end of work

The End of Workby Jeremy Rifkin

Civilization Structured Around Concept of Work

• Paleolithic hunter/gatherer• Neolithic farmer• Medieval craftsman• Assembly line worker• Today human labor being eliminated from

production process

Unemployment Figure

• U.S. corporations eliminating 2 million jobs annually

• New jobs in low-paying sectors and temporary employment

• 2/3 of new jobs created in U.S. were at the bottom of the wage pyramid

• layoffs from big corporations running 13% over 1993

Substituting Software for Employees

• Companies replacing humans with thinking machines

• 75% of labor force in industrial relations work on simple repetitive tasks

• Future of U.S.--more than 90 million jobs in a force of 124 million could be replaced by machines

Re-engineering

• Companies restructuring their organizations to make them computer friendly

• This resulted in a 2.8% productivity increase (largest rise in 20 years)

• Could eliminate 1-2.5 million jobs per year in the foreseeable future

Re-engineering

• Manufacturing sector most affected• Less than 17% of workforce engaged in blue-

collar work• Service and white collar sector are reducing• Over past 10 years, more than 3 million white

collar jobs eliminated in the U.S.• Productivity still increasing even though

workforce is shrinking

Unemployment Rates for 1993

• More than 8.7 million unemployed• 6.1 million worked part but wanted full time• 1 million were discouraged so they quit job

hunting• 16 million Americans (13% of labor force)

unemployed or underemployed

New realities

• Information and telecommunication threaten tens of millions of jobs

• New products and services require fewer workers to produce and operate

• High-tech industries create fewer jobs than they replace

• Laborsaving technology cuts costs and increases profits

New Realities

• Companies produce same output at less costs with fewer workers

• Demand weakened by unemployment , so businesses extending easy credit

• Middle-class wage earners nearing the limits of their borrowing capacity

Retraining For What?

• Where will retrained workers find alternative employment?

• Gap in educational levels too wide between blue collar and high-tech jobs

• Hope of being retrained for a high-tech job is out of reach for many

• Not enough jobs available to absorb dislocated workers

The Shrinking Public Sector

• Public focused on need to cut spending• Goal-- to eliminate 252,000 federal workers• Thinning middle-management to save $108

billion • Computer systems streamline procurement

practices• Federal, state, and local governments are re-

engineering and cutting personnel

Visions of Techno-Paradise in the Late 1800’s

• Industrialized lives provided context for mechanical view of the world

• “Technological frame of reference” permanent feature of American life

• Humans thought of themselves as instruments of production

• New self-image reinforced emerging productive industrial economy

The Modern Era of Efficiency

• Efficiency--maximum yield that could be processed in the shortest time, using the least amount of resources

• Efficiency dominates workplace because of adaptability to machine and human culture

• Efficiency shortens the amount of personal labor required to perform a job

• Efficiency results in more personal wealth and free time

The Modern Era of Efficiency

• Efficiency remade society to the standards of the machine culture

• Unemployment blamed on inefficient methods of instruction to youth

• Efficiency is felt everywhere, and demand becoming more insistent on it

• Efficiency craze carried into private lives

From Democracy to Technology

• Civil Engineer new modern hero• Organizational ability and efficiency new

coveted values of industrialized America• Technocrats favored “rule by science”

rather than “rule by man”• Postwar generation reminded of

technology’s awesome power

From Democracy to Technology

• Dream of techno-paradise within sight• Technologies promise a near-workerless world

in the coming century• Marketplace generates profit, with no thought

of generating leisure for displaced workers• Will high-tech Information Age emphasize

production, consumption and work or free humanity to journey into a post-market era?

