The Day the World Stopped Working

The title of this essay refers not, as one might have imagined, to that moment in the spring of 2020 near the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic when tens of millions of people across the world were suddenly laid off or furloughed or told to work from home and a worldwide economic slowdown began. Despite the echoes of this most recent crisis, my title refers instead to all the discourses regarding the “end of work” that have cropped up periodically since the end of the nineteenth century and that drew widespread public attention back in the 1990s, due in large part to Jeremy Rifkin's book The End of Work.1 In that now classic work of 1995, Rifkin, the well-known economic and social theorist, predicted the end of work as we know it, as more and more jobs once performed by human beings in the agricultural, manufacturing, and even the service sector become automated and taken over by machines, robots, and computers. Rifkin suggested at the time that “massive unemployment of a kind never before experienced” would be “all but inevitable in the coming decades” (Rifkin 1995, 5) as we enter into “a new phase in world history,” “one in which fewer and fewer workers [would] be needed to produce the goods and services for the global population” (Rifkin 1995, xvi).A quarter of a century later, it might appear either that Rifkin's dire prognostications were woefully misguided, since unemployment in the United States before the unexpected coronavirus outbreak was well below 4%, despite the continuing automation of so many industries, or that those predictions of increasing unemployment or underemployment and greater and greater income inequality as a result of automation were in fact beginning to be realized before the pandemic and have actually been borne out in some rather stark and unexpected ways by the pandemic (even if, as of this writing, unemployment in the United States has once again fallen below 4%).2 For there is no doubt that the current pandemic will have demonstrated just how many of the basic needs of global populations can be satisfied, at least in many parts of the developed world, with only a fraction of the workforce fully employed, and it has led even more industries (from entertainment to education) to recognize that they can best survive by automating more and more of their services or by replacing full-time workers with low-paid or part-time workers. In this second scenario, the 2019–2022 pandemic will have simply highlighted or provided a final impetus to the movement of greater and greater globalization, job loss, and massive income inequality that Rifkin predicted would transform the way we think about the nature of work itself in the twenty-first century. Indeed, as we have all come to see firsthand over the past two years, almost nothing about what we call our “workaday world” has gone unchallenged by the current crisis, not the notion of world, for which the divisions have become at once less fixed due to the flexibility offered by telework and more strictly policed by nation-states responding to the pandemic, not the notion of the day, with the postwar, Monday through Friday, 9-to-5 workday being replaced by everything from part-time or irregular gig work to the 24/7 model of work that has blurred the boundary between leisure and work and transformed living spaces into workplaces, and not, therefore, the notion of work, which is undergoing dramatic transformation as a result of the current crisis and the more structural and systemic forces related to automation.Now, as a philosopher rather than an economist, I am woefully unqualified to enter into the economic debates concerning the accuracy of Rifkin's predictions. What I propose to do in what follows is to analyze instead the philosophical underpinnings, as well as the rhetoric and argumentative strategies, of Rifkin's work both their and through the of For up in some Rifkin's End of a of the title and which has only been in and in In that not the rather that Rifkin in The End of of the world economic crisis we not to our and to the way we What do is about what to be the rhetoric regarding the “end of work” that and Rifkin's and For in to the regarding the global crisis the Rifkin in the to work in what a and even the of an end of work that would to a of the human and a global What in this end of the is an rhetoric that work as or for our and the end of work as a final of those and the of a world the of Rifkin's rhetoric back to the of The of work is as or as for the and the end of work as from that what I to of Rifkin of work in that of in to how in with or of the or of so many of our beginning with I to and of Rifkin with a more of Rifkin's the of The End of of Rifkin at the of the rhetoric work and the end of For not in of Rifkin the Rifkin to both the and the of automation in the twenty-first century. we will of Rifkin's work at once Rifkin's and so to some from and even more fully to that as Rifkin of work and world into an that to become a global model for the I by Rifkin and in to just a about what is to the of work and to the discourses it as a result of automation of the current pandemic, which is to transform even both the way we work and the way we think about the up through in of work to a or a of the as to call of so many of the everything from and to human globalization, world, even as or that would appear to have to do or would even to and In and to the not only or by the worldwide at the time public and of and but the notion of work, the work the as the end of work, and so will for in an the of the as is and is our the of what is in globalization, in a in no refers to this to this to this is the that be what about is not that they or but that and off in the discourses is as and and in a structural between that there is a between globalization, in of to world the end of is that discourses or with discourses regarding the end of work and the beginning of a new world, that all back to a or is a that will both in this of and in out the rather and the end of work were at