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An edited French-language adaptation of the following article was published in the October 1996 edition of Le Temps Stratégique, a continental European magazine and journal of ideas published in Geneva, and was entitled "Demain les emplois reviendront-ils?".

A principal concern in the revolutionary new world economy is whether sufficient good jobs can be provided during the years immediately ahead and on into the new millennium. As the world reorganizes economically at most levels, old structure is disappearing at a furious rate. Corporations are "downsizing" in response to the pressures of a brutally competitive global information economy, and large numbers of jobs, even whole categories of jobs, are disappearing forever. Whether enough new ones will take their place is a matter of more than idle curiosity. Economic insecurity has been increasing across the industrial world. Bookstores are filled with apocalyptic titles such as The Jobless Future, The Jobless Economy, and The End of Work.

So far, alternative strategies for coping with the brave new work world have not proved altogether satisfactory in the United States or in Europe. In the U.S., emphasis has been on job creation, but lower paying jobs have replaced higher paying jobs, exacerbating an already serious inequality problem with potentially explosive social and political implications.

In Europe, priority has been given to equality and social welfare, but at the cost of growing unemployment, meaning that many persons are largely left out of the system anyway. Moreover, pressures to cut social welfare budgets have been growing in Europe as well, again all with potentially explosive implications. It seems a matter of how living standards, insecurity, and idleness will be distributed across our populations.

What on earth is really going on? What are the fundamental issues?

Will there be enough jobs? First, what we know depends entirely on how we know, and, in this case, no one really knows. Most predictions are "actuarial" ; i.e., based on a knowledge of what has happened in the past. However, the past is guide to the future only insofar as we can expect the future to resemble the past.

History is not simply linear and cumulative. There do seem to be periods when change is qualitative, when a familiar "world" suddenly dissolves, to be replaced by an unfamiliar one.

One of the most fundamental periods of qualitative change was underway in parts of the Middle East at roughly the time the "Iceman" had his mishap in the Alps about 5,300 years ago.

Another is identified with the forces unleashed by the Renaissance which propelled us through the scientific revolution, the period of the Enlightenment, and the emergence of modern capitalism and modern liberal societies.

We may be in another of those periods now, although without historical perspective, it is difficult to tell how fundamental the changes really are. Our ability to use actuarial prediction to anticipate our future depends on their not being very fundamental.

A different approach is "theoretical prediction," which simply means using a knowledge of underlying processes to predict events, even if they have not occurred before. In the natural sciences, this has worked in powerful ways, because our knowledge of basic natural processes is quite extensive. For instance, fusion does not occur on earth in nature; yet, physicists were able to describe the conditions under which it does occur, and were able to produce those conditions on earth with devastatingly practical results.

Unfortunately, our knowledge of the underlying processes affecting our work future is not very adequate. In fact, Peter Drucker believes that the assumptions on which existing economic theory rests are rooted in an increasingly obsolete industrial era. "Information," as a factor in production, doesn't behave like the others, and economic theory doesn't know what to do with it.

According to Drucker, conventional economic theory may be of little help in understanding our new predicament. The world is far more complicated than our maps of it. Theories are maps, and there is a great difference between a map of Geneva and Geneva.

I suspect that the mathematics of complex, non-linear, dynamic systems, originating in meteorology and referred to by the somewhat misleading term "chaos theory," eventually will prove useful in understanding how societies and economies work, as well as human brains. There is some preliminary evidence for this. However, at best, this is still very much in our future. We are only beginning to understand how a single human brain functions in social contexts, and the complexity of even the simplest social system must be greater by many orders of magnitude.

Our task is complicated by the fact that the entire modern economic era, including Adam Smith, the Industrial Revolution, and the current high-technology revolution, has been contained within only a moment of recent human history.

In any of the world's great museums, one can examine antiquities still in beautiful condition. Considering how rapidly entropy sets in and things "go to pieces" in daily life, the fact that anything can be in such excellent condition after thousands of years under any circumstances simply gives testimony to how brief a period a thousand years really is.

Most of recorded history has occurred since the Iceman lived, and some of his tools are still in good condition too. The entire period since the origins of what we call "civilization" is only a small fraction of the 40,000 years or so during which human brains have been essentially identical in structure to our own. There is plenty of room for novelty and surprise in human experience.

In short, not only is actuarial prediction of questionable use during a transformational period such as the one we're in, we really don't know enough about the new world economic system, particularly with unfamiliar factors added, to rely much on "theoretical prediction" either. It is indeed a brave new work world.