Crossing into the High-Tech Frontier

• Near-workerless society final stage of shift in economic paradigms

• Transition from biological to mechanical sources of power

• Thinking machines perform conceptual, managerial, and administrative functions and coordinate flow of production

Machines That Think

• Computers taking on tasks of increasing complexity

• Artificial intelligence may outthink humans by the next century

• Some computers can “talk”• Scientists hope to humanize their machines• Computers may soon be seen as intelligent

beings

The Plugged-In Species

• First-generation computers were cumbersome

• Second-generation reduced size and cost of computers and increased efficiency

• Third-generation had integrated circuitry• Fourth-generation based on

microtechnology and microchips

Putting Computers to Work

• Business leaders excited over new automation revolution

• New generation of computer-driven numerical control said to mark our “emancipation from human workers”

• American Negro first group impacted by automation

Technology and the African-American Experience

• Mechanical cotton picker and other machines replaced black plantation workers

• 5 million blacks migrated north to escape poverty

• They had no capital to weather the technological storm sweeping over them

• Forced eviction and migration unleashed social and political forces

Caught Between Technologies

• Blacks found unskilled jobs in the north• Automation replaced unskilled jobs• Numerical control technology accelerated

displacement• Businesses flee to suburbs; central cities

become increasingly black• Urban renaissance increased employment gap

between blacks and whited

Automation and the Making of the Urban Underclass

• Automation and relocation of manufacturing jobs split blacks into groups– underclass (largest group)– professionals

• Unemployment lead to crime• Losses in black employment since they

were concentrated in most expendable jobs

Automation and the Urban Underclass

• Blacks no longer needed in economic system

• Vented frustrations by rioting• Today, millions of blacks are permanently

trapped in the underclass• Value of their labor rendered useless by

automated technologies displacing them

The Great Automation Debate

• Academicians warned of dangers of automation in the future

• Predicted revolution would leave millions jobless

• LBJ created Commission on Automation, Technology, and Economic progress

The Government Steers a Middle Course

• The Commission steered course between two opposing views– revolution needed quick government action– Displacement normal & absorbed by economy

• The Commission argued “technology eliminates jobs, not work”

• In the end, concluded displacement is necessary and temporary phenomenon

Labor’s Capitulation

• Debate on automation fizzed in the ‘60s (due to organized labor)

• Union leaders spoke out against new technological forces

• Labor movement pushed for retraining• High-skilled jobs created by technology

overrated• Technological forces proves too powerful

Labor’s Capitulation

• Technological unemployment affecting every sector of the economy

• America’s underclass likely to become more white and suburban

• Millions lose jobs to technology, and global purchasing power plummets

• Business restructuring to facilitate new tech.• World economy laying organizational groundwork

for workerless future

Post-Fordism

• New technologies cut costs and improved market share, profits and efficiency

• ROI averaged up to 68%• Computers contributed to downsizing• Outmoded organizations were inadequate to

deal with abilities of computer technology

Old-Fashioned Management

• Modern management formed in 1850’s• To facilitate technology, businesses adopted

more complex managerial schemes• Modern businesses have pyramid structure• Americans challenged by Japanese’s

organization arrangement equipped for tech.

The Switch to Lean Production

• Mass-production became world’s standard• Japanese used with lean production• Lean production combined new management

techniques with technology to increase output with less resources & labor

• Combines advantages of craft and mass production, while cutting costs and and giving consumers variety


• Keeps less inventory and results in fewer defects

• Replaces traditional management with with multiskilled teams working together

• Everyone affected participates in development under concurrent engineering

• Kaizen encourages continual change and improvement


• Workers given control over production process

• Creates greater efficiencies by encouraging development of workers

• Pushes decision-making authority as down as possible

• Places priority on JIT production


• JIT based on controlling quality and crisis management

• Toyota built a car quicker, in less space, with fewer defects, & 1/2 the labor than GM

• Emphasizes process, not structure and function, making Japanese firms suited to take advantage of information technologies

Re-engineering the Workplace

• Lean production changing every industry• Eliminating unskilled, semiskilled, and

middle management positions• Could result in 20% unemployment rate• Information tools ensure JIT inventories to

meet customer needs• Compresses time and reduces labor costs

Re-engineering the Workplace

• Unemployment rising and purchasing power dropping

• Near-workerless world approaching • May approach before society has time to

prepare for its implications and impact

No More Farmers

• Technology transformed America to an urban, industrial nation within 100 years

• Less than 2.7% of workforce in farming• Mechanization and new plant-breeding

techniques went hand-in-hand• Greater productivity meant fewer farm

workers and farms were necessary to produce increased output

No More Farmers

• Mechanical, biological, and chemical revolutions unemployed millions of farmers

