Work Without Jobs

Abstract

Technology has always had an impact on the world of work. This chapter compares the transformation of our societies during the Industrial Revolution with potential transformations that digitalization may bring about today. If digitalization is truly disruptive, more may be at stake than job losses in some sectors and job gains in others. Identifying several key features of digitalization, this chapter sketches a future of work in which not jobs but work itself stands in the center of economic activity. Such a development could open a pathway to more humanistic, more democratic, and more sustainable societies but would require rethinking entirely how we organize and reward work on a societal level.