranteed annual income brings up a debate on whether or not the mass of unemployed will displace normal public service workers.

Financing the Transition

Paying for community services in the form of guaranteed annual income would require significant government funds. One suggestion is to free up government funds spent on costly subsidies to multinational corporations, the food industry, and military defense spending which total in the hundreds of billions. (260) Although the military does provide jobs most of the money that goes into the military is spent on hardware rather than on spendable income.

Another way of financing a guaranteed annual income is the creation of value added tax (VAT), which has become popular in Europe because it taxes consumption rather than income. Some claim that this would be more fair to society because tax would be put on when people take from society rather than what they contribute by working, investing, and saving. (269-270) VATs would penalize overconsumption while relieving those who save and have a lower income.

The disadvantage of VATs is that sales tax falls disproportionately on lower income groups by adding increased tax to basic necessities and small businesses pass the burden onto the consumer. Some countries have fixed the problem by tax exempting basic necessities. (270)

Chapter 18: globalizing the social economy

The third sector has been growing on an international scale. In the UK the third sector is almost as well developed as in the US, in Europe the third sector is growing faster than the private and the public sector. In Japan community-based mutual help organizations have compulsory memberships for their local communities and have existed since World War II, they are almost entirely funded by membership fees. These organizations help protect the cultural identity of Japan by hosting festivals and help people who are in need of financial assistance such as the homeless, the old, and the ill. These groups operate without government grants and have become strong political forces that fought unwanted development and unfair housing laws. (275-278)

A New Voice for Democracy

The power vacuum left by disappointing institutions such as trade unions, political parties, and churches are being filled by nongovernmental organizations and community groups in many countries. These organizations engage in a wide range of programs, "from promoting cultural reforms to waging war on environmental degradation. Many engage directly in political activity, challenging the power and prerogatives of the state." (279)

If these organizations do not address the high-tech revolution, technological displacement, and unemployment is likely that nations will plunge into fascism because of increasing xenophobia and nationalism.

And the Third World and in Asian countries there has been an explosion of NGOs to help the poor, protect the environment, and provide basic necessities. In some underdeveloped countries that do not have a private sector, the NGOs act as a substitution and precursor for market activities (282-283) many countries in the Third World have an uphill battle against technology and unemployment. Much of the charitable funding from external sources go straight NGOs, and many advocates are advising Third World governments to use VATs to tax the rich and pipe money into the NGOs to keep the poor employed.

Economic – NGOs in the southern hemisphere are confronted with the problem of possible technological displacement that could send hundreds of millions of peasant farmers into redundancy. Biotechnological agriculture has yet to overtake the southern hemisphere and millions of peasants still rely on agriculture as their main form of income, if automated agriculture to go over the southern hemisphere it could send the global market into a massive recession, this is why many NGOs are banding together to fight the incursion of agricultural biotechnology. (25-286)

The Last, Best Hope

referred to last pages bookmarked