• At the same time, productivity is increasing• Higher yields and greater output have

terrible consequences for family farms• Caused 9 million persons living in poverty

in depressed rural areas

Soil and Software

• Less farms due to agricultural software and farm robotics

• Robots may replace manual tasks on land• Robots used for livestock management• Sensors will be implanted on animals to

monitor external environment conditions• Fully automated factory farm less than twenty

years awat

Molecular Farming

• Machines replacing human labor in all areas• Gene splicing allows scientists to organize life as a

manufactured process• Biologists see reduced need for labor to manufacture,

transport, and apply chemicals• Increased productivity of dairy cows threatens

livelihood of dairy farmers• Pharmaceutical companies hope to increase

productivity & profits and reduce workforce

The End of Outdoor Agriculture

• Manipulation of molecules in the lab likely to replace traditional agriculture

• Chemical companies investing heavily in indoor tissue-culture production

• Lab-produced vanilla eliminates the bean, plant, cultivation, harvest, and farmer

• Lab production of thaumatin will reduce worldwide sugar market


• Tissue culture next stage of a process that continues to reduce market share of farming

• Genetic-engineering companies hoped to eliminate the farmer altogether

• Goal to convert food production into wholly industrial process bypassing farming

• Indoor tissue-culture food production will eliminate millions of jobs


• Tissue-culture substitution causes collapse of national economies, unemployment, and default on international loans

• Breakthroughs promise high productivity and reductions in labor

• Manufacturing and service sectors can’t absorb displaced farm workers

Hanging Up the Blue Collar

• Continuous-process technologies in 1880s introduces new approach to manufacturing

• Automatic machinery produced goods with little or no human input

• Today, information & communication technologies facilitate more sophisticated continuous-process manufacturing

Automating the Automobile

• Restructuring resulting in layoffs of blue-collar workers on the assembly line

• Automakers seek innovations to increase production and reduce labor

• View labor-displacing technology as best bet to cut costs and improve profit

• Robots approach human capabilities while avoiding problems of human agents

Computing Steel

• Same changes in organization and production taking place in steel industry

• High-tech mills transform steelmaking to highly automated continuous operation

• Automated facilities reduce production time to 1 hour and reduce its workforce

• Mini-mills reduce employment• Steel automation leave blue collar workers jobless

Computing Steel

• New manufacturing methods combined with restructuring management hierarchy turn steelmaking into era of lean production

• Self-managing work teams reduce managers• Industries using steel emphasizing lean

production• Automated processes will have psychological

and economic impact on national economies

The Silicon-Collar Workforce

• Rubber industry affected by re-engineering• Extractive industries affected by automation• Automation of mining industry left joblessness• Chemical refining industry substituting

machines for human labor• Strides in re-engineering and automation

occurring in electronics industry


• High-tech equipment increase productivity & eliminate jobs in appliance industry

• Textiles industry most affected by Industrial Revolution

• Textiles have lagged behind due to labor-intensiveness of sewing process

• Today, industry catching up through lean-production practices and automated systems


• Technology makes garment manufacturing in industrial nations cost-competitive

• Automation of high end manufacturing resulting in record loss of jobs

• By next century, blue collar worker will be a casualty of Third Industrial Revolution as we march towards greater technological efficiency

The Last Service Worker

• Service sector is raising productivity and displacing labor across entire expanse

• The Wall Street Journal warned of service workers displaced by information tech.

• Innovations making phone industry a key pace-setter in today’s high-tech economy

• Workers employed in office repair declining• USPS making dramatic developments

At Your Service

• Service industries coming under domain of automation

• Global service centers first first to feel economic aftershocks

• Employers learning to produce more with fewer workers

• Banking and insurance industries beginning to make transition to Third Industrial Revolution

At Your Service

• Imaging technology, expert systems, and mobile computing key in re-engineering

• Paperless electronic office goal of business• Electronic office will eliminate millions of

clerical workers• Paperless office compared to cashless society• High-tech office equipment bringing fully

automated office closer to reality

The Virtual Office

• Intelligent machines replacing clerical and management work

• New technology making offices less relevant as centers of operations

• Telecommuting increases productivity and reduces space necessary to conduct business