It does appear that a number of fundamental changes are occurring in the way humans are carrying on their practical work affairs. These changes have been brewing for years, and, in fact, have roots extending back at least to the day the Iceman set out on his stroll or his hunt or whatever he intended to be doing that day.

Beginning very early, brilliant visionaries were struck with the convenience of using mathematical symbols to represent things, patterns, or relationships in nature. The symbols can be manipulated without breaking a sweat, while working with the things themselves might require strenuous effort.

Even obtaining enough chairs for a large group of people will be a major ordeal if one has to find a chair, set it by a person, and continue this operation until one runs out of people without chairs. Far easier to simply count both in order to determine how many pairs there will be; i.e., use the symbols to represent the things, and manipulate the symbols rather than the things.

With the 17th century's Rene Descartes and his intellectual descendants, the use of mathematical symbols to represent patterns and relationships in nature reached new heights. Not only is it more convenient to manipulate symbols rather than things, it is possible to perform manipulations with symbols that one cannot perform with things at all, and this led to a dramatic increase in our knowledge of nature.

Some of the most astonishing progress has come in the 20th century as we've learned that nature, from the perspective of modern physics, has little resemblance to nature as we and our ancestors have perceived it from the limited perspective of daily life. This has led to a growing distrust of this limited perspective when interpreting other complex events as well, including those having to do with the new world economy.

The information economy, in which so much dislocation is occurring, is simply another step in this process, as applied to practical daily affairs. "Information" is an elemental mathematical concept with extraordinarily broad generality. It can be used to represent nearly anything, making it possible to conduct much of our work with symbols rather than the things represented. Again, it is very convenient, and much easier, but it also makes new kinds of manipulations possible, which can produce dramatic new efficiencies.

In addition to the growing number of new products which are made up wholly of information, an increasing proportion of the work necessary to produce and distribute tangible products is also conducted by working with information rather than with tangible things. Information in its various forms now contributes the principal value to many products and services in the new economy, and this has meant an increase in demand for the expertise required in these key steps in the production process, while at the same time reducing demand for persons who work with tangible things. Not everyone is good at symbolic work, so this produces an employment problem in itself.

The old technologies largely augmented or replaced human or animal muscle in accomplishing work, and, before long, the value of muscle in the work process diminished, and a great many workers plus an enormous numbers of horses were displaced.

The new technologies augment or replace human information processing, decision-making, or control functions, and we're seeing that even sophisticated people who are good at working with symbols are being displaced now as well, because much of the new work can be done by machines rather than people.

One consequence is that the historic connection between academic training and economic security that has been characteristic of the industrial economy has been broken. There still is a relationship, but it is much more complicated than it used to be, and even a doctoral degree will not necessarily guarantee you a job in the new economy, let alone a good job.

Not only has the nature of work been transformed, so has the nature of work organization. For many purposes, geography has become largely irrelevant. Capital can be moved around the globe at the speed of light, and can find opportunities everywhere. Further, many kinds of work can be done nearly any place. It doesn't have to be in the same building as the person who orders it; it doesn't have to be on the same continent.

During the 1980's, British consultant Charles Handy anticipated the form that corporations would be taking in the 1990's and why. Peter Drucker's insights continue to inform, and the current U.S. Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, recently of Harvard University, is still worth reading for an understanding of why the new economy is so different from the old. Finally, American management consultant Tom Peters has been talking about the coming transformation of work for years, and offers an optimistic antidote to apocalyptic scenarios provided by others.

Many of the apocalyptic books mentioned previously may be missing the point. Will there be enough old-economy "jobs" in the new economy? Well, maybe not, but this may be a little like complaining, after the shovel was invented, that there weren't enough good jobs for people who dig with their hands. It's probably important to remember that human beings have managed to get through nearly all of their history on this planet without any "jobs" at all, as we've understood this concept during recent history. The concept itself is a creation of the peculiar conditions of the industrial era.

I am confident that our remote ancestors, Homo habilis and Homo erectus , worked, but I don't think they had jobs. My ancestors who arrived in the middle of the vast North American continent from Asia at least 10,000 years ago surely worked, as did my ancestors who arrived in the same region from Scandinavia by about 1900.

During nearly all of the time I was growing up, my father did not have a job, but he surely worked. He was a farmer who didn't even distinguish between his work and his recreation. It wasn't that his work was his life, but it was in no way alienated from the other elements of his life. His work was an inherent part of who he was and his place in the world, not simply a way of making a living.

The need for work is a part of the definition of a human being, as is the need for the material conditions necessary to support quality life and fulfillment. Industrialization connected the two in the public mind and in fact for many people, but these are not the same things, and they do not necessarily involve the same issues.

