Jobless Future: Sci-Tech and the Dogma of Work

by Stanley Aronowitz, William DiFazio (Contributor)

Book by Aronowitz, Stanley

Genres: Academic

408 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1994

About the author

Stanley Aronowitz (1933–2021) was a professor of sociology, cultural studies, and urban education at the CUNY Graduate Center. He was also a veteran political activist and cultural critic, an advocate for organized labor and a member of the interim consultative committee of the International Organization for a Participatory Society.

In 2012, Aronowitz was awarded the Center for Study of Working Class Life's Lifetime Achievement Award at Stony Brook University.

Reviews

[Ari Stillman · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this prodigious yet discursive text, the authors trace the history of the labor movement, how knowledge workers and machine expertise have largely come to displace and eclipse craft and skill, and how we (at the societal level) might be emancipated from the hyper-capitalist technoculture we have wrought. In doing so, they interrogate the nature of work itself – differentiating it from labor – and argue, following Marx, that the rationalization of the means of production contributes to job loss and alienation among remaining workers. In this sense, technological innovation in the service of capitalism is presented as an enemy while other compounding culprits, such as privatized enterprises operating in a free market and government policies enabling it all, are given cursory blame for the present situation. The book concludes with what feels like a rushed succession of policy recommendations that, without a roadmap or taking the time to substantiate each one, reads like little more than wishful thinking.