the beginning of the a that can only be in of the was in at the time For in that to this or into by two the of public of or the world the of of or for in the to 1990s, in everything from the and in work was to that just before in to public for the just a later, in that in the of the and the of the end of work, the most being that of Jeremy a work, is a unexpected in a even the of work itself is from and of were an of from and through of the of what as the of global is the worldwide crisis of unemployment or it is not would to the of work in the of a not at all what work has to do with the in the of the it is in the of the of the of or the of in a it is for or to be is only in the of the of work, beginning in the of the that all the and between the of of and the world, that the of of the of discourses regarding an end of work due to this globalization, the of a or world that is by this globalization, and the that the end of work as or as the final of in this and think to we into the between world, globalization, and is in the of the of this second of two the of the of that a of work, the nature of work, the of our of work, and the ways in which work to be the of the twenty-first century. will up the part of with the that of actually beginning with the is the at the of this will before Rifkin's The End of from at the of and the final of The of that will to both their and through the structural and between In will to a of work” one that as will in doubt not is with the of to the or of the of work and world, that appear to be that will and is only with to The of that the between and work fully more the end of In this of to when will have all the of the end of work, there were it that will be with Rifkin in the of it with and through a notion of as the of with the end of work, with that the end of work as the of the of the of the the of work the and the of work to that in the of as the book by Jeremy Rifkin The End of the that and Rifkin to is a to work as that of or that one to the of in a work, a notion of work that has in in from the of we in in a that will and that will and in The of the will in with will to is the of through will from it all the of the of will to the since from it were for and to will was in the of more or less an or a work, for both and the and and therefore, The end of work would a from everything with which work will have been since not only and but and The end of work would the final of and the of the world is the between the of and the of world and The end of the of the end of the book The of which in fact the world to the world with is a of of in a world through the and of a world that what it have a that will be in the end in the of the coming of the or the of will the as it of that and it will about not one at the end of the work but the that will have no as The of that have no greater than the of the of by be the which has no which as it is the from all which the day, and it For it is of the do no work in of at of to the end of work or as and and the coming of an a that has no is through this end of work that the a a world that has been by a world from a world work, a world at the end of the world therefore, as it, a of as the of world and as they their to the kind of of work” we see in as will to the of the of work be in with beginning in a as it of the of the with the for over through the notion of in this that for as well as work is as or is not, a part to “a or to a to a or for “a of human the that to of nature with the of and so to to become before we can to be from the of For of for a in the service of is is in with a a of the is as to work to would to in and both to all of their see of the of as well as work is related to and to to to being to to a end of the world, or to an end of one world and the beginning of we come to Jeremy been and about and to in the for by the time of the and Rifkin would to have been a the of The End of the one to be coming out just a before the beginning of the In an by and in that in the of the and that we have been of to of by a of of with Rifkin's out related to the new that is replacing a massive human by and a by Rifkin's book to and no doubt about what is to work as a but it to the that it the of and in the that and to Rifkin's regarding a that that of and the nineteenth that of and the the two that up in a sector the not and human work, not work was a that of and the two is no to the to work” see to the basic and of Rifkin's to regarding the of and the “end of work” with which Rifkin will in Rifkin echoes of the or rhetoric that will have highlighted in and will with Rifkin, that has this century to work, to the and to the of work, that has to do with and a the in the of work and of work in and in the as the of the to work, therefore, all the that we have is in the of the the the and the of that in the of a is the one and in their and which call for and no doubt new between the one the the would the the and rhetoric with which one in to end of work” and there is a we can is that the and rhetoric the of and can be discourses as will in the of the end of work in The of or in the at once and of the of the end of work in a is an or an of work in all discourses as the end of work, and the end of work as the end end of the world” Indeed, is about of Rifkin as a with a to the between and more a by the of The End of final and as it, and as a way of the way to to the of a Rifkin's a once in and Rifkin's in the of The End of to a that and just a before in a to philosophical and discourses which almost with between between of the as it up and from those is to that 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about our work, about the end of the work and so I think it is to I be just one of of my that the of the of work will become only more to our and economic in the to I would that has what be in to and economic and a new social well be a way of the of work, which will itself no doubt a of work was through the of the the and for and I the and for their and the when most of this work was

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