Beyond Employment (Labor And Social Change)

This book examines the debate surrounding the future of "waged work" and the growth of an informal economy. Through detailed research, Claus Offe and Rolf G. Heinze contend that the nature of waged work, or exchanging time for money, is being transformed. They argue that the experiences of recent decades and the persistent crisis of employment have demonstrated this transition despite the fact that "being employed" is held to be the normal psychological, social, and economic state of affairs. This is the first sustained analysis of the relationship between work and the "informal economy."
Beyond Employment examines the important question of whether the results of human labor can be allocated other than through the medium of money, without the need to solve the problems of production and distribution via state and bureaucratic hierarchies. Focusing on the middle ground between the two institutionalized sectors of employment--private households and the labor market--the authors explain how an informal economy has emerged within which goods and services are exchanged, not for money but for mutual assistance, cooperation, and payment in kind. They cite examples of exchange networks in Germany, the Netherlands, the United States, and Canada.
Offe and Heinze show how these non-monetary exchanges of services are becoming organized not only between friends, neighbors, relatives, or members of a club, but through larger scale, innovative systems that they call "cooperation circles." Beyond Employment is a major contribution to the study of organized work outside the labor market. It will be welcomed by students and researchers in social sciences and public policy.

Claus Offe is Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the University of Bremen.

Rolf G. Heinze is Professor of Sociology at the Ruhr-Universität, Bochum.