The end of work : the decline of the global labor force and the dawn of the post-market era /
America is experiencing its sharpest rise in productivity in fifty years, the stock market is on its way to recovery, and the economy is growing -- but jobs still keep disappearing at an alarming rate, leaving everyone perplexed. The global economy, says Jeremy Rifkin, is undergoing a fundamental tr...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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New York :
Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin,
[2004]
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| Edition: | 1st trade pbk. ed. |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Table of contents Contributor biographical information Publisher description |
| Summary: | America is experiencing its sharpest rise in productivity in fifty years, the stock market is on its way to recovery, and the economy is growing -- but jobs still keep disappearing at an alarming rate, leaving everyone perplexed. The global economy, says Jeremy Rifkin, is undergoing a fundamental transformation in the nature of work that will reshape civilization in the twenty-first century. In this compelling and disturbing, yet ultimately hopeful book, Rifkin argues that we are entering a new phase in history -- one characterized by the steady and inevitable decline of jobs. Sophisticated computers, robotics, telecommunications, and other Information Age technologies are fast replacing human beings in virtually every sector and industry. Near-workerless factories and virtual companies loom on the horizon. While the emerging "knowledge sector" and new markets abroad will create some new jobs, they will be too few to absorb the vast numbers of workers displaced by the new technologies. Every nation will have to grapple with the question of what to do with the millions of people whose labor is needed increasingly less, or not at all, in an ever more automated global economy. Rethinking the very nature of work is likely to be the single most pressing concern facing society in the decades to come. Rifkin warns that the end of work could mean the demise of civilization as we have come to know it, or signal the beginning of a great social transformation and a rebirth of the human spirit. Book jacket. |
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| Item Description: | Originally published: New York : G.P. Putnam's Sons, ©1995. With a new introduction by the author. "Updated for the 21st century"--Cover. |
| Physical Description: | xlviii, 352 pages ; 23 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 296-338) and index. |
| ISBN: | 1585423130 9781585423132 |