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The End of Work | 
 enlarge | Author: Jeremy Rifkin
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
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Rating:  30 reviews
Sales Rank: 972222
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Paperback
Edition: Updated
Pages: 400
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 5.9 x 1
ASIN: B000ILZ5L0
Publication Date: May 11, 2004
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Product Description
Global unemployment is now at the highest level since the Depression. In this provocative book, Rifkin illustrates that the soaring productivity advances made possible by new technologies are bringing the world economy close to cataclysm. He argues, however, that there is still time to avoid economic collapse, and offers challenging solutions for the public and private sectors.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 25 more reviews...
 An Unintended Appeal for African Values in Western Society June 21, 2008
Lawrence (Los Angeles, CA)
A must read. Written back in the 90s but arguably more relevant today than it was back then. Very thoroughly chronicles the progression of the 3 Industrial Revolutions---the 3rd of which we are entering now---and their impact on global economics and politics.
The message is clear: Millions of people are becoming economically obsolete; because of technology we no longer need them to help produce things like automobiles, steel, and many consumer goods. At the same time, they can no longer afford to purchase these things due to job displacement. They have been shoved out of the world economy, and if we don't do something about it, we will have a global French Revolution situation on our hands as their ranks continue to grow exponentially due to outsourcing and tech upgrades and the chasm between haves and have-nots continues to widen daily.
There are two futures that the author sees as possible. The first---and more probable according to him---is a bleak one with rising crime and massive backlash of the poor on each other and the wealthy. The other is a refocusing on the volunteer/social sector and employing the displaced masses in worthy contribution to communities. Rifkin does not realize it, but he is basically suggesting a casting away of European values originating from Platonic dichotomies of good/bad, us/other, valuable/expendable, etc...then evolving into the "us" VS. "other" mentality of medieval Europe...before finally maturing into full-scale imperialism, colonialism, manifest destiny, etc.....the ULTIMATE "Entitlement" mentality...resulting in the unapologetic exploitation of land, people, and resources until imploding on itself out of its own greed and ravenousness. When he talks of the 3rd/social sector--the "'post-market" area, he is actually suggesting the adoption of more cooperative and community-conscious African principles once the European worldview has collapsed on itself.
Middle Management June 25, 2006
Mary E. Sibley (Carneys Point, NJ USA)
Middle management is vulnerable to job loss in the event of restructuring. Typically a reconfigured company sheds forty percent of its jobs. The computer revolution is most pronounced in the manufacturing sector. A world with fewer and fewer workers is a disturbing trend.
In the early years of the Great Depression the link between labor-saving and overproduction was discerned. By 1932 shorter hours of work was supported by the rationale of economic justice. In 1963 a triple revolution was identified by J. Robert Oppenheimer and others, cybernetics, weapons manufactures, and human rights concerns. The issue presented was the possibility that previously disfavored groups could become outcasts in the new cyber economy. Norbert Weiner warned of technological unemployment. Labor leaders decided not to fight automation, the use of labor-saving devices, but rather to push for retraining. Unfortunately too few jobs were created and the union began losing membership and clout.
Modern management began with the railroads in 1850. Now organizational hierarchies are being deconstructed. There is a connection between biotechnology and automation resulting in rapid changes in farming practices.
Service work has been absorbing losses of manufacturing work in the past, but service work is being automated and can no longer be depended upon to create jobs. Productivity gains and increased profits are being made with fewer workers. Electronic inroads highlight the advent of the paperless office in the insurance and banking industries. Paper in a service business has been compared to cholesterol in the bloodstream.
A lot of retailing has gone electronic and wholesale functions are being eliminated. In the meantime cashier productivity has increased greatly through the use of bar code technology.
The author terms the current state of affairs the third industrial revolution. The work force, though, is in retreat in nearly every sector. Trickle-down is a chimera.
