Michael Gurstein wrote:
>
> One thing seems to be overlooked in the "end of work" argument--both
> pro and con. While the evidence is still unclear as to whether
> there is a net positive or negative impact of technology on the number of
> jobs, there seems little doubt that technology is having a significant
> impact on the manner and form of work and in this way on the nature of at
> least some jobs.
I guess I'm not the only one on this list to want to substitute:
"technology under current capitalist conditions" for: "technology".
>
> How much impact and how many jobs are so impacted isn't, it's true, clear
> but the old industrial work structures with master/slave authority
> systems, repetitive and clearly definable/delimitable tasks, continuity of
> work organization, stability of job content, and so on and so on has for
> many disappeared and is for very many others disappearing. I won't put an
> evaluation on it... for many it is an improvement for many others it's a
> step back but for most it appears inevitable.
"Master/slave", yes, but also more genteel paternalistic and perhaps
even locally egalitarian conditions such as the relations of IBMers
(e.g., seles reps) to "Big Blue"....
>
> I have a feeling, in response to the "End of Work" argument, that we may
> only be seeing the end of "jobs" as we have known them and not the end of
> "work" and in fact, the transformation in the nature of "jobs" may be such
> as to increase the number of those "employed" while decreasing their
> security, stability, continuity, and so on.
Might the current concoction of techno-capitalism be leading us
to ever worse techno-drudgery. Meanwhile, the PhD computer scientists
who are building this future often have imaginative horizons
limited by the latest episode of Star Trek, and envisage what I
have previously describd as: "Techno-feudalism in flying fortresses."
>
> If this is the case, then the End of Work argument is not only a bit of a
> red herring but also a diversion from the task of determining how the new
> type of "employment" can or should be regulated, and what sort of safety
> net/transition programs makes sense in the context of rapidly emerging
> fluid, speedy, contractual, self-defining, skill/knowledge intensive,
> job structures.
I remember a person in IBM -- an older man with a white beard -- who
had a calendar on his office wall that had the following slogan
at the bottom of each page:
Was the Sabbath made for man, or was man made for the Sabbath?
Was technology made for man, or was man made for technology?
I, for one, am not too hopeful.
>
> Mike Gurstein
\brad mccormick
--
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
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