Austrian psychiatrist, Sigmund Freud, identified two fundamental, ongoing human needs as lieben und arbeiten. American psychiatrist, William Glasser, expanded slightly on Freud's ideas by saying that we have a fundamental need to do things of use to ourselves as well as things useful to the community. Harvard psychologist, Robert White, wrote of the basic human need to be competent, to have an effect, to act rather than simply having to react, to introduce novelty into the universe, rather than simply being a mechanical part of it-all in order to support a sense of life meaning and significance, subdue debilitating feelings of powerlessness, and affirm a self that is not only competent, but also good and worthwhile.

Despite huge individual differences, people have a basic need for work, because it is in their nature to carry on transactions with their environments and to engage in productive, useful activities that benefit themselves and the community, not simply in order to secure their livelihood.

If, like the subjects of Kuwait, our money, in effect, flowed out of the ground, we would have no less need for work. On the other hand, even if our hours were filled with wonderfully useful, meaningful activity supporting life meaning and a clear sense of self, we would still have need for income in an economy in which most persons cannot produce all they need themselves and in which value is exchanged symbolically.

So, there are two problems, not one, and questions about "jobs" may be barking up the wrong tree, because they assume a necessary connection between the two needs in organizational contexts most typical of the old industrial economy.

In his recent sweet, wise little books, veteran corporate consultant, John Cowan, goes so far as to say that the most basic purpose of a corporation is to provide work for people. Of course, he recognizes that, in order to do this, it must be profitable, and in order to be profitable, it must effectively serve markets. The better it does these things, the better it can perform its most basic task, which is to provide work, not simply make a few persons "rich beyond all reason."

Cowan is a capitalist, as I am. He recognizes that profit is a fundamentally necessary cost of doing business: it is the cost of capital and the cost of risk. Still, his is a fairly revolutionary idea that may be just right for the revolutionary new world economy.

For some, becoming "rich beyond all reason" is a natural consequence of effective, creative activity benefiting self and others, which is to say "work." Microsoft Corporation founder Bill Gates has said that he intends to give away at least 99% of his wealth, which, at this early date-he's only about forty-would still leave him with approximately $140 million dollars.

Motives are complex, and power needs or the need to be influential can play a significant role in driving strong personalities. However, it doesn't appear that the accumulation of wealth has been the principal goal for Chairman Gates, even though he is one of the wealthiest persons in all history. He could have retired years ago, and his wealth would have continued to grow anyway. Nonetheless, he's one of his company's hardest working and most gifted engineers, still intimately involved in creative product development. His motivation seems mostly to work, and his company, which didn't exist only a few years ago, provides work as well as livelihood for more than 17,000 other persons.

On the other hand, in our materialistic culture, it is widely assumed that the obsessive pursuit of wealth does not require explanation, but that is not correct. The motivation for this behavior is no more transparent or self-justifying than for any other. We should be at least curious about why anyone should want to clutter up his life with expensive junk and focus with single-minded determination on such a narrow range of life's possibilities, particularly at the expense of large numbers of her fellow human beings. It may simply be just another type of depravity, and we might be concerned with the mental health of persons who insist on trivializing precious life.

The most basic issues during this new era seem to be moral or spiritual in a broad sense, which, among other things, means approaching issues from very broad perspectives. People need income and they need work, but they do not necessarily need "jobs" in the familiar sense. Our approach to developing solutions should be appropriate to the new economy, not the old, and focus on organic systems. For instance, even "politics" and "economics" are abstractions from the same complex social systems. It is artificial to try to separate them, and we do so only for our convenience, because we can't think of too many things at once.

In work organizations, as well as in society as a whole, we will not want to try to resurrect Marx' naive "labor theory of value" in its original form. Nonetheless, it is time to examine whether traditional property rights are unlimited and whether workers have a legitimate equity stake in their corporations to support the sense of ownership, responsibility, and commitment that helps to integrate effective companies.

Professor Carl Frost's work with the Scanlon Plan for organization development, among other things, provides an answer to Marx within a vigorous capitalist system. Frost has helped to develop some of the most stunningly successful companies in modern history with the enthusiastic participation of workers at all levels.

It is also time to ask hard questions about work opportunities, whether or not these are linked to income (even volunteer work is work, after all), and it is time for a searching examination of our most fundamental assumptions about the conditions determining how we distribute the right to consume.