The newest victims of re-engineering are apt to live in affluent suburbs. A fading middle class is described. There is gross disparity between high wage earners and low wage earners. The pace of work due to automation has increased resulting in worker stress. There are more temporary jobs and fewer full-time jobs available in the re-engineered business environment. Technology displacement produces an increase in crime statistics. Hardship and stress lead to spontaneous upheavals. One cure for unemployment is a shorter work week.
In the future the market sector and the public sector will be less important than the third sector embodying volunteerism. Notes, bibliography, and index follow this enlightening text.
 A rather poor effort April 7, 2006
BernardZ (Melbourne, vic Australia)
8 out of 15 found this review helpful
I often enjoy reading books written trying to read the future that are several years old. If only to see why the writer was right or wrong and where he went wrong.
Well this book was published in 1996 and is basically written around the US although other countries are mentioned in passing. The basic premises is that the new industries will employ a few people but not enough to make up the fall in the established industries. So the unemployment will go up. Furthermore we better get used to it. His partial solution is reduction in hours of employment and a greater stress on the third sector.
Looking at the US economy which most of the book is written about in the past 50 years the workforce in the US has almost tripled. Yet in the same period there is no long term trend to greater unemployment. Just look at a graph. Currently now its where it was in 1950. So obviously unemployment is not going up. So the writer got it wrong.
Looking at a graph of US unemployments percenatges, its clear that the situation was a bit high at the time of writing. The writer made a typical mistake of many futurologist of extrapolating into the far future based on the past few years.
Furthermore the writer paid too much attention to the publicity departments of R&D companies. He keeps bring us all these new technologies that are going to change the world dramatically eg getting rid of farmers with chemical vats and vanilla production from genetic research. Well, its been 10 years and most of these technologies are still coming. He obviously has forgotten Daniel Bell warning in what is an absolute gem of a book "Coming of Post-Industrial Society" that many futurologist look too hard at industries worth millions of dollars and generalize into industrials worth billions.
He seems to also forget that labour hours are dropping all the time. I am not sure what the situation is in the US but as the pay master in an Australian company, I can see that the labour hours are steadily dropping every year. For example old timers tell me that the standard office hours 40 years ago was 44 hours a week, by the time I started working it was 40 and now at 38 hours plus now two 10 minutes breaks are included in the working hours so its more like 36 hours week. Furthermore in the past few years the number of sick days a year has gone from 5 days to 8 days a year. Two extra days a year has been introduced for compassionate leave. Long service leave (a holiday of 15 weeks) is now given at 10 years not 15 years. Furthermore the average worker now starts his employment later as he tends to study much more, so early 20s is now quite standard to start working and he retires at 55. All this works out to a rather dramatic drop in hours worked in a generation.
Finally we come to the third sector. The sector the writer hopes is going to take some of the unemployment. This is a sector that I have had considerable contact with over the years eg I went to a private school, been active in political and religious organizations, been computer programmer in a private cancer research organization and have been too many private hospitals. I don't see the employment opportunities. The volunteers or people on the committees that he is referring too tend to be at most a few hours a week. Hardly an equivalent of a job. Nor is it generally like they are working. Often its more socialible. The people that work for these organizations tend to be regular workers eg the janitor in the church, the nurse in a charity run hospital or teacher in a religious school does a similar job to the same people in a similar government or private institution. They tend to get paid roughly the same. Often they go from government to private to the third sector depending on who gives them a better deal. I just don't know where the writer is coming from with his arguments here. I suspect that he has little contact with these organizations.
Overall I would say that this book is best forgotten.
Food For Thought For Our Future January 15, 2006
No1Crush (Alberta, Canada)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
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?
 Nonsense January 7, 2006
Nemesis (U.S.)
5 out of 23 found this review helpful
Probably one of the worst distortions in statistics is that of extratroplation of complex issues. The UN and its followers are very prone to these kinds of mistakes as is this book. To extropolate out and arrive at the kind of conclusions found in this book is a bit beyond ridiculous and borderline irresponsible. I notice too that there is essentially no consideration/balance regarding Schumpeter's "creative destruction" theories.
The title itself "The End of Work" is not something we should take seriously or utilize as a basis for further discussion.
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