By Vuokko Jarva
The ‘end of work’ discussion (e.g., Adam Schaff, 1985; Jeremy Rifkin, 1995) has been concentrated on the narrow ‘paid job’ concept of work. Even futures researchers too often take this narrow concept as self-evident, so they follow job forecasts meticulously. Keeping people disposable is, however, a core value of the monetized profit economy. Automation has gotten rid of a lot of human workers and their jobs, but official statistics do not tell much about the total amount of work.