The End of Work
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The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era is a non-fiction book by American economist Jeremy Rifkin, published in 1995 by Putnam Publishing Group.[1]
In 1995, Rifkin contended that worldwide unemployment would increase as information technology eliminates tens of millions of jobs in the manufacturing, agricultural and service sectors. He traced the devastating impact of automation on blue-collar, retail and wholesale employees. While a small elite of corporate managers and knowledge workers reap the benefits of the high-tech global economy, the American middle class continues to shrink and the workplace becomes ever more stressful. As the market economy and public sector decline, Rifkin predicted the growth of a "third sector"-voluntary and community-based service organizations-that will create new jobs with government support to rebuild decaying neighborhoods and provide social services. To finance this enterprise, he advocated scaling down the military budget, enacting a value added tax on nonessential goods and services and redirecting federal and state funds to provide a "social wage" in lieu of welfare payments to third-sector workers.[1]
[edit] Criticism
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Philosopher Constantine George Caffentzis is critical of Jeremy Rifkin as one of the major contributors to the "end of work" discourse and literature of the 1990s which he argues has been theoretically and empirically refuted.[2]
[edit] References
- ^ a b Rifkin, Jeremy (1995). The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era. Putnam Publishing Group. ISBN 0-87477-779-8.
- ^ Caffentzis, Constantine George (1998). "The End of Work or the Renaissance of Slavery? A Critique of Rifkin and Negri". Retrieved on 2007-08-21.