• Firms trying to recapture the flexibility and human warmth electronic communications has lacked

Downsizing the Wholesale and Retail Sectors

• Wholesale and retail sectors being revolutionized by intelligent machines

• Automated warehousing reduces labor requirements

• Technologies allow continuous-flow process, lessening need for wholesalers

• Computerized systems and automated processes reduce retail workers


• Where displaced retail workers will go is questionable

• Creation of jobs in food industry is over• Information highway lessening need for entire

categories of retail workers • Electronic transmission of goods eliminating

jobs in warehousing and transportation industries


• Electronic home shopping taking over retail market

• On-line computer services drawing businesses away from traditional retail markets

• Steady decline of shopping centers mean drop in employment in retail sector

Digitizing the Professions, Education, and Art

• Information technologies will integrate mental and physical activities

• Intelligent machines invading professional discipline and encroaching education & arts– surgery, book writing, music, & digitized image


• Third Industrial Revolution lead to unemployment of agricultural, manufacturing, and service sectors

• Technology revamped global economic system

• New wave accelerating productivity and making workers redundant and irrelevant


• Today’s technologies are primitive compared to what will be

• Parallel computing machines, robots, and integrated electronic networks subsume economic process

• This leaves less room for human participation in making, moving, selling, and servicing

High-Tech Winners and Losers

• Concept of trickle-down technology not comforting to unemployed

• Employees feeling frustrated over industries that abandoned them

• Alcoholism, drug abuse, and crime on the rise • Re-engineering revolution paying off--in

1980, US firms posted 92% profit increase

Squeezing the Little Guy

• Benefits of new technologies haven’t trickled down to the average worker

• By end of ‘80s, 10% of US workforce unemployed or underemployed

• Only 1/3 of displaced manufacturing workers able to find jobs in service sector, then at a 20% pay drop

• Government figures masking true dimensions of the unfolding job crisis


• US workers forced to settle for dead-end jobs just to survive

• New part-time jobs found in pink-collar ghetto, but likely to vanish

• Decline in wages attributable to waning influence of unions

• Downsizing causing hourly wages to fall• Lean production meant a fall into near-abject

circumstances for many


• Decline of workforce blamed on loss of manufacturing jobs and globalization

• US corporations drove to weaken organized labor’s influence to reduce cost of labor

• Worker benefits declined• Health-care coverage weakened• Paid days off have declined

The Declining Middle

• Re-engineering affecting corporate community, threatening middle-class

• Some unemployed give up altogether• Those finding work accept reduced pay and job

assignments• Middle-income jobs disappearing • Declining fortunes of US middle class show up

mainly among college educated

The New Cosmopolitans

• Small number of top executives reap benefits of technology revolution

• Growing wage gap creating US polarization• Fading middle class threatening political

stability of the US• Concerns of conflicts between knowledge

and service workers more pronounced

The New Cosmopolitans

• New elite have no attachment to place• Have more in common with each other than

country they do business in• High-tech international workers likely to

retreat from future civic responsibilities• Will account for over 60% of income

earned in US by 2020

The Other America

• High-tech revolution exacerbate tensions between rich and poor

• Nation’s poor can’t make ends meet with low-paying employment, needing government-assisted relief efforts

• Chronic hunger contributing factor to escalating health-care costs

• Unemployed vulnerable to illness & disease

The Other America

• Employers finding ways to cut health-care costs• With costs of homes rising and wages falling,

many can’t purchase own homes• Many live in deficient structures or are

homeless• Nation’s poor in rural and inner-cities, the two

regions hardest hit by technology displacement

The Other America

• Escalating poverty blamed on intense global competition and technology changes

• Urban, rural, and middle class feeling bite of re-engineering

• Small elite enjoy benefits of high-tech global economy, enjoying lifestyles removed from social turmoil

High-Tech Stress

• New technology removes need for control workers

• Many workers unable to participate in production process

• Numerical control gives greater control over decision making and higher profits