Notes

The Labor Theory of Value
Karl Marx describes his "labor theory of value" in the first volume of his 3-volume work, Das Capital. Basically, he asserts that an object's value comes only from natural resource, plus the labor necessary to produce it. As a consequence, workers are entitled to all of the benefits from the sale of a product, once the cost of natural resource is paid. Marx denies a legitimate role in the production process for capital or capitalists, so any benefits retained by capitalists amounts to exploitation of workers. He sees no justification for capitalists controlling the means of production.

Marx' ideas met a ready audience following widespread abuses during the early years of the Industrial Revolution. For example, due to extreme air pollution and other hazards in the pottery factories of Staffordshire in the English Midlands during the mid-19th century, where the English Industrial Revolution began, life expectancy was only about seventeen for many workers.

Carl Frost
Professor Frost is Emeritus Professor of Industrial and Organizational Psychology at Michigan State University, in East Lansing, Michigan USA. Recognized as one of America's leading industrial psychologists, he was originally trained as a clinical psychologist at Clark University, where, coincidentally, Sigmund Freud spoke on his only trip to the United States in 1909.

Following receipt of his Ph.D., Dr. Frost became a young colleague of famed industrial psychologist Douglas McGregor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At MIT, Frost also became acquainted with Joseph Scanlon, after whom the Scanlon Plan for organization development is named.

Over the years since, Carl Frost has been the leading proponent of the Scanlon Plan, and, in a consulting practice extending over forty years, is credited with helping to develop some of the most effective, profitable, and innovative companies in modern corporate history, including Motorola, Herman Miller, and Donnelly Corporation. Professor Frost received a lifetime achievement award from the American Psychological Association in 1981.

John Cowan
John Cowan is a former Catholic priest and current Episcopal Priest, who regards his work as a full-time professional corporate human resources consultant as his ministry. Before becoming an independent consultant, he worked for years in global companies, such as Control Data Corporation and Honeywell. He has consulted widely with corporations, governmental agencies, and health organizations throughout the United States. Mr. Cowan is the author of three books.

Peter Drucker
Peter Drucker is one of the most influential social and business thinkers of the 20th century. He is credited with the invention of management consulting, as well as the discipline of modern business management itself. Beginning in Europe and extending throughout much of the world, Mr. Drucker's academic and business experience has been vast. His first book was published in the 1930's; his latest quite recently. Now, nearing 90, he maintains an active consulting practice, and also seems to produce a new book about every eighteen months.

William Glasser
William Glasser is a noted California psychiatrist who has been highly influential in American education as well as psychotherapy. Twenty-five years ago, he led the development of a highly effective system of residential treatment and correction centers for youthful offenders. He is the author of many books, including Schools Without Failure and Reality Therapy.

Robert White
Until his death some years ago, Robert White was one of the more prominent and influential members of the Department of Psychology at Harvard University in Massachusetts. He was a leading researcher and theorist in the psychology of personality, and also led in the development of innovative treatments for the mentally ill. His university textbook, The Abnormal Personality, was used for many years at universities across America. His ideas about human motivation have been influential in many fields, including business.

Suggested Readings

Aronowitz, Stanley and William DiFazio. The Jobless Future: Sci-Tech and the Dogma of Work. University of Minnesota Press, 1994.

Cowan, John. Small Decencies: Reflections and Meditations on Being Human at Work. HarperBusiness, 1992

Cowan, John. The Common Table: Reflections and Meditations on Community and Spirituality in the Workplace. HarperBusiness, 1993

Drucker, Peter. Post-Capitalist Society. HarperBusiness, 1994.

Drucker, Peter. The New Realities: In Government and Politics, in Economics and Business, in Society and World View. Harper & Row, 1990.

Dunkerley, Michael. The Jobless Economy: Computer Technology in the World of Work. Polity Press, 1996.

Frost, Carl F. Changing Forever: The Well-Kept Secret of America's Leading Companies. Michigan State University Press, 1996.

Frost, Carl F., John H. Wakeley, and Robert A. Ruh, The Scanlon Plan for Organization Development: Identity, Participation, and Equity. Michigan State University Press, 1974 (recently reissued in paperback).

Handy, Charles B. Beyond Certainty: The Changing Worlds of Organizations. Harvard Business School Press, 1996.

Handy, Charles B. The Age of Paradox. Harvard Business School Press, 1994.

Handy, Charles B. The Age of Unreason. Harvard Business School Press, 1989.

Peters, Thomas J. Thriving on Chaos: Handbook for a Management Revolution. Harper Perennial, 1991.

Reich, Robert. The Work of Nations: Capitalism in the 21st Century. Knopf, 1991.

Rifkin, Jeremy. The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era. Putnam & Sons, 1995.

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