The Jobless Future: Sci-Tech and the Dogma of Work

Book by Aronowitz, Stanley, Difazio, William

Sociologists Aronowitz and DiFazio contend that scientific and technological advances have resulted in "too many workers for too few jobs, and even fewer of them are well paid." The authors proceed to pose questions regarding the effect this "progressive destruction of high-quality, well-paid, permanent jobs" will have on the meaning of work and its relationship to the concept of "self." Inexplicably, they salt this otherwise scholarly and well-researched work with detailed movie plot lines and wordy quotations from disgruntled workers. Replete with such futuristic concepts as cybernetics, technoculture, deskilling, and informatics, this book is as timely as today's headlines announcing the latest round of layoffs and downsizing. The hyperbolic title notwithstanding, this is an important and thought-provoking work that will be of primary interest to economists, sociologists, business leaders, and public policy-makers.
Alan Farber, Northern Illinois Univ., DeKalb
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.