• Re-engineering plans increase management’s ultimate control over production

High-Tech Stress

• Merits of new management techniques being introduced are questionable

• Japanese lean -production practices described as “management by stress”

• Continually speed up and stress the system to find weaknesses so new designs can be implemented to increase performance

High-Tech Stress

• Lean-production sophisticated exploitation of workers

• When whole system stressed, it is harder to keep up

• Any glitch is the workers’ fault• High pace of production increases injury• In Japan, worker stress under lean-production

reaching near-epidemic proportions--called karoshi

Biorhythms and Burnout

• Until modern industrial era, bodily and economic rhythms largely compatible

• Computer culture operates in nanoseconds• Workers describe fatigue in machine terms• Increased pace results in unprecedented stress

levels• Computers monitoring performance causing

high stress levels


• Methods being tested to optimize interface between employees and their computers

• Workers experiencing mental burnout over quickened pace of technology

• High-tech economy harming mental and physical well-being of millions of workers

• Increased stress results in drug and alcohol abuse


• Stress triggers deadly and disabling on the job accidents

• Increased stress from high-tech work environments showing up in worker’s compensation claims

The New Reserve Army

• Re-engineering contributing to workers’ economic insecurity

• US corporations creating new two-tier employment system

• Contingent work may diminish employee loyalty, at risk to the business community

• Companies hiring temps to add and delete workers quickly in response to market


• Part-time workers earn 40% less than full-time doing comparable work

• Costs being cut by contracting with outside suppliers; traditionally it was in-house work

• Temps substituting permanent workers in every sector

• Professionals fastest growing group of temporary workers


• Federal government replacing full-time workers with temps

• Temps and outsourcing make up bulk of today’s workforce

• Drives wages down for full-time workers• Most Americans feel trapped by lean-

production processes and new automation technologies

A Slow Death

• Americans define themselves in relationship to their work

• Correlation found between technological unemployment and depression

• Hard-core unemployed experience symptoms of pathology like dying

• Common progression of symptoms in the hard-core unemployed

A Slow Death

• Violence against employers triggered by downsizing and layoffs

• After a year of unemployment, most turn their rage inward

• Psychological death followed by actual death--some choose suicide to escape

• Death of global workforce internalized by workers experiencing own individual deaths

The Fate of Nations

• Destabilizing effects of Third Industrial Revolution being felt world wide

• Fierce global competition throwing Japanese workers into unemployment lines

• One in nine Western European workers without a job

• Pressures of global competition and new technology hitting hard in Europe

High-Tech Politics in Europe

• Loss of manufacturing jobs due to laborsaving technologies and restructuring

• European manufacturing industries moving towards era of workerless factory

• Service sector no longer providing jobs• Unemployment exacerbated by drop in public

employment• Employment opportunities limited to part-time


• JIT employment results in increased productivity and decreased gob security

• Social net of EC countries making companies less competitive in global arena

• European labor 50% more expensive than US or Japanese labor

• Public spending in Europe than any other industrialized region of the world


• Corporate leaders introduced “Euro-sclerosis” to describe unnecessary social aid

• Lowering of social net and more displaced workers increasing European tensions

• More displaced workers living in poverty with less public aid available

Automating the Third World

• Industrial Revolution quickly spreading to third world

• Global companies building high-tech facilities throughout southern hemisphere

• Cheap-third world labor less important in overall production mix

• Investment in automated technologies to ensure quick delivery and quality control


• Machines replacing workers in every developing country, creating increased labor unrest

• China restructuring factories to give it competitive advantage in world markets

• High-tech enclaves raising troubling questions about high-tech future


• Over 1 billion jobs needed to provide income for all new job entrants worldwide

• Likelihood of fining enough slim• Clash between rising population and falling

job opportunities will shape geopolitics of emerging high-tech global economy

A More Dangerous World

• Technology displacement leading to rise in crime, indicative of troubled times ahead

• Correlation between increase in unemployment and rise in violent crimes

• Correlation between growing wage inequality and increased criminal activity

• Technology displacement mostly affecting youths, spawning new violent subculture


