[.ca] End Of Work (ISBN 1585423130)

Everyday more relevant.:
Amazon does not allow to scale a book differently for the message and for the way the message is brought. For the message I would give a 5 , for the way a 4, for the solutions a 3. The theme brought is one of the principal societal trends of today and debit to the current economic crisis. The decline of the working middle class and work as the core of wealth, is becoming inescapable for anyone reading the economic pages in the newspapers or making a living by working in a corporation (I am an ERP consultant). A book written before 1995 has become even more actual in 2003, the temporary relief during the 4 bubble years 98-01 notwithstanding, the economy is a Medusa raft. Why Gore was not allowed or not finding funding to make it a campaing theme is a perfectly understandable drama. The way it is brought: most of the evidence and working out of the theme is anecdotal and circumstantial, that makes for interesting and fast reading but leaves you without the solidity of scientific proof. There are no statistics, no graphs, no formulas, nothing of the kind. I did not need convincing of the truth of what is happening and those who are not will not by statistics or facts alone, but I like scientifically verifiable facts and figures. The solutions: undoubtably the non-market sector, guaranteed annual income and income transfers will have to play a role and Rifkin sites a wealth of names and studies supporting this. What I want to see are figures showing how it all adds up: how much redistribution, what are the required tax levels, what are the income levels needed to sustain a 'volunteer' middleclass, what are the permissable income gaps to make it work ?

Rifkin is a neo-Malthusian:
This book was ok in that it did a good job in describing workplace dislocations caused by new technology, but in many ways, its the same old situation. If one is looking for a very clearly articulated portrayal of these dislocations in the modern time, then one will like this book. I disagree with all of the doom and gloom, however. This sort of doom and gloom reminded me of the Malthus's writings about overpopulation and fears of machinery in the late 19th century, both of which I view as very discredited observations. There will always be dislocations as result of technological progress; and as tragic as it is, one cannot progress without rendering something obsolete. But we are nowhere near a post-market nor a post-scarcity era.

My Radical Point of View:
The title of this book should be My Radical Point of View. Although I did enjoy this book and the decade by decade review of the history of the American workforce and its laws, I found Mr. Rifkin's views quite radical even in the post 9/11 economy. It is very difficult to believe that the world will become a workerless society as the author would like us to believe. There will always be the need for people to fix the machines that Mr Rifkin believes will replace humans. He also does not address one of the largest employers of people that will never be in the technology age, the healthcare industry. Our society and economy will always have its ups and downs, but it has always recovered. Since 9/11 most of the jobs that were eliminated were technology positions. This is in direct contrast with the main idea of the book. It would be naive to believe that technolgy has not replaced humans because of the advances in machinery and computers, but to the extent The End of Work would like us to believe is foolish. Hopefully there will be a sequel to this book in 20 years to see how correct Mr. Rifkins views are, but I would tend to believe we will still all have jobs and not be out of work.

Food For Thought For Our Future:
Some reviewers see this book as a "gloom'n'doom" "Malthusian" feeding of technophobia, but I disagree. Look at the news - reports of job losses despite increased productivity and corporate profits are not going to go away. Technological advances make this an inevitability. What Rifkin ultimately questions is how we deal with that - we could either head towards great social upheavals because of mass unemployment leading to people being unable to provide for their own basic needs, or we could enjoy a cultural and social rebirth where people are free from wage slavery and are free to pursue meaningful and fulfilling endeavors. Rifkin's surveys of the development of the third sector (NGOs, arts, sports, social services, religious organizations, etc.), proposals for the guaranteed annual income for everyone, usage of time dollars, and increase in volunteerism does not indicate that he's some kind of paranoid nut who's screaming that the sky is falling - in fact, he comes across as being more cautiously optimistic. These are the similar ideas about a work-free (meaningless work, that is) future that R. Buckminster Fuller Robert Anton Wilson and Bertram Russell have written about. If some might think that this book is "leftist anti-corporate propaganda", it is not - it's quite non-partisan; he may espouse the idea of a guaranteed annual income which most might distastefully find "socialistic", but from the capitalist point-of-view, how can consumers buy products to support a corporation's profits if they don't have any money in the first place?

Does technology create worker freedom or destitution?:
Rifkin provided a good historical examination of how technological innovations of automation, corporate reengineering, lean production, and computers have replaced the need for workers at an alarming rate culminating in what he termed "The Third Industrial Revolution". Every sector and industry has experienced significant trends in unemployment and underemployment. Although virtually every worker has been affected, African-Americans were particularly devastated as they got caught between the machanization of southern agriculture and automation in northern cities resulting in the creation of the underclass. In all, technology has undermined the worker and reconceptualized our notion of the workplace. Solutions to global worker displacement include shorter work week to share the remaining work to all workers. Rifkin also argues for investment in the third sector of volunteerism and social services to combat the rise in crime and violence that is inevitable in a society of large scale employment. Although his historical examination is admirable, his future prophecy of a massive unemployment did not convince me that we are headed to a society run by machines. Alternatively I believe there will always be demand for human labor as machines present their own limitations. Several years ago many proclaimed that dot.com's will put bricks and mortar stores out of business. Despite these claims bricks and mortar stores did not disappear partly because many customers enjoyed the personalibility of social interaction with salespeople and other customers. Doing Christmas shopping over the internet is not a comparable replacement to going to a shopping mall for everyone. In addition, Rifkin never addressed the all important realm of unpaid work that will never diminish as long as there are humans on earth. Overall, this book is a good read although I had trouble with his future predictions.