The series IC was running under this head has not been abandoned, only squeezed out by other things. The main point to be developed is the absence of any natural, inborn or inherent need of work. There are people, lots of them, who feel this need, but it has been acquired in the course of… read more »
IC20 referred to Jane Jacobs and her book The Economy of Cities (mistakenly called “The Culture of Cities”). There appears to be no ideological analysis in the article. A suitable position for further comment in IC would be under the heading “If it ain’t bust, don’t fix it.” The report was a summary of Jacobs’… read more »
IC15 contained an article entitled “The End of Work,” and since then each issue has included a follow-up piece. Most of these have reported technological advances reducing the amount of human labour needed to produce a given quantity of goods, and this is perhaps tending to give the impression that the point of the series… read more »
Here’s something for your IC topic “The End of Work.” Not only has the typesetting industry been eliminated by computers (see IC18 p. 6 Ed.), but the reference-book industry has been eliminated. A single twelve-inch laserdisk will now store two gigabytes of information. That is to say that, if there existed forty different encyclopedias the… read more »
When comparing present structural unemployment with the position in the past it is easy to overlook the extent to which society is already able to support its people without their all needing to work. In 1879 the establishment of universal education took all children in Britain off what used to be known as the labour… read more »
London’s buses and underground trains are to have computerised ticket machines; experience suggests it will take a while to get the bugs out of these. Several years ago buses were introduced which had automatic ticket machines instead of conductors. Some of them worked properly; the others – well, we ourselves hit the jackpot once, but… read more »
IN IC18 we reported Ray Hammond’s comment that the whole of the typesetting industry was being eliminated by the computer in half a decade. Now another industry – admittedly a smaller one – is also about to disappear. For something like a thousand years copyists have produced the musical scores needed by performers, but now… read more »
In IC15 (December 1984) there appeared an article under the above title suggesting that the orthodox view, that people generally need work if they are to lead satisfactory lives, was mistaken. The article put forward reasons for believing that there is a large group (it may even be a majority) that would be happier without… read more »
In IC15 there appeared an article entitled THE END OF WORK. It brought forward evidence, and reasoning against the orthodox view that people generally need work if they are to enjoy a full life. Folklore, psychoanalysis, history and literature all indicate that the natural, inborn, inherent inclination is rather away from work than toward it,… read more »
Useful work is becoming scarce. In Britain alone some three million are unemployed and not even the government dares to claim that this will soon be ended. Powered machinery reduced the need for human muscle and now computers and automation are displacing people with other abilities. Useful work can no longer be provided for all… read more »