• Loss of hope for better future reason teens turn to violence and crime

• Youngsters planning own funerals• Teen criminal activity escalates to rioting• Illiterate, unemployed gang members powerful

social force• Teen gangs proliferating in suburbs, as well as

incidences of violent crimes


• Suburban homeowners respond to crime by stepping up security measures

• Reduced wages, unemployment, and polarization turning US into outlaw culture

• Few Americans acknowledge relationship between unemployment and crime

• Unemployed steal back what marketplace denies them

A Global Problem

• Increased violence worldwide problem• Caused by workers left behind in transition to

information-based society• Downsizing has most effect on eliminating jobs in

working class community• Technological displacement & population pressure

lead to acts of random violence• Entering into dangerous period of low-intensity

conflict

A Global Problem

• Distinction between war and crime will blur• Armies and police will not be effective and

give way to private security forces• Third Industrial Revolution throws into

question meaning of progress• Concept of work at issue• Value of labor becoming increasingly

unimportant

A Global Problem

• New approaches to providing income and purchasing power needed

• Productivity gains from new technology need to be shared with working people

• Grater focus needed on third sector (non-market economy)

• Social economy will address personal needs and fill the void left by the marketplace and legislative decrees

Re-engineering the Work Week

• Computer revolution opens door to personal freedom for first time in history

• Information revolution gives humans freedom to decide voluntarily own futures

• Transition to time values turning point• More free time inevitable consequence of corporate

re-engineering• Work week may reduce to 20 hours to line labor with

new productive capacity

Re-engineering the work Week

• With longer working hours, leisure time has declined by 1/3

• Technology created unemployed workers with idle, rather than leisure, time

• Companies prefer to employ smaller workforce with longer hours

• Cut work hours to accommodate dramatic rise in productivity

Toward a High-Tech Work Week

• Shorter workweek only viable solution to technological displacement

• Shorter workweeks mean more employment• Shorter workweek increases efficiency and

productivity by optimizing use of capital• Reduce working time to achieve greater social equity• More leisure time necessary to stimulate service

economy

Toward a High-Tech Work Week

• Work and leisure issue quality-of-life concern• In Japan, shorter workweek answer to future

unemployment• Most American CEOs remain steadfastly

opposed to shorter workweek• Say longer workweek necessary to stay

competitive

Workers’ Claims on Productivity

• Workers’ contribution to production viewed as of lesser nature than capital providers

• Benefits accrued to workers from gains in productivity viewed as a gift

• Most investors happen to be the workers• Pension funds largest pool of investment capital in

US economy• Workers have no say over how their deferred savings

are invested

Modest Proposals

• Management aware gap needs filled between greater productivity and falling purchasing power

• Greater pressure to shorten workweek as equitable means of distributing work

• Shorter workweek should be voluntary• Measures should be implemented to

discourage overtime, saveing taxpayers’ money

Modest Proposals

• Getting workweek back to 40 hours would create 7 million more jobs

• Long-term salvation of work lies in reducing working hours

• Politicians slow to grasp shorter workweek; think technological displacement temporary

• Bills introduced in Congress to mandate a shorter workweek

Modest Proposals

• Shorter workweek saves in unemployment compensation and welfare payments

• Business leaders fear shorter workweek drives up their product price

• Government could pay unemployment comp. in return for shorter workweek

• Companies could be extended tax credit for shorter workweek and hiring more workers

Modest Proposals

• Mandated profit-sharing allows workers to directly participate in productivity gains

• Tax deduction for employees working shorter weeks ease burden on wage earners

• Necessary multilateral agreements with other nations ensures fair playing field

• Tariff system promotes labor advancement• Downshifting workweek only choice to accommodate

productivity gains

Trading Work for Leisure

• Americans would trade income for leisure• Balancing work and leisure serious parenting

issue• Stress of longer hours hard on women• Interested groups need to work together to

achieve shorter workweek• Reduced workweek likely to be used

worldwide by early 21 century

Trading Work For Leisure

• Social ills will heighten in we can’t find work for the unemployed

• Question of utilization of time looming over political landscape

• Transition to non-market based society requires rethinking of current world view

• Redefining role of individual in absence of mass formal work seminal issue

A New Social Contract

• Shift to machine labor leaves mass worker without societal function

• Geopolitical role of government lessening• New international trade agreements transfer power to

corporations, not government• Role of government as employer of last resort

lessening in importance• Public establishes communities as a buffer to forces

of market and weak central gov’t.

