Opinion polls are now beginning to show that, whoever is to
blame and whatever happens from now on, high unemployment is probably here to
stay. This means we shall have to find ways of sharing the available employment
more widely. But we need to go further. We must ask some
fundamental questions about the future work. Should we continue to treat
employment as the norm Should we not rather encourage many ways for
self-respecting people to work Should we not create conditions in which many of
us can work for ourselves, rather than for an employer Should we not aim to
revive the household and the neighborhood, as well as the factory and the
office, as centers of production and work The Industrial Age
has been the only period of human history in which most people’s work has taken
the form of jobs. The Industrial Age may now be coming to an end, and some of
the changes in work patterns which it brought may have to be reversed. This
seems a daunting(使人畏缩的) thought. But, in fact, it could offer a better future
for work. Universal employment, as its history shows, has not meant economic
freedom. Employment became widespread when the enclosures of the
17th and 18th centuries made many people dependent on paid work by depriving
them of the use of the land, and thus of the means to provide a living for
themselves. Then the factory system destroyed the cottage industries and
removed, first by rail and then by road, people commuted longer distances to
their places of employment until, eventually, many people’s work lost all
connection with their home loves and the places in which they love.
Meanwhile, employment put women at a disadvantage. In preindustrial times,
men and women had shared the productive work of the household and village
community. Now it became customary for the husband to go out to the paid
employment, leaving the unpaid work of the home and families to his wife. Tax
and benefit regulations still assume this norm today, and restrict more flexible
sharing of work roles between the sexes. It was not only women
whose work status suffered. As employment became the dominant form of work,
young people and old people were excluded—a problem now, as more teenagers
become frustrated at school and more retired people want to live active
lives. All this may now have to change. The time has certainly
come to switch some effort and resources away from the idealist goal of creating
jobs for all, to the urgent practical task of helping many people to manage
without full time jobs. What does the author think about the coming end of the Industrial Age