The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era

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Summary: Everyday more relevant.
Review: 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 ?

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Summary: This book will open your eyes.
Review: How many hours do you work a week? 44 hours? 40 hours? 30 hours? Or no work? Many people believe that the less we work, the more we are happy. However, is the labor time so important in future? Do you think it's very simple with the future of work? What's the most important thing with this subject?

Do you have thought the future of civilization? The author pointed on the future of the work in civilization. Some people may think the author's opinion is too pessimistic to agree with his opinions. I think, however, the author's ideas are very great because he analyzed the roots of work and he continued an objective view in this book.

According to the author's view, the work is related with not only the labor itself, but information technology, social changes and organization systems, Future Economics and so on. He did not said about the mass production work, nor lean production work. He make an effort to say about the directions of work changes, the counterproposal of idal work. For this objectives, he analysed various fields of knowledge: Information Technology, Sociology, Philosoghy, Economics, Business Administration and so on.

If you have thirsty curiosity to the various Social Science or if you want to contact to the future of civilization, I tend to recommend this book without hesitation.

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Summary: A Great Compilation Of Labor History inAmerica
Review: I must admit that when I read this book, I was a bit dissappointed at the lack of new information. As a student of labor history, I had read previously many of the ideas and concepts that Rifkin expands upon in several other books. I only wished I had picked up this one book, prior to reading all the others. It would have saved me much time and money.

In short, Rifkin decribes the transition of the worker from pre-industrial revolution, through the era of machines and mass-production, and the advent of the information age in which he predicts there will be fewer and fewer workers. His analysis describes how this effects the worker, organizational make-up, employment relationships, and even how government has been forced to change to accomodate the modern economy.

I believe that anyone interested in the dynamics of technology and globalism on the workforce will find Rifkin's work very interesting, well-written, and easy to read.

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Summary: Engrossing and convincing
Review: Nothing much here, just a economic writer throwing data after data to comprobe his theories about the doom of mankind ...

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Summary: Does technology create worker freedom or destitution?
Review: 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.

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Summary: A worthwhile read...
Review: Rifkin's work, with a foreword from perhaps one of the most socialist mainstream economists of our day, Robert Heilbroner, of the New School for Social Research, addresses squarely the problems caused by technology replacing labor in today's rapidly changing globalized economy. Since only educated Americans read these days, fully 75%-85% of the U.S. population will never be exposed to the author's insights. Therefore, the solutions presented by Rifkin will fall on deaf ears; and perhaps, they should. Technology as the driving force for social change, as in every other epoch of modern human history, is carving out a niche for the technologically informed individuals. For the sociologists out there, is a new "class" (heaven forbid) being constituted? I think so. What will be the political, economic, and sociological result? Most likely not much different than the impacts of the past epochs: capital/wealth concentration to those individual and institutions who own and control the "means of production" (my apologies to those made nauseous by Marxist arguments) or, in this case, those who control the creation and production of information- or knowledge-based technologies (read Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, Time Warner, Disney, GE, Westinghouse). Capitalism has survived in various forms (despite Mr. Marx's assertions) for thousands of years whether in the form of feudalism, mercantilsm, imperialism, corporatism, or today's state-sponsored global corporatism. Therefore, a suggestion to all of those of the laboring classes: Why not give in? Accept benevolent corporate benefactors in the best case, or non-wage-based, total private corporate slavery in exchange for room and board, minimal disease care, and survival. Why struggle and compete against your neighbors, friends, and family members, when wage slaves can never "win" the battle against technological advancements and corporate-statist, social organization? Technologically-disenfranchised wage slaves of the world unite! Instead of the public welfare state of the last half of the twentieth century, financed primarily by regressive payroll taxes levied against the working class, accept defeat; demand benevolent, corporate socialist slavery!

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Summary: My Radical Point of View
Review: 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.

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Summary: Rifkin is a neo-Malthusian
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Rifkin is a neo-Malthusian
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: TERROR !! DESTRUCTION !! BEWARE !!!
Review: THis is another "prophetical" book about the economic end of the world. I don't care if everything the author says will be true. One thin I know for sure: the companies are fireing their employess at will, while their profits keep on growing and growing all the time. Why they do that ? Because capitalçism has put down his mask and shown what it really is. Unfortunately, nobody has shown us a better form to live economically, so each one of us must do our best to survive without depending upon the god damned companies !!!