A New Social Contract

• Shrinking role of market and public sectors affect working people in two ways:– those working see shorter workweek and more

leisure– unemployed sink into permanent underclass

• Opportunity exists to harness unused labor toward constructive tasks outside private and public sectors

Life Beyond the Marketplace

• Third US sector will reshape social contract in 21 century

• Volunteer sector replaces market relationships• Third sector vehicle for vibrant post-market

era• Third sector growing twice as fast as both

government and private sectors


• Third sector mediates between formal economy and government

• Community service revolutionary alternative to traditional forms of labor

• Community service a helping action and entered into willingly

• Social economy measured by the way its outputs integrate social results with indirect economic gains


• Third sector most socially responsible of the three sectors

• Third sector essential to the flourishing of the democratic spirit

• Played aggressive role in defining American way of life

• Voluntary organizations best developed in the US

An Alternate Vision

• Third sector unites diverse American into cohesive social identity

• Capacity to join together single defining characteristic of Americans

• Third sector incubator of new ideas and forum to air social grievances

• Help preserve traditions and open doors to new experiences

An Alternate Vision

• Third sector where we experience pleasure of life and nature

• Market vision glorifies efficiency standards as chief means of advancing happiness

• Materialist view led to rapacious consumption of the earth

• Third sector motivated by service and security

An Alternate Vision

• New vision based on transformation of consciousness will take hold

• Importance of formal work will diminish• Free time used to renew community bonds and

rejuvenate democratic legacy• New generation will transcend nationalism• New generation will act as common members

of the human race

Empowering the Third Sector

• Market and public sectors’ relationship to the masses will change in fundamental ways

• Government faced with incarcerating more criminals or finding work in the third sector

• Community organizations act as primary agents for social and political reform

• Third-sector will take up more basic services in wake of government cutbacks

Empowering the Third Sector

• Globalization will force people to organize into communities of self-interest

• Self-sustaining local communities only solution to technological displacement

• Government’s role aligned with interests of social economy

• Cooperative effort required to revitalize social economy in every country

A New Role for Government

• Downsizing of government’s role in formal economy will change nature of politics

• Awareness of need to create relationships between government and third sector

• Returning government to the people became convenient euphemism

• Reagan people manipulated third-sector images

The Third Sector and Partisan Politics

• Reagan made volunteerism key theme• Government took away many things once

considered ours to do voluntarily• Many saw Reagan’s message as call to renew

American spirit• Bush reminded country that volunteer sector

was spiritual backbone of American democratic spirit


• Bush introduced Points of Light Initiative• Americans charged volunteerism attempt to

abdicate government responsibilities• Many argued volunteer efforts fragmented attempts

to mount political movements• In the ‘80s, volunteerism reduced to partisan cause• Unions feared volunteers would replace paid work

done by public employees


• Liberals’ failure to accept volunteerism explained by preference for professionals

• Liberals associate third sector with a patronizing form of elitism

• Liberal criticisms of volunteerism failed to reflect reality of volunteer efforts

• Volunteer more effective in providing care services than detached salaried professional


• Volunteers support increased government expenditures

• Government needs to play supportive role in transition to third sector society

• Incentives should encourage those who have a job in market sector

• Need to provide unemployed meaningful work in third sector

Shadow Wages for Voluntary Work

• Greater participation encouraged by providing tax deduction per hour worked

• Tax deductions encourage greater participation • Shadow wages ease transition from formal

employment to community service• By prioritizing deductions, government could

play role in guiding social economy

A Social Wage for Community Service

• Social wage alternative to welfare; would help communities in which labor put to use

• Social income given to skilled workers no longer needed in marketplace

• Guaranteeing annual income turning point in history of economic relationships

• Friedman advocated negative income tax• LBJ established National Commission on Guaranteed

Incomes


• Western European nations have legislatured minimum income schemes

• VISTA, NHSC, ect. promote service and support volunteer efforts worldwide

• State and local governments introducing programs to assist efforts in third sector

• Economic returns exceed expenditures• Many looking to government to hire unemployed


• Offer corporations tax credits for hiring welfare recipients

• Gov’t. focuses on financing public-works projects and emphasizes third-sector society

• Gov’t. should expand community-service programs in impoverished communities

• Nonprofit community addresses issues more effectively than government


• Government moving toward guaranteeing income and encouraging community service

• Recipient unable to find job will perform public-work assignments

• More public jobs could be created by reducing workweek to 30 hours

• Does every member of society have a right to benefit from productivity increases?


