BEYOND MASS PRODUCTION
The American experience roughly paralleled that of Japan— iirlmologyand new jobs both increasing—while Sweden, I-ranee, West Germany, and Italy all showed markedly individual patterns, It is clear that the level of employment is not merely a re-flrciion of technological advance. It does not simply rise and full as we automate or fail to do so. Employment is the net result of many converging policies.
Pressures on the job market may well increase dramatically in the years ahead. But it is naive to single out the computer as their source.
What is certain is that both the office and the factory are destined to be revolutionized in the decades ahead. The twin revolutions in the white- collar sector and in manufacture add up to nothing less than a wholly new mode of production for society—a giant step for the human race.
This step carries with it indescribably complex implications. It will affect not only such things as the level of employment and the structure of industry but also the distribution of political and economic power, the size of our work units, the international division of labor, the role of women in the economy, the nature of work, and the divorce ofproducer from consumer; it will even alter so seemingly simple a fact as the “where” of work.
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