The Future of Work Paperback / softback - 2019

The digital economy is here

Robots, artificial intelligence, and driverless cars are no longer the stuff of futuristic visions. They are with us today and will become increasingly common in coming years, along with virtual reality and digital personal assistants.

As these tools advance deeper into everyday use, they raise fundamental questions: how will they transform society, the economy, and politics? If companies need fewer workers because of automation and robotics, what happens to those who once held those jobs? Many social benefits are delivered through jobs, so how are people without full-time employment going to manage?

Looking past today's headlines, political scientist and cultural observer Darrell M. West argues that society needs to rethink the concept of jobs, reconfigure the social contract, move toward a system of lifetime learning, and develop a new kind of politics for an era of economic dislocation. With the U.S. governance system in shambles because of political polarization and hyper-partisanship, dealing creatively with the transition to a fully digital economy will vex political leaders and complicate the adoption of remedies that could ease the transition pain.

This book presents a number of proposals to help all of us adapt and flourish as our industrial economy inevitably becomes a digital one. This ranges from creating new forms of job identity to encouraging lifelong learning, from emphasizing leisure activities in the arts, music, and culture to overhauling the social contract and making fundamental political reforms. It is vital to address these issues in order to avoid widespread economic and political disruption.