• Tying income to service would aid transition to service-oriented culture

• Defense cuts, elimination of some subsidies, and paring down of welfare bureaucracy raise government funds

• Necessary to have new taxes• VAT on all nonessential goods & services• VAT encourages saving over spending

Financing the Transition

• VAT places constraints on overconsumption• VAT would have more positive impact on

economy• VAT could be placed on high-tech items and

entertainment and recreation industries• Enact VAT on advertising• Could increase tax-deductible corporate

contributions to third sector

Financing the Transition

• Transnational companies should be encouraged to contribute more

• Shadow and social wages lay groundwork for transition into social economy

• Proposals promoting the social economy likely to gain support

• Alliance between government and third sector will build sustainable communities

Globalizing the Social Economy

• Independent sector playing more important social role around the world

• Interest in third-sector associations paralleling worldwide spread of democracy

• Civicus’ mission is to cultivate volunteerism and community service

• Growing influence of third sector most noticeable in former nations of Soviet bloc

A New Voice for Democracy

• Democratic groups more effective than resistance groups in toppling the regime

• Third sector becoming wellspring for new ideas, reforms, and political leadership

• Technological displacement becoming central to Eastern Europe’s political debate

• If third sector not successful, these countries may succumb to facism


• Third sector emerging in Asia and the Southern Hemisphere

• Third sector more effective than public or private sectors in developing nations

• Third sector growing fastest in Asia• Latin Americans increasing volunteerism• Africa experiencing rapid growth in third-

sector activity


• In the third world, NGOs getting into the areas the market provides for

• Formal economy irrelevant to most in the world because they’re so poor

• In third world, third sector sector promotes private sector on a massive scale

• Gains from market used to finance expansion of third-sector activity


• Third sector emerging to fill gap left by retreat of private and public sectors

• Governments losing hold over local populations

• Most money for third-sector initiatives in developing nations comes from NGOs

• Social economy going to play important role in labor market in developing countries


• Growth in third-sector activity fostering new international networks

• NGOs faced with many challenges– rising unemployment– possible elimination of outdoor farming

• NGOs banning together to fight agricultural biotechnology

The Last, Best Hope

• Third-sector service answer to rechanneling growing frustration

• Social economy last best hope for re-establishing alternative framework

• Unlikely that many will be retained for scarce high-tech jobs in knowledge sector

• Any new products lines probably require far fewer workers

The Last, Best Hope

• Soaring productivity will face weak demand as more workers lose purchasing power

• Rising technological unemployment and declining purchasing power will continue to plague global economy

• Central governments straining under weight of technological revolution

• Middle class buffeted by technological change

The Last, Best Hope

• Rising polarization create conditions for grand scale social upheaval

• Concern over the jobs issue has led to growing ideological battle

• Conservatives argue for laissez-faire• Unused human labor central reality of coming era• Civilization will be destitute if peoples’ talents

aren’t used constructively

The Last, Best Hope

• Finding alternative to work critical task ahead for every nation

• Social economy one realm machines can’t subsume, so it’s where displaced workers will find refuge

• Must transfs where displaced workers will find refuge

• Must transfer productivity gains to third sector

The Last, Best Hope

• Third sector needs volunteers and operating funds

• Shadow wages, VAT, and increasing tax deductions can increase third sector effectiveness

• Transformed third sector offers only means for channeling surplus labor cast off by global market

The Last, Best Hope

• The end of work could spell death sentence for civilization

• Could also signal beginning of great social transformation & rebirth of human spirit

• Future is up to us

end of work

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