end of work - Seminar on Current Affairs

The End of Work by 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 reengineering 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 AfricanAmerican 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

The Switch to Lean Production • 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

The Switch to Lean Production • 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

The Switch to Lean 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

The End of Outdoor Agriculture • 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

The End of Outdoor Agriculture • 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 bluecollar 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

The Silicon-Collar Workforce • High-tech equipment increase productivity & eliminate jobs in appliance industry • Textiles industry most affected by Industrial Revolution • Textiles have lagged behind due to laborintensiveness of sewing process • Today, industry catching up through leanproduction practices and automated systems

The Silicon-Collar Workforce • 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

Downsizing the Wholesale and Retail Sectors • 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

Downsizing the Wholesale and Retail Sectors • 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

Digitizing the Professions, Education, and Art • 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

Digitizing the Professions, Education, and Art • 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

Squeezing the Little Guy • 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 nearabject circumstances for many

Squeezing the Little Guy • 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 leanproduction 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

Biorhythms and Burnout • 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

Biorhythms and Burnout • 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

The New Reserve Army • Part-time workers earn 40% less than fulltime 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

The New Reserve Army • 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 leanproduction 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 parttime

High-Tech Politics in Europe • 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

High-Tech Politics in Europe • Corporate leaders introduced “Eurosclerosis” 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

Automating the Third World • 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

Automating the Third World • 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

A More Dangerous World • 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

A More Dangerous World • 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 lowintensity 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 (nonmarket 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

Life Beyond the Marketplace • 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

Life Beyond the Marketplace • 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

The Third Sector and Partisan Politics • 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

The Third Sector and Partisan Politics • 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

The Third Sector and Partisan Politics • 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

A Social Wage for Community Service • 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

A Social Wage for Community Service • 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

A Social Wage for Community Service • 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?

A Social Wage for Community Service • 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

A New Voice for Democracy • 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 thirdsector activity

A New Voice for Democracy • 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

A New Voice for Democracy • 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

A New Voice for Democracy • 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 reestablishing 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