The End of Work

The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era
Jeremy Rifkin

Wikipedia: In 1995, Rifkin contended that worldwide unemployment would increase as information technology eliminated tens of millions of jobs in the manufacturing, agricultural and service sectors. He predicted devastating impact of automation on blue-collar, retail and wholesale employees. While a small elite of corporate managers and knowledge workers would reap the benefits of the high-tech world economy, the American middle class would continue to shrink and the workplace become ever more stressful.

As the market economy and public sector decline, Rifkin predicted the growth of a third sector—voluntary and community-based service organizations—that would create new jobs with government support to rebuild decaying neighborhoods and provide social services. To finance this enterprise, he advocated scaling down the military budget, enacting a value added tax on nonessential goods and services and redirecting federal and state funds to provide a "social wage" in lieu of welfare payments to third-sector workers.

Amazon: The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era [Paperback—1996, 2004]

An analysis of the potentially catastrophic implications of the growing worldwide unemployment crisis explains how we can avoid economic collapse, create conditions for a new more humane social order, and redefine the role of the individual in the new society. Reprint.